"Quelques escaliers a monter"

So this is my 2nd attempt at writing this entry and it's midnight here, so bare with me.  I had it all done and then fat fingers on my phone and somehow it all got erased.  Auto-save is NOT always a good thing.

So where was I...OH yes, leaving Barcelona and heading to Marseille.

Thankfully our metro station was on the same line as the train station and so although we had to drag all our stuff through the metro system (which didn't have many escalators working in our favour), it could have been worst.  And due to the late departure out of Barcelona we didn't get to Marseille until late when it was dark.  Not a huge deal because I had made sure to book and AirBNB nice and close to avoid having to stray too far from the station knowing we would only be there a day or 2.  

Now, we only have access to WIFI where it's free and available.  The trains have WIFI but it's intermittent at best and once we're out of the station we're on our own.  And in France, because everything is a "street" or is named like a street, regardless of whether it's an alley, a staircase, a ramp, is pedestrian friendly or not, it shows on a map as a street.  Therefore planning your route ahead of time does not always pan out.  Like tonight... We exit the station and follow the map I made from Google maps on the train indicating that when we exit the station, we go straight out and then turn left.  Well, straight out in front of us is "Le Grand Escalier", the Great Staircase.  Yeah... Great!  According to the map, looks like we need to go down.  So we suck it up and start our way down.  Luckily there were landings along the way that gave us some much needed rest.  

Finally at the bottom I start to orient myself again and check my street names only to find out that we are NOT in fact on the right street.  WHAT THE HELL?  The map clearly shows we should be here but the street name is wrong.  We are definitely not going back up those stairs.  So I make the executive decision to follow my gut and continue on in the direction the map is pointing, despite it saying otherwise in real life.  I'm happy to say that we did come to a crossing and found the street we needed to be on.  Turns out there was a ramp going to the left of the station exit and that ramp was the "street" we were supposed to be on.  We never needed to go down those stairs. Awesome.

That's ok because it prepared us for what was coming next.  Our AirBNB instructions were straight forward but also contained the following:

A few stairs to climb.

What the photo fails to show is that to the right is a very long and narrow spiral staircase.  It also doesn't show that there are 107 stairs to climb to take us to our landing.  107!!!  Last time I checked, that was a little more than "a few".  So we start to climb.  Again, lucky there few some landings along the way.  Definitely not ideal for those travelling with large heavy suitcases.  But we have no choice.  We make it, somehow.  It was worth the climb though... The apartment was really cute and convenient aside from the hike to that 5th floor.  It had a great view from a little balcony that we had to climb through the window to sit on.  It was a beautiful spot to relax.  It was cosy but had some unique intricacies, like how to lock and unlock the door and unfold the pull out.  Good ol European engineering.  The location was perfect.  However "quelques escaliers a monter" could have been a little more honest.  

We had 1 day to explore Marseille so we looked up the highlights and found an Alcatraz-like prison on a small island off the coast.  For some you might recognize the name Chateau d'If as the prison that Edmond Dantes escapes from in The Count of Monte Cristo.  He was obviously fictional but the prison is not.  It was built in the 1500s as a fortress to house soldiers to defend the city of Marseille against a foreign siege.  They succeeded but the King didn't think it was built well enough for that purpose moving forward and it therefore became a prison.  The supposed twin brother of Louis XIV (aka Man in the Iron Mask) also might have done some time here but there are no actual archives confirming this.  And although it's been a protected site since the 1800s, it was reopened as a prison during the 2 World Wars.  It's really neat to see and because it's not big, easy to visit in an hour- and hour and a half.  Plus you take the ferry to get there, giving you a nice little ride along the coast and some fresh sea air.  The views from here are also great and the grafiti/etchings in the walls from the prisoners and soldiers over the centuries is really interesting to see.  

Back on main land we spent the rest of the day exploring, going up to the Notre-Dame de la Garde which was smaller than we expected given it looks really big from around the city.  It is very colourful.  We found a map at the tourism office and set foot to following the historical path through the oldest part of the city and some of its other main sights, including their biggest cathedral, Cathedrale de la Major.  Whether you are religious or not, these buildings are so incredibly massive and impressive, it's impossible to not go check them all out.  We took a stroll through Le Panier district, a much recommended part of the city, but to be honest I really didn't get what the big deal was all about.  It was an old quarter like many others in Europe, tiny streets and alleys, cobblestone here and there...but it wasn't anything special.  

Overall Marseille was good - we had a really hot day and lots of Sun which felt great.  And I fimally got my flower gelato! It is an easy city to do in a day, the prison is worth visiting and I'm sure their big museum of European and Mediterranean History is phenomenal, but when you're short on time, you have to make the most of it and spending it in a museum was not the way to go.  I personally preferred both Nice and Cannes from my previous life here in France, I just feel like Marseille is lacking the charm I generally get from most European cities.  It was worth the visit, but didn't need more than a day.  We spent our 2nd evening relaxing in our apartment knowing it would be another full day tomorrow heading early into Lyon.  

Having learned my lesson I decided to do a dry run (sans luggage) back up to the station to find the shortest and easiest way to get there.  Of course the ramp led right to the entrance and took all of 5 minutes to get there.  Not that it meant we avoided all stairs because we'd still need to carry all our stuff 107 stairs back to the bottom.  Just a few he says...