GREETings from Grenoble: Marseille, You Say?

Last Friday (July 8), Mark and I decided to head to the Mediterranean Port city of Marseille. I have wanted to see Marseille for some time, as it came highly recommended by a friend. We booked the train and headed down Friday evening on the TGV (the fast train). The TGV travels >250 km/hr and can go faster, or so I’m told. We arrived in Marseille about 2.5 hours later with big ambitions. I should have probably been skeptical when our French friends in Grenoble would only say, “Marseille, huh? It’s in the south of France”. I wasn’t sure what that statement was supposed to mean but in retrospect, we should have read between the lines.

Marseille is a port city with a stunning harbor. It is the primary route of ferry traffic and is the port of entry for most of the goods and peoples coming from the Mediterranean region. It is also the port of entry for a large number of cruise ships. As we left the train station headed to find our hotel, we quickly realized we were not in Grenoble anymore. While Grenoble is a relatively small, easy-going city, Marseille is more reminiscent of a large US metropolis. It is, after all, the second largest city in France. Our hotel was right in the city center, about 10 min walk from the train station. In theory that was a great idea. In practice, the city center was more than a bit frightening at times.

After hotel check-in, and dealing with a security issue that I’ll spare the details of, we headed down to the harbor to have some dinner and enjoy the sea. It turned out to be a nice evening and the harbor is a very active and interesting place.

The next morning we made a tour of some of the more popular sites in the city. Notre Dame de la Garde, Palais Pharo and Palais de Longchamps. There are some stunning sites in Marseille and you are never far from the coastline, which is quite nice. After touring the city for the day, we took the “slow” train back to Grenoble through the French Alps, where we saw probably the most stunning scenery of the trip (up until that point).

After returning to Grenoble we were talking with our friends in about our trip and again we heard (more than once), "well that’s Marseille, it’s in the South of France.”