Marseille & Aix en Provence Photo Stroll

The morning we docked in Toulon, France was a beautiful morning. We were up early enough to see the sunrise.

To read all about our adventures in Marseille and Aix en Provence, check this out.

Marseille was an interesting city. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Chateau d'If was there. I hadn't encountered that in any of my research...weird.  I'm a fan of the book Count of Monte Cristo, so seeing the "prison" written about in the book was a nice little surprise.

The main attraction in Marseille for me was the Notre Dame de la Garde.  This beautiful cathedral topped my list of cathedrals that are a must to see.

The basilica, or some type of church, has been on this spot high above the city for centuries. The original church was built there in 1214.

The basilica was 176 steps up from where our bus parked. It was exhausting to climb the steps, but it was SOOO worth it.

View from the bus as it was winding up the road to the basilica.

View from the top of the steps.

The basilica is built in the Neo-Byzantine style - basically taking it's style and architecture from Russia and German cathedrals built during that same time frame.

The inside of this basilica was breathtaking. Gold mosaic covered the entire inside. It was almost overwhelming and I was a little awe-struck.

Entering into the basilica, you're greeted with this view.

One section of the ceiling.

A close up of the center of the ceiling. All gold mosaic and very impressive.

The stained glass was intricate and detailed. With the sun shining in the windows were just magnificent.

Leaving the basilica we drove through parts of Marseille. Nothing overly interesting really in the rest of the city.

Then we were off to Aix en Provence.  In my research I had pictured this as a little quaint village. Turned out I was wrong. While there was an element of quaint to the area of town we visited, there's a major university in town that made it a much bigger place then I imagined.

My main photography focus in Aix en Provence was Cours Mirabeau.  The photos I had seen showed a tree canopy covered street that was just beautiful.

Here's an example of what I had seen.

Photo courtesy of Viaggia Facile

Beautiful, right?

This is what I saw once we got to the street.

Not exactly the same. They had cut back all the Sycamore (I think they are Sycamore) trees. The dead appearance of the gnarled, finger like branches wasn't exactly the shot I was looking for. Still, it does really make a memory.  It made for some haunting photos.

This was one of my favorite photos.  As we were rounding the corner I saw this street sign. I snapped the photo to just remind me what the street name was and it turned out way better than I planned.

As is the case in any town we stopped in, there was a cathedral. I got no information on this cathedral because our tour guide wasn't great and had already explained this to everyone by the time our group caught up with the rest of the group.

We left the group at this point and went off on our own. We didn't have a map at first but Brother M found one for us.  As we walked down the street from the cathedral we found a little open air market.

At one point we were distracted by a truck trying to make a REALLY tight turn.  While the shop keeper was directing the truck, I turned to see what he was selling and saw these meringues. They were enormous. I wish I would have put my hand next them to show just how big. That black sign was about the size of an 8 in dinner plate.

Food appeared to be my focus for the rest of the walk.  I saw this little snack bar place that had stacked pizzas and was essentially selling slices. You select the pizza you want, they put it in a grill like thing to warm it up.

Do I really need to say anything about this? I mean French and pastry should always be used in the same sentence.

We eventually found someplace for lunch. Well, Mom found it. She was hungry, we couldn't make a decision, so she just went into this restaurant. It was a crepe type of place. I wasn't really interested in a crepe - I was on the hunt for a ham and cheese sandwich on a French baguette. We didn't find it until after lunch and AFTER I had my gelato in hand.


Mom got a burger I thought was interesting. The bun appeared to be more of a pancake than a bun. She said it was one of the best burgers she ever had.

We eventually left Mom, Jack, and Suzi since mom was on the Great Battery Search - for her fitbit. Mike, Bev and I took another lap of the shopping area.  We had passed this gelato store once, and it called to us. Weird.

I hated it, can't you tell.

The photos of Marseille.


The photos of Aix en Provence.