Marseille!

This past weekend, I brought out my nautical side and went down to Marseille, a large city by the sea in the south of France.

Everyone back home in the States when I tell them says "oh my goodness, that sounds awesome, it must be so pretty there, I can't believe you get to go there!".

All of my European friends I have told about going there say "why are you going there its the most dangerous city in all of France".

CONCLUSION: It was a mix of both.

The inner harbor of Marseille is very pretty, lots of old buildings, hotels, restaurants, boats, churches, etc. We went on a boat tour which took us past a few islands and around the mountains/cliffs that are by the water, and they are gorgeous. Here are some pictures for proof:

I'm on a boat! (no, the Lonely Island and T-Pain weren't there :( ) 

Afterwards, we had a nice lunch at a restaurant in the harbor and visited "Palais Longchamps", which is an old mini palace in the area (I hoped I'd find some Longchamp bags there- no luck).

However, Marseille did turn a bit dangerous at night- it sort of seemed like the town was once really great, but over the years had gotten a bit run down. So, we decided it was probably better being three girls who don't know the area to just return to the hostel. It was a really cozy hostel, with lots of people staying there and a nice lobby/bar to hang out in, so we just hung out there for a few hours. 

In the morning we decided to get up early, grab breakfast in the lobby (another wonderful aspect to our hotel) and then attempt to go up to "Notre Dame de la Gare": a really on church on top of a HUGE hill that overlooks the city.

PLAN: take the metro to a bus stop, take the bus up the hill, take some pictures, come back down. Total of 20 minute trip.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: A bit concerned about time because we had a plane to catch at noon and it was already 9:15. Long line for metro tickets. Okay, we decided to walk to the bus stop. Bus doesn't come for another 20 minutes. Pointless to wait for it, so we walk up the hill to the church.

I wanted to fall over and collapse halfway through our hike up, but thankfully I did not give up because the views were SPECTACULAR! 

Church at the top of the hill

Just a few pictures of the amazing view!

 Thankfully, we found a bus back down, and made it to the airport early enough to not miss our flight home. All in all a successful trip!

Next weekend: Off to Barcelona to start my two week break off from classes!!

Bonne Nuit!

Feldy


P.S. I didn't realize comments were disabled on the blog unless you had created a Google account, so I finally fixed it and if you want to leave comments feel free to :)