Mini train and old, old city

There were a couple of self walking tours noted on our map. Did the first one through old town. Fascinating. Plaques along the way to read. Cute, little streets. Although, they don’t seem to clean them at all. We found the Italian ones a lot cleaner. There was one very old street (Rue Grand). Dated as around 600 BC (Marseille is France’s oldest city) with a very old cool looking building that had been literally turned to match the new layout of the street when it was changed. Hard to imagine a building being turned.



Found a little tourist train that actually runs on the road, rather than rails. Looked at these tourist trains elsewhere, but every time we had already seen what they took you to. This time we hadn’t. The train took you up to the Big Basilica very high up on the hill (Notre Dame le Garde). Not really walkable to... and we wouldn’t have had time in our one Marseille day to go there otherwise, so the 7 euros each to do this tour was well worth it. Heard some interesting information about Marseille itself. Took us along the waterfront, told us about the islands (one with a castle on it that was the inspiration for the Count of Monte Cristo story), through some of the more expensive areas. We got off at the basilica, went inside and had a look around outside in our own time and caught another train for the return part of the journey when we felt like it.

Did the other walk from the map. This one was not as interesting. Felt like we didn’t quite understand why it took us through some of the streets that it did. Had a look through the mall. Quite little, boring mall, actually... but we bought some yummy breads (one cheese and one bacon... mmm) and a donut for Andy. Like a jam donut but filled with caramel instead. Was quite good (I had a bite too).

Back to hotel for a bit and then out for dinner. Found a nice restaurant just at the port looking over the yachts and beautiful sunset (amazing colour that Andy said he’d never seen in the sky before). Andy got an apparently famous French dish of Steak and fries, with a special sauce that’s supposed to have a mix of stuff including some chicken liver (it was buttery and yummy). I had skewers of very fresh prawns with orange sauce. Very good!