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Published: June 28th 2010
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panier
towering over panier festival I got up after having a nice night of sleep in a bunk bed that I could tell was for her daughter. My bed was littered with stuffed animals and the room was full of coloring books but it got the job done. Dominique prepared me a simple and standard French breakfast of toast and espresso. It was pretty difficult trying to talk to her over breakfast because of the language barrier. We each sat there with our own English-French dictionary and used those to speak to each other in very short and broken sentences. Interesting experience. After breakfast we headed down to the port (Vieux Port) to meet up with her new guest, another CouchSurfer from Chile who would be staying the next couple of nights. I was looking forward to having someone I could converse with a little better. Met our new buddy Gonzalo easily and headed back to the apartment to get acquainted. This guy is a CS extraordinaire having hosted over a hundred people at his home in La Serana, Chile. He had some pretty cool stories for all his experiences hosting people which I enjoyed. The CS get-together continued in the afternoon as they had organized
fountain
having fun on the marseilles walking tour a tour of the city for all non-locals so Gonzalo and I as well as a group of about ten or so others spent the afternoon on a tour guided by a woman who had lived in Marseilles her whole life. She showed us this pretty amazing church on top of this hill overlooking the entire city and the bay the city sits on as well. Beautiful sightlines but it was hard to stay up there long with all the wind. The gusts were incredibly strong and nearly knocked us over. I even enjoyed the inside of this church which is pretty rare. It is a church traditionally used by the seaman of the area and anytime they feel like God as saved them or acted favorably towards them they bring some sort of offering to the church which is then used as a decoration within. The place is just full of ores and anchors and other things people brought as an offering. From there we began our descent back down to town and walked around the port before heading back. The night went pretty much the same as the night before. Everyone congregated by the same church and had
port
port some wine and appetizers before heading back into the heart of the Panier district for another night of music and partying. Saw some cool bands and once again had some international food and drink as we roamed the streets and danced around having a good time. Marseilles has definitely been a pleasant surprise though I can’t say how it would be on a weekend without a festival such as this one. Still it is a nice alternative from Nice, Cannes and the rest of the Riviera. It’s quite a departure from France in general and I really enjoyed the experience. Marseilles and the Panier district in particular is kind of like Brooklyn on crack. Always something going on and even if you don’t know what it is you can just roll with it and have a good time.
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