On The Edge: Marseille

After traveling around Germany with my colocataires, I was ready for some personal rest and relaxation and headed off to the South of France. Having grown up in Kansas, I’m still amazed that you can cross a country and be at the beach in six hours. My stay in Marseille got off to a great start: we weren’t allowed to get off the train for twenty minutes due to a “colis suspect” (suspicious package) that had been found on a platform. As I left the gare, I wandered around some rather interesting neighborhoods before finding my hotel, the Vertigo. I felt quite safe during my entire stay there: 24 hour reception, locks on the doors, keys left at the desk so no chance of losing them. Both nights, I shared a 4 person dortoir with two Germans and a Belgian who were also on vacation from their political science program in Bordeaux. I went to Marseille to see the sights and was gone from 7-7; they had come to party and were gone the other twelve hours. Since it was too cold to go to the beach, I spent the first afternoon wandering around in the sunlight, taking pictures and seeing how France’s third-largest city (after Paris and Lyon) functioned. Life moved at a faster pace than in most of the South, but then Marseille is hardly typical of le Midi – its population is composed of immigrants from Greece, Italy, Algeria and their descendants. I popped into le Musée de l’Histoire de Marseille which was mentioned in E’s Lonely Planet Guide. Clue number one that this was to be a different experience: the museum was located in a shopping center next to a Galeries Lafeyette. As I later learned, the museum is constructed around an ancient ship found when they were building the mall. Rather than move the ship, they preserved it in wax and arranged the rest of the museum around it. Marseille was originally a Phocean city known as Marsalas which had a very Greek-inspired culture and economy for several centuries. Most of the museum dealt with ancient pottery and ship-building techniques, which I found to be less than stimulating. After leaving the museum, I walked right out into a rainstorm and fled to Monoprix to faire des courses. My hotel had provided neither complimentary breakfast nor soap so I got some pain au chocolat and savon de Marseille, a famous product of the city whose appellation is still controlled. I retired to my hotel room and finished “Randonée Mortelle,” an Isabelle Adjani flick in which she becomes a mistress to rich young people before killing them for money and sport. Such a comforting thought in a strange city!