I love Marseille. But I'm not so sure why exactly I do so. It is smelly. It is noisy. I can't always understand the accent of the Marseillais, but there is something about the Ville, that I really love. It is vibrant and passionate. It is the biggest town in Algeria so I have been told. It is everything that Paris is not. It is a poor city by and large; at least that is my feeling when I have been there and because I do not know it intimately I may very well be wrong. But there are a great many beggars and some of those could be straight off the streets of Indian cities and North African towns. Arabic music wafts from small shops in the side streets where more than 30 years ago I witnessed my first knife fight in a street amongst these, between two women. Apart from the screams and the shouts of those involved all I remember is sitting in a rough restaurant and having my first menu du jour. I had no idea what I was ordering, or in what order.
(the photo above shows an outdoor art installation on the walls of the old fort in Vieux Port)
As summer ended, up here, I found I needed to dip my toes, to plunge deep into the Med and swim in warm water, and feel that I had not missed having a beach under my feet for yet another year. And when that need was satisfied, have a pastis de Marseille...
...while deciding what type of seafood to eat and where to eat it...
A pot of rosé wine, a first course of aioli, followed by salade des poulpes, a dessert of fresh fruit salad and a strong coffee for €11 + and then the patron wanders over and offers small glasses from an unlabelled bottle of an aniseed flavoured digestif.
The afternoon was spent wandering about the town taking photos of buildings, and boats in the old harbour while looking for somewhere to eat that evening.
Two sides to Marseille architecture...
In the Cours H. d'Estienne d'Orves (now with a name like that it is worth having a square named after you...) I found the Maison de l'Artisanat et des Métiers which housed a travelling exhibition of patchwork... Hmmm not usually my cuppa tea but a quick glance inside and the mention of the words, "entrée libre" got me inside where I was confronted by a collection of modern and traditional style patchwork, mostly on a visit from the American state and former French territory of Louisiana. Most of the work was simply beautiful. Fabulous fabrics, worked delicately and boldly. A real knock out.
One side was this.... a small group of poppies and a single poppy; so turn it over, or go around the other side of the display and ...
see a field of them...
Maples? Simply beautiful. I'll stick some others on Flickr.
A weekend by train through southern France, and filled with sand, sea, tremendous limestone cliffs, fish on plates, Arabic music and sweets at the end of a Ramadan day, pastis, climbing up to Cathedrals, packed street markets, graffiti covered walls and the steady siren scream of les flics - Plus Belle la Vie
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