Chateau d'If

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After an ill-fated attempt to go to the famed, or infamous, Chateau d'If prison off the coast of Marseille yesterday, Arlette and I arrived very early at the old port and got two tickets for the 9am ferry to the island. It was a gloomy day, that added to the mystique of the trip. The boat ride over to the island was very fast. When we pulled up alongside the hunk of limestone jutting out of the sea I felt bad for all the people who came to this island and never left. It's not a comforting place.

We climbed up the path to the prison and outbuildings, and the two ladies who run the museum raced up the path ahead of us to open the gates to the top of the rock. We had to wait a couple minutes for them to open the Chateau itself, so we got to look around the immediate area a bit. The Chateau dominates the island and it a square shaped building with three round turrets at the corners. Facing the Chateau is a café- they have postcards and artwork made out of seashells. There's another building to the left of the Chateau as you face it and that's where the bathrooms are and where the superintendent of the prison used to live.

There are no trees on the island, except one in a little enclosed garden. Mainly it's just rock beneath your feet with little scrubby grasses and poppies waving in the sea breeze. I also noticed a lot of bones in some areas, which kind of freaked me out. I think they were seagull bones. Speaking of which, we had arrived during the nesting season for the seagulls on the island and everywhere there were signs saying "Beware! Agressive seagulls!" I felt like I was in "The Birds". Whenever I wandered around I kind of looked around me for the nearest seagull. it was kind of a give and take how far they would let me go and how far I wanted to go.

But on to the Chateau! It was actually surprisingly small and kinda cozy. There's a central courtyard and around the upper level are most of the cells. There were also bigger, round cells in the corner turrets where I think they kept multiple people. The cells for nobles and such often had fireplaces and windows looking onto the central courtyard and out across the water. So they seemed pretty cushy compared to what you see in the movies. Maybe there was a dungeon somewhere I missed.

In some of the cells they had clips from the dozens of Count of Monte Cristo movies that have been made and illustrated passages from the book about his stay in Chateau d'If. So that was fun to watch. In one of the big turrets they had a movie called "Vexation Island" playing that had no dialogue, just a shipwrecked sailor continually trying to get a coconut and continually getting knocked unconscious again by the coconut dropping on his head. Pretty crazy.

We had nearly three hours on the island before the next boat back to Marseille. Arlette sat in the café and smoked, so I wandered around the island and explored every nook and cranny not guarded by seagulls. There were also lots of seagulls flying around the island, soaring on the breezes. I was sure they were going to dive-bomb me at any moment.

We waited on the dock for about twenty minutes, watching the boat approach and speed across the water towards us. It was nice to leave the little island. I had had it almost to myself and it was surprising to see lots of tourists get off the noon boat. I was glad we had come out early, and had the Chateau, the poppies and the seagulls to ourselves.

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Photos

The Infamous Prison
Chateau d'If, the prison made famous by Dumas

Looking back at Marseille
The view from the roof of the prison