Tuesday, October 1
The first thing i did once i was seated on that train was book a hostel in Marseille. No, of course i hadn't done that yet, why would i? I didn't even know if i was going to make it to Marseille. I mean. It was the plan, and i very likely would, but still. After the Milan fiasco, i've been holding back a bit. For better or worse.
I went with a hostel called, no shit, Vertigo Vieux-Port. Vieux-Port, or Old Port, is the name of the neighborhood. They just went ahead and named their hostel Vertigo. I selected this hostel because it was the nearest one to the train station that i would be leaving from at six in the morning, and, helpfully, that i would be arriving at very shortly.
It's two hours from Cannes to Marseille, which is nice, because that's two less hours i need to travel tomorrow. The ride was, of course, breathtaking; i kept sticking my camera up to the window and rolling for far longer than is reasonable, even though i've already recorded plenty of footage of the French countryside. It's just so god damn gorgeous.
It was still a 30 minute walk to the hostel.
I got checked in, tossed my bag in the locker, and headed straight out to see a little bit of Marseille. I planned to head back to the hostel by 8, so i could take a shower and still get to bed pretty early. If i was gonna have any shot at making that 6am train, meaning i'd have to be up around 5, i was gonna need to be asleep early. This does run counter to my usual hostel ethos; i try to be the last one to bed, so that others have a chance to get to sleep before i start snoring. It just seems the most considerate route to go.
It wasn't quite 5pm, so that gave me about three hours to explore.
There's only a few Atlas Obscura locations, and most of them are museums, so they'd probably be closed or closing soon. Most of the coolest ones were far across town, well out of my reach in the amount of time i had. So i whittled it down to one single possibility, and i started out by heading that way.
But first. Right at the edge of the titular port of Vieux-Port, in a wide cobblestone courtyard, there is an art installation called L'Ombrière de Norman Foster, a gigantic mirror held parallel to the ground by poles, about twenty feet up. Many people were passing below it, looking up, taking pictures of themselves. A busker had set up near a pole with his guitar. I don't know what the significance of the piece is, if it means anything beyond what mirrors usually mean in art.
Beyond that were the crêpe carts, half a dozen of them.
Maybe later.
My actual destination was only a block inland from this square. Le Jardin des Vestiges contains the ruins of the ancient Greek Port of Marseille, which were discovered during the construction of a shopping mall in 1967. The mall did get built, it's just slightly to the side of the ruins. The ruins themselves have been worked into a beautiful garden by landscaper Jöel-Louis Martin, making for a relaxing and peaceful experience all around.
I wouldn't know, though. As i walked up, i saw that the ruins were completely encircled by an iron fence, and the gate was padlocked.
Motherfucker. Even these ruins are closed after 5?
I walked down the length of the fence, away from the mall. There was a cat just inside the fence. I reached out to see if i could pet her, and i did. We played through the fence for like 10 minutes before she was done with me and started swatting at my hand.
Once i looked back up, i found that i was literally two feet away from an open gate into the park.
Oh. Well, here it is.
A woman walked past me, attempting to enter the garden, and a security guard swiftly popped out of a room i hadn't even noticed and stopped her.
The grounds are accessible only with a ticket to the Museum of Marseille, which occupies the opposite side from the mall.
I took a few minutes to admire the ruins from the gate, and take some pictures of the scale model that sat just behind it, on the side open to the public.
Okay, now what?
I looked up attractions on my favorite app, Google Maps.
Invader had a piece nearby, MARS 55, so i went to see that.
The next building over had a monument featuring a bronze statue of an emaciated and twisted human figure, the Memorial de la Deportation de L'Internement et de la Rèsistance, an homage to the victims of racist and antisemitic persecution from 1940-44, n'oublions jamais.
Which. I don't know. The disfigured form of an abused and starved person seems like a pretty ghoulish way to go about memorializing the victims of the holocaust. Then again, maybe seeing what the horror actually looks like is the best way to get people to understand how bad it was, and why we can't let it happen again.
Even though we...are. In Palestine and Congo and Sudan and Syria and...
Ugh, this fucking world.
The Marseille sign is within eyeshot of that, so i grabbed a quick tourist selfie.
Walking toward the port, i came to a statue of a bull, held fifteen feet in the air on metal stilts, which i expected. What i hadn't known about was that he has a lion counterpart. Why are these animal statues suspended above the ground on metal stilts? I have no idea! Google Maps doesn't explain the things it's taking me to unless someone has left a helpful comment. It's not like it's meant to mimic an actual reference material, like Atlas Obscura is.
I was casually looking for food, and i did pass through a whole district of restaurants here, but nothing was grabbing me. Which seems silly. But i just kept walking. I was getting close to the sea.
Another of Invader's pieces was over here, a seagull carrying away one of the invaders. I had climbed a staircase to an observation deck to see it. Then, there were more stairs, so i just kept climbing.
At the top, i found a road, a statue of a man in a loincloth fighting off some bear cubs who do not seem like they are fighting, and Saint Laurent's Catholic Church, which is a designated historical site. On the other side of the church was a great view of the sea; i'm still unsure which sea this actually is, but i'm gonna say if any sea i've seen so far is the Balearic, it's this one. Could still be Tyrrhenian or Mediterranean though.
From that viewpoint, it was a sheer drop down to the road, at least 50 feet below. I followed the fence. A green space developed between the fence and the drop, gradually widening as i walked, and after i passed a cluster of trees, i could look down toward the current Port of Marseille and see Oursjayet 2020, the giant orange teddy bear statue.
Now how do i get down there?
I kept walking along the fence, eventually coming to an awkward intersection in front of Cathédrale la Major. Getting across was tricky, as cars from two of the directions would be approaching the intersection mostly blind. From my left, they were coming up an incline out of a tunnel and also around a curve, so that seemed important to keep an eye on. Fortunately, traffic at this time of day was light.
Walking up to the teddy bear, which seems like it has become something of an icon for the city since its inception a few years ago, i was struck by how worn it looks already. The paint has dramatically different shades of orange from top to bottom, much of it looking like patch jobs. There was a little graffiti on it, so i suspect at least some of this patching is to cover that sort of thing, but as the top is so much lighter, i feel like a lot of it is sunbleaching.
Still. A cute, bright orange, whimsical bear, standing watch over the Port of Marseille. I grabbed a nice selfie with me on the left, the bear on the right, and the cathedral in between.
A little creepy that it has a face on both sides, though.
Very jarring when viewed from the side.
There were more Invader pieces i could've tracked down along the seaside, but it was 6:30, and i wanted to get some food before i had to return to the hostel. Also, i was desperately thirsty; i'd chugged three glasses of water at the hostel in Nice this morning and filled my bottle to take with, but that bottle was long empty and i'd found no other source of hydration throughout the day. I should've drank some water and also refilled the bottle before leaving Vertigo, after dropping off my bag, but i had forgotten. I'd been thinking about this for hours.
I returned to the Old Port, this time walking on the cobblestone path right along the dock, and as if by magic, a free-standing bottle filling station appeared. I filled my bottle, chugged it, filled it again, chugged it again, and filled it a third time before moving on.
You ever just feel like a sponge?
My dried-out veins felt the cool rush of hydration circulate through them immediately.
So good.
Across the way, i spotted a restaurant called Sandwich and Eggplant.
I fucking love eggplant.
Let's go.
I don't know if it was a time of day thing, or what, but i didn't actually see anything on the menu that had eggplant. Or sandwiches, for that matter. The outdoor seating area was wide, and the overhang across the whole thing said, "Sandwich and Eggplant," but there was a second storefront in there that had just closed. I wondered if that side was where the sandwiches and eggplants came from.
There was no one in the building when i walked in, but a woman sitting at a table near the door set down her cigarette and got up to follow me.
"Oh, it's okay, you can finish your cigarette," i said. "I'm gonna need a few minutes to look at the menus anyway."
"Oh, merci," she said, and went back out to do that.
She came back in like two minutes later, though, i had not nearly comprehended the minuscule options before me. There were only a few things, but they all had multiple options, and this is where my brain tends to bluescreen, especially if the clerk and i don't speak the same language.
"Can i get the...pasta...the pâtes..." i said, in English but then correcting myself. She interpreted my deranged mumblings as "pasta with pesto." I just said oui. Plus an Aperol spritz.
The pasta was okay. The noodles were served buttered, with a thick ring of pesto around the top, and a liberal helping of chipped parmesan. I stirred the whole thing up. First few bites were quite good, but after a while, that pesto got a bit overpowering. The spritz did not pair well with it at all.
Okay, to get to the hostel, i now need to run the gauntlet of crêpe carts. The pesto flavor wasn't bad by any means, but i do kind of want to get it out of my mouth with something sweet. Which one of yall has Nutella?
All of you!?
Superb.
I approached the first crêpe cart. The vendor looked me in the eye. "Crêpe?" she asked.
"Yes please!" i said. She started grabbing items and was about to pour batter on the hot plate, when i suddenly had the thought that i should probably confirm: "Do you take credit cards?"
"Oh, no, cash only," she said.
"Ah, okay, thank you anyway," i said, starting to move away.
"There's a bank across the street!" she said, pointing. I could see the ATM.
"Oh! Great!" i said, smiling and nodding.
Instead, i moved on to the next cart.
"Hey do you take card?"
"No."
Not one of them did.
I didn't really want to go get any cash out of the ATM just for a crêpe. I told myself i didn't need it, and i carried on toward my destination.
The hostel rooms are in a separate building from the reception, and they're set up like townhouses. Each has its own entrance from the outside, and that's it, there's no interior hallway connecting them. It's almost like they're each their own building.
When i entered, it seemed at first that no one was home. I'm back so early that everyone else is still out adventuring for the day, i thought. But then i realized someone was in one of the bathrooms.
It's a 16-bed room, four bunks on the main floor, and four bunks in the loft upstairs. The loft is above three bathrooms, and opens up to the high, vaulted ceiling of the main level. I never went up those stairs, and in fact i'm realizing just now that i never even took any pictures inside that room, which i deeply regret, it had an interesting floor plan. I was on the bottom bunk closest to the bathrooms.
One bathroom just had a shower stall. One had a toilet and a shower stall. And the third was a much larger room, with a toilet and a wide-open shower area with accessible accommodations. I chose this one, both out of necessity, since the other toilet was taken, and because i wanted to anyway. I've never used a shower like this, though i'd seen this setup at at least one other hostel, and i thought it would be interesting.
Showering in that wide-open space, with no curtain or glass doors holding you back, was a freeing experience for me. I'm a fairly modest person, honestly. Even when i was fit, i usually wasn't comfortable being shirtless outside. This was like when they made you shower in gym class, except without a bunch of naked bullies yelling obscenities and kicking water and soap bars at you. Maybe i'm a little sheltered, but it felt absolutely wild. We've all got our weird hang-ups somewhere.
I got into bed at nine. This also felt wild, that's about 3-4 hours early for me, it's like i'm leading a different life. Before i set my alarm, just because i am paranoid, i went to check the train schedule again, to be absolutely sure it was 6am. You know, just in case i was confusing it for the other 6am, 3:45am.
Hey remember when i said to "put a pin in all of that" at the end of yesterday?
We're gonna partially remove that pin now.
Ready?
The 6:01am train i've been looking at is leaving from Cannes. I'm in Marseille.
That's a two-hour difference.
That train will be here at 8:03, when i would have made a connection to a different train, which leaves Marseille at 8:23.
Perhaps i should sleep in??
Nah. If i'd known sooner, maybe i would've walked around Marseille a little longer, but since i'm already in bed, i don't think i'm gonna get back up. What else have we got?
Oh, look at that. There's another option at 6:21am, which will get me to Barcelona two hours earlier than i was expecting, at 3:10pm instead of 5:10. That's awesome.
With that plan in mind, i drifted off to sleep.
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