France 3 - Marseille

On Wednesday 6th I was picked up by my daughter's father in law to be driven to Marseille.
We parked close to the Old Port (Vieux Port) and took a hop-on/hop-off bus tour with 13 stops. The complete tour took 1,30h, but we  didn´t get off at any of the stops,  as being a week day, the bus would take 2 hours to come round the same spot, had we chosen to get off.

Old Port - (Notre dame de la Garde at the top, left)

The only place I would have liked to get out and seen in detail would have been the church "Notre dame de la Garde" which sits atop a hill, from where you can get a view of the city from above.

Notre Dame de la Garde

Fort St-Jean

Back to the base, we got on the road again to meet my daughter for lunch in a pleasant restaurant near her work place. After lunch we went to visit an art museum "The Palais des Arts" for the Joseph Garibaldi painting exhibition. Then a walk through the Park Longchamp, that used to house a zoo which was closed in 1987. The park is behind the Palais Longchamp that houses the Museum of Natural History and Fine Arts Museum.

Palais Longchamp

Rows of macaroons and other lovely French pastries

A lovely day out, but I was disappointed to note that apart from the Old Port, the city is very dirty - I came across loads of dog droppings, bits of food, paper, clothing and even an old unused pram on a sidewalk. People casually drop papers and cigarettes from their cars...

Pretty sad that this happens in this day and age in a modern European city. I do hope the city gets cleaned up, as in 2013 Marseille will be one of the European Culture capitals. 
Right now, there is new construction and renovations to cultural buildings and roads all over the town in preparation for the event.

The next post will be about another village in Provence among the 200 prettiest, and not only pretty but quite unusual too.
Hope you have been enjoying my travel updates!