7 August
1AM- no point trying to sleep as it's the annual Fête (worse than...). Pounding bass and shrieking folk. So I might as well put the insomnia to good use and catch up on the day's doings-well actually two days.
Yesterday we went down to Marseille at dear Anne's generous invitation to celebrate her birthday. It was blisteringly hot here and not much less so there. Before we met up with her at the smart quayside hotel, Adrian and I tramped up to the Pharo park and then to the Catalans beach area in search of lunch. Found a decent moules frites and sat drippng inside the brasserie rather than on the oven -like pavement.
With incredible good timing we got back to the hotel just as Anne was arriving. Once refreshed we decided that a trip round the bay would he just the thing to cool us down. There's a ferry service that takes passengers to the islands off the coast. Not far, just an hour there and back, and it goes via the famous Château d'If of Monte Cristo fame. Good views of Marseille from the sea.
Back on land it was time for Campari and Orange and on the way we went under this amazing canopy with a reflective ceiling. It's so weird to see people walking upside down.
And then more food! We were lucky enough to spot a Lebanese restaurant that looked proper - not pretend. And so it was. Really lovely and a good (expensive!) bottle of Bekhar Valley red. Finally three coffees and two cointreaux at a bar, which cost almost as much as the meal! My God.
Did not sleep well despite utter luxury so this morning I was somewhat lack lustre. Never mind, we did more street wandering and admired
the fine Opera, Stock Exchange and Hotel de Ville before succumbing to yet more moules frites (them, not me!)
It got even hotter... we left Anne to get her Eurostar and hit the A7 back home. Less than two hours later we were here, admiring the repair François had done to our front façade in our absence. Lots more pix on flickr and a special Marseille album with spellng mistake!
