Marseille (Part 1)

I'm at the Marseille train station waiting for my train back to the Paris airport. This trip felt like it went on forever because of all the intensely packed days. I had two days of one conference, four days of another conference, and then two full days of chilling in Marseille.

Overall, I think Marseille is pretty nice. The Old Port area is really pretty with all the boats and nice view out to the Mediterranean. There are also all sorts of art pieces around since there was a cultural festival here earlier this year. But outside of the touristy parts, I thought the city was very quiet and not that clean. This is probably because I've living in HK for too long. The public transportation comes every 10 minutes and stops running at around 9pm. I got a 72 hour pass so I used a good share of it.

The BB Hotel I stayed at was not bad. It has all the standard stuff. Except I really wish I looked into hotels near the port more because that's where all the stuff is. It was kind of a pain to always be waiting for the bus. It was walkable to the port but the walk wasn't particularly nice and I wouldn't do it at night. This is a problem because most places don't serve dinner until 7 or 7:30pm and since the bus stops running at 9, dinner could be a problem. The first day I ended up having to take a really round about way to get back. Definitely used the pass enough times that day.

I arrived Saturday night from Paris and started exploring on Sunday. I didn't manage to get out of the hotel until nearly 11am and decided that the easiest way to get to the port was by metro. I had to make one transfer (there are only 2 lines). This is where I found out that the trains come only once every 10 minutes or so. It took me nearly half an hour to get to the port even though it wasn't far at all. The port was bustling with tourists. I walked around all the restaurants before deciding on a small place near one end. I had a fish filet that wasn't that great bit maybe that's because we've been having some really good food in Paris (more on that later).

I went up to the Notre Dame church which was on top of a hill. The view was really nice but it was windy and hot. I think I got a bit dehydrated here and went back down after exploring.

Some pictures from this first day: