Mountains beyond Mountains

Fort St Nicholas

Cat Dog

French fries in France, oh yes

Bonjour.


Well there is about the extent of my French. Marseille, what can I say, AWESOME! Really really. I heard before I came that the city itself wasn't much to look at, but as we drove in to the city I was like a child in a candy store. I thought this picture adequately portrays my facial expression:

We had a bit of drama getting ourselves ther actually, by being really super on to it and missing our flight. Boy was that a tense train ride home haha. Of course I sat there sulking for a good twenty minutes, I even had a stressed out cry, I was so disappointed. But then we booked a new flight for the next morning,which kinda blew the budget, and so I turned my frown upside down and got over it with a beer or two. Next drama, we get there and it's time to pick up he rental car - yea we splashed out so we could cover more ground - and Sams card is declining. Oh dear, try mine, there's tons on there. Decline. Brb. Internet, check. Bank website, check. Money in there, check. Transfer to Sam, we think we're away laughing. Hah huh harr? Decline. Internet, bank, call em up, ohhnnn I actually have no money, it just hasn't cleared fully, it only looks like you have money. KTHANXBAI. Frigit. Todd came to our rescue and borrowed us some dosh, and third time lucky at the rental place and we really are away laughing. THANKS TODD. Lifesaver. Or tripsaver rather. But yeah, we have a new mini and Sam's all giddy cos it's a 6 speed blah blah and all I'm thinking is oh god please don't crash into thatorthatorthatorthemorthat. We only drove on the wrong side of the road one time hahaha. So here ensues the me with googly eyes out the window, trying to direct us through this maze of narrow streets with a dying gps and no real map. Hah. It was lucky we got a mini cos geeez the streets are slim! Seriously, there was about 3cm on either side of the car if you turned off any main road, and they park anywhere and everywhere. It's almost like Hanoi but with cars.

The buildings are all so wow and old and terraced and pretty but dirty but beautiful at the same time, it just looks so...something...ummm...good. And many more describing words of the good nature. It looks good, and I'm glad we spent the extra coming here a day late. The first place we went to see was the >Cathédrale de la Major< which is pretty cool. Kinda crazy on the eyes with all the stripes, and they were doing a whole bunch of construction stuff right in front of it, but it was a pretty wicked first stop. 


Then we had a hell of a time trying to make it back to the A50 - the main highway to a little fishing town called Cassis, where we were staying. At one point we were sure the 'road' we were on was actually a footpath, there were people everywhere, no one was moving, nor did they seem to care we were about 4cm from them, and then we were in a bus lane, and doing a loop into a tunnel (woops where's this go?), ending up back at the Cathedral, then slowly finding our way to it before my cell died and took away our only map. I managed to get us right to the hotel, the Best Western Hotel La Rade. Go Me.
We settled in with the most awkward sets of bonjours and mercis, and headed out for some FOOD! YUSS! This little town is so cute, a wee harbour surrounded by bar after bar and many a restaurant. We didn't quite realise how little english would be around (yes that sounds pig-headed, but it's true) and kiiiinda just picked the first place where someone came out to say hello. It was a lot warmer there than it is in London, so we sat outside, fountain across the road, harbour and boats just past that, it was good times indeed. I ordered something I thought was only going to be fish, but turned out I got a large bowl of mussels too. I don't eat mussels. Guess now is the time to start...They were good, the rest of the food was good, Sam had a seafood pizza which was also tasty, but I couldn't quite get passed the semi-warm-seawatery smell the empty bowl the mussels came in gave off. I just dunno about them. 


In the morning we were trying to be really onto it and get up early, so I set the rooms alarm clock to 8.30am. Marseille is 1 hour ahead of London btw, so really the brain was thinking it was 7.30am. The alarm clock goes off, and I forgot just how irritating that bleeeep bleeep bleeeep sound is. Anyway, I woke up in a weird semi fright/dream state, saying, 'it's ok it's ok it's just the alarm clock' in a tone like I'd just defused a bomb or something. It reminded me of Claire in Laos hahaha. 
We went off in the mini to find the Calanques that are around Cassis. Sam actually asked the receptionist at the hotel how to say this word, as we were saying something like 'Ka-lanks' and it turns out we weren't far off, you say it like 'Ka-lonx'. If that makes sense.  They are >THESE< things, and look pretty awesome with the crazy Mediterranean going all out and dark surly clouds getting in the way of the sun just behind them. After walking around the edge of the 1st one (there's 3 main ones to see near Cassis, walking it is about 8 hours to get down into the third)  we got going to find this road called La Route des Crêtes - Crest Road - to drive down to a place called La Ciotat. What an AMAZING FRIGGIN COUNTRYSIDE. Seriously, it was so pretty, yes NZ is awesome, but this is so different. Scotland, Wales and England all look like NZ, and where we went in South East Asia was pretty much the same, green hills etc. But this is like rocky pale mountain things as far as you can see, and random jutting sharp bits here and there. Mountains beyond mountain with more mountains behind that. WOW. If I was in Scotland I'd wanna bag them munro's. Aye Guy. 


Skip to La Ciotat, we find a market, go for a stroll, I eat french fries (HAH, in FRANCE) and some super delicious lamb and steal some of Sams yum fish dish. Back along the high road and past Cassis and into Marseille. I'm keen to find the skatepark from THPS2, but no matter what I google I'm not getting and address, so I guess it just isn't meant to be. I would have been a laugh to stand on the real thing, considering the amount of time I spent on the fake thing. We go up to >Notre-Dame de la Garde< and have a view of the entire city, all directions. Then down to the waterfront for a walk and a coke, and so Sam can dip his feet in. We get lost, or rather misplaced (can you be that while driving?) on the way to the Chapelle Notre-Dame de vie, or Le Rocher (the rock) which is an old chapel dating from 1686 or something old old. then we go to the airport and discover there is a 3.5hr delay, aaaaaaand how annoying. This last paragraph is probably the short way it should all be written, it was getting far too long winded for 2 days of activity. 


To sum up, France, or the region of Provence in the southeast of France, is great. I will definitely go back there, many a time. Oh so pretty.