Two Days in Marseille
While most of our trip was not planned when we departed, we at least had a list of the places we were trying to go. Marseille, however, was a surprise. We knew we had to be in Barcelona by June 7 to meet our friends for Primavera Sound Festival. And we knew we had to leave Turkey. But where to go? We researched flights endlessly, struggling to find an obvious destination. Then we saw the flights to Marseille. We knew it was in the south of France, but not like its more luxurious neighbors Nice and Cannes. We knew it was the second largest city in France, but vastly different from Paris with more diversity, beaches, and African influence. We decided, why not! So Marseille was our first “surprise destination” of the trip.
As soon as we got outside of the airport the heat hit us like a wall. It was toasty! I love hot weather so I was stoked for summer and a potential beach day. We headed to our AirBnb in the Panier neighborhood, a colorful and artsy neighborhood of sidewalk cafes and street art. It already felt way different than Paris. We got checked in and settled and set out to get to know our neighborhood for the weekend. We hit a grocery store for some basics and were excited to stock up on leige waffles and charcuterie. Who knew we would miss baguettes? We had an apertif at the little plaza bar 13 Coins around our corner, then had dinner and a bottle of wine at Le Comptoir aux huiles. After weeks and weeks of kebabs/soulvaki having tartare and duck breast was a nice change!
On Saturday we headed off for a beach day, taking a bus about 30 minutes to one of the many beaches south of the city, Prado Beach. The bus quickly filled up as everyone had the same idea. We posted it in the coarse sand and listened to people speaking all kinds of languages, watched teenagers jump off the boardwalk, and caught up on our books. It was a relaxing day and the water is finally getting warm enough to comfortably swim. After a packed bus ride back to the city, we showered and hit a nearby African restaurant for dinner. There are many different African cuisines in Marseille, and we went with Congolese for our first try. For an after-dinner treat we popped to a tapas bar and tried Pastis, which was basically the Ouzo and Raki I liked in Greece and Turkey.
On Sunday morning, we packed up for the beach once again, but as we started walking we were passing these really cute shops and thought, maybe we should just explore today! So we did :) We picked up some souvenirs and then headed to the Palace Longchamp which had beautiful fountains and a free museum inside. The air conditioning was the best part, but the art was great, too. A quick metro ride and we were close to some African restaurants Marcus had bookmarked so we had Senegalese food for lunch and it was amazing. Marcus ordered a Baobab juice and it was so tasty, like a horchata.
After all of that walking, we were wiped out. It was a quick but fun weekend in Marseille! It was a really vibrant place with so many kinds of food, amazing street art everywhere, and proximity to some great nature. We were pretty pleased with our surprise destination.
