Wednesday, June 26
Despite electing to decline the breakfast at the Ibis hôtel I stayed at, I was more than happy to take a coffee to go from the machine à volonté. I also left all 45 kg of my luggage with the desk, I think the parking garage I used should be safe enough but having it at the hotel just provides that extra peace of mind. My sunscreen applied, my load lightened to just my day pack, I set off for the office of tourism.
The bright sunny view from the Ibis. I'm ready to take on Marseille
In the office, I received a map of the city. The only thing I had planned for the day was a visit to le Château d'If and maybe the museum of town history, in addition to the map, she informed me where to find the boat to to the island and the recommendation of visiting the old town (Le Panier) and Notre Dame de la Garde. I also asked about cuisine, to which she recommended les panisses, la bouillabaisse, et les chichis. A quick stop by a bakery for a sandwich, a chausson aux pommes, and another coffee and then I was in line for a ticket to Chateau d'If.
I'm not sure what this water sculpture was supposed to be but it was good entertainment while eating pastry and slurping espresso.
I managed to score a ticket on the 11:40 boat; so with about an hour to kill, I made my way to the museum of Marseille's history. I'd seen online that it was a free museum so I figured it'd be a tiny little thing to knock out quickly; boy, was I wrong. The museum was massive and had a ton of exhibits starting from when a few Greeks set up a harbor called Massalia. I left the museum but resolved to come back later; then I boarded the
boat.
It took me a bit to realize that the reason for the museum's bizarre entrance garden was that it was actually an archeological dig site that had revealed the original limit of the harbor.
Alright, let's start from the beginning or as close to the beginning as we can. The major players at this point: the Greeks, the Etruscans, bands of Celts, and the Phoenicians.
Interestingly, the Greeks only used the north face of the harbor when they founded Massalia. Trading basic goods and pottery at the time proved lucrative for the town and the town produced a famous sailor called Pythéas (but he can't be that famous since I've never heard of him).
The ride out to Chateau d'If was about 15 minutes, it got a
little warm inside the ferry but mostly from the sunlight. Once on the
island, I quickly made my way to the ticket gate and began my visit. I found the museum in the prison quite interesting; the cells of Edmund Dantes and l'Abbé Faria were used as rooms about prisoner graffiti, the background of Alexandre Dumas, and how the legend of Chateau d'If overshadows its actual history. Overall, I highly recommend the place to any who visit Marseille.
I doubt the weather was this nice when Edmund Dantés was taken to the Chateau D'If. And check out that cool tower in the fort.
Hanging out on the inside of the boat because there's no space outside and making it look so good.
Arrival at the island was interesting: there's not really a dock to tie-up snugly at so the crew ran a few lines to some cleats and the boat's throttle held enough tension in the lines to keep the gap crossable. Lot's of people got off for the Chateau d'If but even more people were heading on to the ferry's next stop.
I found this sign near the bathrooms: apparently the seagulls are quite protective of their juveniles.
Let's hope I can leave the chateau later without needing to be bound, weighted, and sown into a sack.
Turns out the interior of the chateau isn't all that big: just a small courtyard with a well and a stairwell.
Inside the Abbé Faria's cell and his piteous basement cell; I'm not sure what the CCTV is for but it probably wouldn't have helped his escape.
One of the actual real things from the island's history was the creation of graffiti on the stone blocks around the chateau. Initially it was just prisoners but eventually stationed soldiers also left their mark on the place.
And here's the replica of our hero's jail cell. Just next to this cell was a big exhibit about the life and work of Alexandre Dumas. Some interesting tidbits:
- Alexandre Dumas' grandfather had 4 children with one of his slaves (Marie-Cessette, nicknamed Dumas), sold them all off to pay for his ticket back to France from Santo Domingo, repurchased one of his sons (Thomas Dumas)
- Thomas Dumas rose to the rank of general in Napoleon I's army
- The author drew from real life stories and places he encountered in his travels to fuel and ground his stories. For example, there really was a young man in Nîmes who was unjustly reported by a rival suitor and imprisoned for 7 years; in prison, the man befriended a Milanese priest who died in prison and named his young friend as heir to the family fortunes.
An escape swim from the island would make for an interesting open water course but the distance to land doesn't seem particularly fun.
Not originally designed as cells but as housing for soldiers, these rooms weren't *all* that bad; I don't know if the fire place is functional but they're fairly spacious. One room was once dedicated to holding the remains of Jean-Baptiste Kléber, one of Napoleon I's generals and friend to the author's father.
Up on the 2nd level of cells, the museum exhibits continued. One room spoke about the history of the fortress: how it was originally meant to be a fort to secure the mouth of Marseille, how it's construction was poor and inefficient (it kept getting attacked by pirates too), how the people of Marseille were wary of the fortress' solidification of the crown's power over the town, and finally how it was used as a political prison.
There were a few sections of the castle dedicated to art installations like these. They were pretty nifty with the lights constantly changing.
Oof, that's rough, buddy.
The rest of the island was pretty sparse but I enjoyed getting the bird's eye view of the birds.
Seagulls weren't the only dangerous wildlife to have lived on the island: while in transit as a gift to (I think) the pope, a captured rhino was left to graze on the island for a period of time. King Francois I even came to see the creature.
The view from atop the chateau was great and there was enough wind that it was very pleasant to be up there. The chateau's location for securing the area was very good since I could see for miles along the coast and as well as ships mingling in the Farieul achipelago. As far as having the power to secure the area, the chateau's construction made it difficult to target ships with cannon fire due to awkwardly elevations and angles until just towards the end of the castle's time in that function.
From here I could also make out the start of the Calanques National Park with its large rock formations.
After admiring the view from above, it was also good to descend to the base of the isle and enjoy lunch. Rather, I went as close as I could to the lighthouse without invoking a seagull attack.
Turns out there was a very tiny garden stashed on the island. If you have trouble finding it, just look for the trail of fallen figs.
The ferry made a stop at the Farieul archipelago before returning to Marseille. These islands also featured makeshift prison camps for political prisoners and protestors in addition to serving as ship quarantine areas, but they aren't as famous since nobody wrote a smash-hit novel about them.
One last look at the Chateau d'If as the ferry headed back to Marseille. I forgot to mention that in the exhibit about Dumas, it mentioned how the island became a tourist destination seemingly overnight with the popularity of Dumas' novel. He even made the trip out to the island once and found it entertaining to discover the concierge was showing tourists the cell of Edmund Dantes with a hole connecting it to that of Faria. Not only that, but another famous prisoner in Dumas' literature, the Man in the Iron Mask, was also attributed a cell in the castle despite never having been here. It's incredible what a good story can do, isn't it?
Chicago may have a bean but Marseille has the L'Ombrière
Back on land, I made a beeline to the museum again and resolved to get past 300 BC and learn about how the Greek city of Masalia became Marseille. I liked how each room's era included maps of the region & the city. It was neat to the see the trade map evolve with time: what started as trading olive oil, cereal, and fish became a worldwide shipping port for everything known to man. It was also interesting to see that Marseille's reputation of being an unruly French city dates back well to before WWII. Learning about the city's development and evolution made me think I need to brush up on my world history; there were a lot of moving borders & alliances over the thousands of years... I highly recommend this museum to anyone who visits Marseille.
Each section of the museum contained several maps. Some simply illustrated political regions and conflicts while others showed trade routes; though I suppose, in a way the two types of maps tell the same story.
Being an ancient port city, the museum had quite a few remains of ships, anchors, and amphoras. I find it interesting that amphoras were used to ship just about everything in the ancient Greek times and the demand for shipping containers led to a robust ceramics business in Masalia.
There was a decent chunk of the museum dedicated to burial rites and how they adapted to changing times and religions. I'd never heard of holy oil before but apparently it comes from filtering olive oil through a saintly corpse's coffin, be sure to collect it at the outlet for massive profit!
Ah, who could forget the crusades. Actually, I could. If I learned about them in high school history, I've forgotten all aside from some crusadin' occurred sometime between Rome and the medieval ages.
As a city, Marseille broke up into 3-4 villes based on different authorities of rule: secular vs church. On top of trade via the port, the city also needed some ability to process traded materials and sustain a growing community.
The miniatures representing the various layouts of the city throughout the ages were also appreciated clearly demonstrating how the city grew over past few thousand years.
I kinda wish they had a display showing how the movement of trade goods evolved over time as this would reflect the leaps and bounds made in human technology. I don't think the soap display showed up in the museum till the 19th century, but Marseille developed a reputation for itself by harnessing technologies and processes found abroad and combining them with the raw/intermediate materials constantly arriving via the port; one major success being soap.
Tools used for sterilizing paper documents like ship manifests. Remember those Farieul islands I saw earlier and how I mentioned ship quarantines there? Turns out Marseille became ground zero for the plague of 1720, killing nearly 30,000 people, as a result of the Grand Saint-Antoine being let out of quarantine early from the Farieuls ("we have goods to be sold at the fair in Beaucaire and will be irreparably financially harmed if we miss it").
The Sun King, Louis XIV, completely changed Marseille by building out the city along the southern part of the port and adding two new forts to secure the harbor. In addition, a basin and a large fleet of galleys (like this model!) were commissioned.
A photo of Marseille's port (described as a forest of masts) before the city began to modernize and industrialize. As industrial ports were opened further along the north of the city, we were left with the cute little harbor of today.
It hadn't escaped my attention before that the national anthem of France is titled La Marseillaise. For some reason, I had thought this must've meant Marseille was once the capital of France for a time; mais non. Anyhow, to arms, citizens!
And looking at this map of France's colonial holdings through WWI, it's clear that Marseille remained a dominant port for the country. I think ports in the SW of France probably did a good amount of business with the colonies too, but this is the museum of Marseille so...
Once done with the museum around 17h, I made a quick delve into the Panier, what was once the site of the ancient Greek city. I liked several of the cute streets but I didn't think it was all that different from the walled city sections I'd seen in Nîmes or Arles; though there did seem to be a bit more verticality. The Panier spat me out at the foot of the Cathedral, an impressively big building with a nice pattern going on with its stone colors. Inside, I found the mosaic floor and horizontal organ(?) pipes to be of the most interest.
The Panier wound its way up a hill via pedestrian streets and old stone buildings.
At the top of the hill is where windmills used to be located; now instead of milling flour, people can mill about.
A mix of very old rampart remnants as well as a sprinkling of more free museums had me realize that maybe there's a bit more to this section of town than just a quick trek would do justice.
I was certainly appreciative of the frequency I found water fountains; out on the water I had found the temperature great with the breeze but I found myself getting hot from walking around the neighborhood.
There's no shortage of interesting decoration in the area, can variety of themes be a theme?
It takes some serious balls of steel to play this game.
The color scheme for the cathedral's exterior was interesting, to my eye this was accomplished by alternating stone. Pretty neat.
The inside was also impressive: tall ceilings, intricate tile work from bottom to top, and organ(?) pipes?
From the cathedral, I made a quick walk by Fort Saint Jean. The tall round tower of the fort looked like an old design when I'd passed by it on the ferry but it turns out it wasn't Greek: the entire fort was built at the behest of Louis XIV to fortify the city and reinforce French control over the city.
This fort is now a grand museum about civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean.
Finishing up my walk around the Panier with a great view of the harbor again. I think I was a little tired at this point because the woman who took my picture had initially approached me asking me to take a picture. "Together?" 🤦♂️
Does Marseille have a rugby team in the Top 14 league or are they just hosting an event?
I took a bus ride from the harbor up to the Basilica as my last item of the day. Turns out the buses can accept a contactless payment directly and are very well air conditioned, easily the best €1,75 I've spent today. The basilica was already closed for the day but I managed to get a view over the city. There was a weird dynamic around the basilica's gates: security was trying to close everything down because the basilica was closed, but the restaurant at the foot of the basilica would be open for another 4 hours; so you had some gates open, some closed, and just general confusion of the non-locals approaching the area.
The basilica staff were pretty serious in shutting the place down, the drawbridge was even pulled up 😂
There goes another ferry to Corsica. The industrial port basins of Marseille extend really far along the shore!
From atop Marseille the size of the city starts to become clear; it spreads out quite a ways.
I walked downhill from the basilica to the hotel to recollect my bags. It was a much easier job to roll them downhill on the paved sidewalks than the Avignon's cobblestone yesterday. I may have overestimated my comfort with driving stick: there was a decent amount of uphill driving in pedestrian heavy areas to be down to leave the city so I was holding my breath quite a few times trying not to stall. But I did eventually make it out and to my hotel for the night in La Ciotat.
I spotted a parakeet singing its heart out on my walk to my luggage.
La Ciotat is a cozy little town on the water. Sandwiched between larger vacation destinations, I feel like its carved out its tiny little niche. The town's waterfront is mostly dominated by harbors; I walked along the harbor and through the downtown section before getting a sunset dinner and enjoying the evening ambiance.
I didn't see too much of a sandy beach for people to bathe at but there were small boat craft galore and even a few kayakers around the harbor.
I managed to find some panisse fries (basically chickpea dough fried as sticks) and another bouillabaise (though this one was called marmite).
It wasn't dinner and a show, but after dinner I followed my ears and found what appeared to be a local dance troupe doing rehearsal. Don't ask what all the people with bags were coming back from, your guess is as good as mine.
La Ciotat was a pleasant stroll in the evening as things cooled off. For a small town, there were a surprising amount of people out in the evening though it being the start of the touristic season, maybe that's not so much of a surprise. Per the pamphlet I found in the hotel, La Ciotat has a population of around 33,000 people (maybe not so small afterall), was founded as a Phoc'een colony in the 4th century, was a robust ship building city throughout history, and claims to have the oldest movie theater in the world.
Overall, I really enjoyed my day in the historic section of Marseille
and wouldn't mind making a visit again to follow up on some of the other
museums the place has. Perhaps Marseille has earned its reputation in
France but there's also a reason it's grown so much.
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