Marseille

The next stop on our cruise brought us to the French Riviera, or Côte d'Azur. Marseille is the France's largest port city and third largest metro behind Lyon and Paris.

The center of Marseille is really beautiful, with views of the Old Roman Port and the hills surrounding it, like the one with the famous basilica Notre-Dame de la Garde on top, visible for miles around.

This is the inside of Notre-Dame de la Garde. The church was finished in 1864 and was done in a Neo-Byzantine style.

The inside of the basilica is really ornate with gold, marble, and porphyry, and mosaics and murals adorn all the walls. There are many decorations dedicated to football teams, soldiers, captains, pilots, etc. That's why you seen the model planes and ships hanging from the ceiling.


Here's the view over Marseille from its tallest point, right next to the basilica. You can see the Old Port in the center.

Here we are with a few of our friends we met on the cruise. They are Venus and Arturo from Puerto Rico. They were really nice people, and it was great to hang out with them. I even got to practice my Spanish a bit while I was out of Spain.


Just off the coast of the city is the little island of If. If is famous for its castle-fortress later turned prison the Château d'If. This was one of the settings for Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. In the 1844 adventure novel, the Count is sentenced to prison on If. After a daredevil plan gets him off the island, he is the first prisoner ever to escape.

In reality no one is known to have escaped. It's France's version of Alcatraz in California.

Here we are at the municipal park Palais Longchamp. There are several big museums there, as well as the large spectacular fountain staircase monument we're standing in front of.