Marseille: beaches, hiking, and couches

So when I blogged about Nice, I forgot to mention the every random and fun evening we had with Maxim, from the Ukraine.  We met him in the water during our last swim and then shared the last of our wine with him.  He repaid us by taking us out to dinner at a lovely outdoor cafe -- salads and white wine.  Perfect after a day on the beach!

After we said goodnight to Maxim, we went home to change out of our still-wet suits and then stopped into another bar for a bit.  Fantastic night after a fantastic day in Nice.

So, after the epic stressful adventure to get from Chamonix to Nice, our wee little ride from Nice to Marseille was so easy it was like it never even happened.  Rode along the Mediterranean coast for a while, so doubtless had the prettiest train ride thus far.

Once again, our walk from the train station to our hostel in Marseille, Vertigo Vieux Port, was (much) longer than we thought it had any right to be, but never were we actually lost.  And Vertigo was the shizz.  After Baccarat, it was quite literally amazing, with its clean quiet rooms, helpful friendly staff, bright kitchen, and accessible wireless.  Our four-bed room did not even have bunk beds!  We instantly loved it, and even decided to stay an extra night.

After checking in, we asked the desk staff about a beach nearby, because there wasn't one on the map within reasonable walking distance.  But she showed us the way to a small city beach maybe 20 minutes away.  We picked up a quick meal-on-the-go on the way and soon once again found ourselves stretched out, gazing at the Mediterranean Sea.  In the distance we could see the infamous Chateau d'If!

The water here was much too cold to swim for some reason unfortunately, but as always on a French beach there is no shortage of people-watching.  We just hung out and chatted and eventually decided to stay and watch the sun set.  Utterly beautiful.

My sister was not taking the sunset seriously.  At all.

Dinner that night was at a nice place right on the port.  We shared a salmon burger and mussels mariniere, which was something I'd wanted to get since first getting to France!

See how the supersalty Mediterranean did wonders to heal my forehead?

The next day turned out to be one of my favorites so far.  We took a ferry ride out to the Chateau d'If and the Frioul Islands.  The weather was perfect, if a little (a whole lot) windy!

Pretty Marseille

Chateau d'If.  We looked for ghosts.

The Chateau is a lot smaller than I was given to believe from its literary/movie depictions.  We weren't able to go below ground at all though.  All the truly scary-looking cells are likely not for our casual tourist eyes.

After the Chateau, we got back on the ferry for the short ride over to the two main Frioul Islands.  I didn't know the first thing about these islands but our hostel person recommended giving them a visit.  The two islands are connected by a man-made strait thingy.  We wandered down from the port and at random decided to go towards the southern island, Pomègues.

These islands were so much fun to explore.  They are all almost completely desert -- white limestone in various degrees of cliffs and loose gravel.  The main path is set high above the water, but there are dozens of thin tracks leading down to sheltered little coves and even a couple beaches.  Utterly breathtaking, and so much fun!

About to do a quite unexpected hike in a sundress and Sperry's

They could have filmed Jesus Christ Superstar here.

Chameleon (bright pink bag notwithstanding)

Picture-perfect pirate cove!!

As we got to the far end of the island, we came on this random reconstructed fortress.

YOU CANNOT PASS!

A little further on, we started seeing all these awesome ruins and remnants left over from World War II.  It was very eerie coming up unexpectedly on these random ruins and just be able to pick our way through completely unhindered.  There are probably some ghosts out here too.

Caveaux Battery Ruins.  Utterly creepy.  Loved it

The walk back to port didn't take as long as we thought it would, and we decided to get dinner at one of the restaurants on the island before catching the ferry home.  Sadly this was a terrible choice.  Our food was not the greatest.  I ordered fried calamari and it looked (and tasted) like it had sat frozen in a bag for three months.  (It kind of upset my stomach all the next day, too.)  But oh well.  One thing about France, if nothing else I could always count on the company being excellent.

The next day was our extra day in Marseille.  We went out to buy our train tickets for the next leg of our journey, had a crummy lunch at a hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop, made a halfhearted attempt to find a church, got lost, and decided that what we really wanted to do was absolutely nothing.  We went back to the hostel and just hung out on the couch in the common area for the rest of the afternoon and evening, eating our snacks we'd picked up at the market, reading and catching up on computer stuff.  It was nice to have a day off, honestly, and we did need to make it an early night because we were going to have to get up at 6:00 in the morning to catch our train to Bordeaux...