Vacances de la Toussaint: Provence and Marseille

Hey all, I know it's been a while since my last post...and that is because I still do not have a legit internet connection. Yeah. Lots of problems with France. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about my first big vacation, Vacances de la Toussaint. I stayed in Nîmes for the first few days because my sister, Jen, and her fiancé, Elihu, came to visit me! We went and explored several beautiful towns in Provence, including: Ansouis, Ménerbes, Lourmarin, and Les Baux-de-Provence. Some photos below...

View from the château at Ansouis

Another view from the château

A town we saw on our drive, called Bonnieux

Les Baux-de-Provence, so awesome!

After they left, I visited Marseille with my two friends Louise and Natalie. Louise and I left first, on Thursday, November 1st. Even before we got there, we had problems. When I met Louise at the train station, we discovered that the train tickets we bought were actually going to Montpellier, not Marseille. Apparently when Louise was buying them online she accidentally clicked the first city that popped up when she typed in "M" and we were so happy at the cheap price that we didn't even look twice! So we had to go to the ticket booth and buy new tickets. Not a huge problem, but still. It didn't get off to a good start.

The next thing that happened was a much bigger problem: the guy we were supposed to CouchSurf with in Marseille cancelled on us. So we didn't have a place to stay! Once we heard that, we freaked out for quite a bit, and when we got to Marseille we spent practically 3 hours in a McDonald's looking for a new place to stay. We wanted to CouchSurf (since it's free), but we ended up booking a hostel. Once we got that sorted out, Louise and I went to go check out Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, which is the basilica located all the way on top of a huge hill just outside of Marseille. We trekked all the way up (leaving me sweating like a pig), which took a while, but once we got to the top the view was incredible, and of course the basilica itself was very beautiful.

Ceiling of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde

View of Marseille

After that we had dinner, which was very seafood-themed (it is a port town, after all), walked around a little, and then headed back to the hostel.

The next morning, Natalie was arriving, so we asked the hostel if we could book another night for 3 people instead of 2. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough room, so we actually had to go to a hotel that they suggested, which ended up being cheaper than the hostel and was still pretty nice, so it wasn't a huge deal. Our second day in Marseille was pretty great; we had lunch at the restaurant called Bar de la Marine, which is the one in Love Actually where Colin Firth proposes to his love interest!!! We were very excited about that.

So cute!

After lunch we went on a boat tour of the Les Calanques, which are the biggest tourist attraction for Marseille. They're essentially a series of little coves in between these huuuge cliffs, and are ridiculously beautiful.

For dinner I tried bouillabaisse for the first time, and I have to admit...I'm not a huge fan. A shame, I know, since it's basically Marseille's signature dish, but it's just not for me. Then we got a drink at a bar and headed back for the night. All in all, a good trip!