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Published: September 17th 2004
Marseille, “The Surrey of Paris”
Well, Paris was nice. Marseille on the other hand was much less attractive, but an experience none the less. We arrived there on August 20th. The train ride from Paris to Southern France was beautiful with rolling countryside spotted by the odd village or castle in the middle of nowhere! (The people of the past here must have been quite isolated, but well fortified). We arrived and immediately noticed the lack of beautiful French Riviera landscape we had expected. Marseille is a run down city covered in grafitti and stinking of urine. We did however get a hostel near the beach, which made the time there a little more enjoyable. The first night, we sat by the Mediterannian Sea, had some wine and enjoyed the ocean view (which was quite nice), while trying to ignore the huge permanent neon carnival on the adjacent beach. Breakfast at the hostel was interesting, a bowl of hot milk and a chunk of stale bread. Yuk! We made the best of the dirty little town. Spent a day on the beach and some time at the 'Old Port' (the more touristy area). Despite it's lack-luster appearance, Marseille certainly had
The Old Port
God keeping his eye on Marseille.some colourful characters. Like the friendly bus driver who gave us a tour of the town (off route) because he liked Canadians and wanted to move to Quebec, be a separatist and work as the private driver for Jean Cretian.
The last day there was a little stressful. Homeless with our huge packs on once again, we had to wander the streets until our train left that night. We spent the day in the old port (safest part of town) and used the time to plan for Spain, while keeping a close eye on our packs. To say the very least, we were very excited to get to Spain/get out of Marseille.
We spent the last part of the evening in the train station watching a very irrate man with a young child, large suitcase and mitful of cash, accost the security staff. He even caused the local police and armed military guards (who were everywhere in France) to get involved. Man, just get us on our train!...and please don't let the crazy guy be on our train. He wasn't.
The South of France is beautiful, but if you go there, don't feel like you're missing anything
Our Hostel
From the comments we received, some of you may be dissapointed it is not a brothel. if you skip Marseille.
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anonymous
non-member comment
awsome!
IT'S A PRETTY COOL WAY TO SPEND A HONEYMOON,GUYS! BEST OF LUCK TO YOU GUYS AND KEEP THE PICS COMIN, IT GIVES ME AN EXCUSE TO DOG IT AT WORK AND PLAY ON THE COMPUTER!