From Marseille to Lyon

May 8th is Victory day in France, so the evening of the 7th I went out on my terrace to find the Prefecture building across the square decorated in SO MANY French flags.  A beautiful, if somber, view for my final evening.

 

The next day, I went out for breakfast to a Tunisian treat shop near the library that Rachel used when she was a student here, and the young man who waited on me was delighted to talk about Boston, as he'd spent two years at school there.  When I asked him what he recommended, he told me the name of this thing, which I will not attempt to romanize and spell (Ftayer?  Ftayedg?  Thtaredg?  See? I said I wouldn't and I did and now I feel deranged), and which he gestured around to point out that basically everyone else was consuming.  

Admittedly that is small coffee cup, bit it's not that small, this thing was gigantic.

Thankfully it was also mostly air, and it was SO GOOD.  Piping hot, crispy and chewy and delicious.

10/10.  I'll be back for more, and since the place has been there since the 80s, I think I'm safe to plan on it.

Next I went to the train station and dropped off my bags at luggage storage so I could take a walk to a park near the train station that Rachel had recommended.  I'd made myself a sandwich with the remainders of my snack foods from the airbnb, and it was nice to get out and stretch my legs before the train ride to Lyon.

While at the station I snapped another couple of pictures of the view leaving the station -- It still doesn't do Marseille justice.  You really need to visit.

I went to a gorgeous park from the Napoleonic era that Rachel had recommended for lunch, and then boarded my TGV to Lyon.

A couple of hours later, I was in a city that -- now that I live in Pittsburgh -- feels especially homelike in some ways, because of the severe elevation changes and ways in which the rivers define the city center.

My new Airbnb where I'd be spending the week was directly across from an excellent bike/footbridge.

And the view from my balcony wasn't half bad, if I do say so myself.

I spent the weekend in Lyon dancing at a small Fusion event weekend that I'd learned about very last-minute from a friend, and it was a lovely time.

A Church and a Stadium.

While in Marseille I also took a long morning walk up to Nôtre Dame de la Garde, and around to the Stade Julien Badoun.

I decided on a slightly circuitous route and wound up deviating even further to cut through a park.

I'm glad I did, because this route wasn't the one all the tourist buses use to get up the hill, (something I found out when I went down the other way) and it was a much more quiet and pleasant walk as a result, and also:

On the way up the hill, I made two discoveries.

The first was a vehicle I could only name The Vespateen Rabbit.

Well loved, indeed.

And the second was a different sort of vehicle entirely.

It turns out, as part of their occupation of France, the German forces occupied the church as a position of strategic importance, and several divisions of French Army B, a portion of the military of the Free French government, took a large hand in the battle here to free Marseille from occupation during Operation Dragoon, which was meant to improve allied support across Europe by opening another front after Normandy.

During the battle to reclaim the hill, a Free French tank was destroyed here and was restored in place as a memorial to the French forces who gave everything to resist and route the Nazi occupation.

It was a surprising thing to stumble across on a spring morning on a quiet street.

The weather was good, the sun bright and warm but not yet blistering hot, and I made the ascent pretty smoothly and got my first good look at the gold leafed statue of Mary and Child gleaming in the Mediterranean sun.

Nôtre Dame de la Garde is The Church of Marseille.  Founded ages ago on the site of an old fort overlooking the harbor, it was built and rebuilt, expanded and improved, over the city's history.

It's a gorgeous, inspiring building that's difficult to photograph from up close.  The hill is an extremely good vantage point, and so you can really get a sense of Marseille as a place, from the terraces that surround it.

So before I went inside, I took a walk around the terraced space that surrounds the church on all sites, providing incredible views. . .

. . . both of the city of Marseille . . .

. . .And the harbor.  

This hand drawn rendering of the port was such an excellent way to help you orient yourself.  Vastly superior to a photograph. More cities should hire local artists to do this for their best viewpoints.

And what a view.

The outside of the building was also fascinating, the contrasting colors in the stone were so striking, and there were other interesting details.

A permanent reminder of the battle here during Operation Dragoon.

Also this door.

(As an American, I cannot look at this without imagining a well-respected horse having its own private office in the church.)

Once I'd toured the outside, I stepped into the cool of the very ornate interior.

Some serious money has flowed through Marseille over the years, and this church has been the beneficiary of many a wealthy sea merchant's last will.

Marseille's self-identity as a port town is really on display here.  There are dozens of suspended models of modes of navel transport (mostly boats and ships, but also helicopters and small planes) that float in the air above your head.

The beautiful interior of the church made it almost impossible to photograph them. They looked so cool in person!

Also this wall of art and supplication to God for fair weather and a safe return from the sea, just in case you forgot: PORT. TOWN.

It was a really beautiful church.

Afterwards, I walked back down the other way, which turned out to be the popular vehicular route, and therefore was slam full of buses and whatever those weird little fake trains full of tired tourists are called.

But I was glad I had gone this way, because I was looking for a recently painted public basketball/street soccer stadium that Marisa had pointed out to me on google maps when we were corresponding about Marseille earlier in the week.

And after finding it, and having difficulty photographing it, I retraced some of my steps, so I could show it to you in a way that conveys how cool it was.

And I found this side street.

And snuck my way past this person's car and front door

And scrambled up this wall next to their fence

All of which was worth it, for this shot:

It was so vibrant and such a cool space.

Like I said, difficult to photograph from ground level.

(Also a cool little reference to NYC that reminded me of Teresa, who lives near the C line in Brooklyn. 🖤)

The guy painted on the ground is a Marseille-born rapper named Jul, but the stadium is actually named for this guy, a staunch support of Olympique Marseille (the football team) who died young.  When the stadium was updated and painted, it was dedicated to him.

Afterwards I spent the rest of the day working.  I could feel my time in Marseille drawing to a close -- soon it would be time to move along to Lyon.

Couscous at Sur le Pouce

As I mentioned earlier, Rachel had learned her fondness for North African cuisine, especially couscous, at a specific restaurant, almost fifteen years ago, when she was studying in Marseille as an undergrad.

She had given me a list of recommendations for places to visit while I was in the city, and one of them was her definitive example of The Couscous restaurant, a place called Sur Le Pouce, which I couldn't resist prioritizing during my short stay.

So on Wednesday night I walked there from my place -- I have chosen such a central location for my various accommodations this trip that I haven't even really used the transit systems much, honestly.

Sur Le Pouce is a French expression that literally translates as "on the thumb" but that we would, in English, equate to "on the go" or "on the run." Intriguing because it was a restaurant that felt settled, comfortable in the city.

It looked eternal. you know those restaurants that seem to be older than the buildings around them?  A fixture, like a hill.  Just . . . always present.

It was quiet, and like so many comfort-food places in the modern era, seemed to be balancing its quiet sit-down business with a quantity of takeaway orders.

When I arrived, around 19:00 (I know!  Quite early for a French dinner, but it aligns with a late lunch for my coworkers back home), the place was mostly empty, the two late middle aged Tunisian-French men who ran the place were happy to show me to a table, and brought me a basket of bread and a plate of one of the best (and spiciest) dipping sauces I've ever had.

It was really good and I appreciate that the spice slowed me down just enough to keep me from absentmindedly eating all the delicious bread and ruining my appetite.

Instead I focused on the essay about the impact of Large Language Models on culture by Kyle Kingsbury that I'm reading right now (it's excellent).

. . . And sending pictures of my dinner to Rachel, so she could be jealous/live vicariously through me 

And then my food arrived, and it was perfect. 

But also, I was eating it wrong: 

It was so, so good. The merguez was perfectly seasoned, the steak exquisite.  The couscous and sauce perfect together. 

The whole meal was heavenly.  If you ever have the chance to return to someone else's favorite restaurant from a city from their youth: 10/10, recommend.

Afterwards I was absolutely stuffed, so I strolled through town to stretch my legs a bit, and there was some sort of fancy party happening on a tall ship in the old port. It made for a very picturesque final shot of the evening.

Marseille is Marseille

A few stereotypes about the character of Marseille have been rattling around in my head this week.

"Marseille is in a hurry" and "Marseille is Beautiful" and "Marseille is full of Vandals"

Marseille is Marseille.

If you've seen Taxi, (no, not the 2004 remake, the original -- a silly French action-comedy movie from 1998, it's a Luc Besson picture starring Samy Naceri, Frédéric Diefenthal, and Marion Cotillard, and everybody is having a great time.  The show is often stolen by Bernard Farcy though as the bumbling, inept, and casually-racist Commissaire.) then you already have been given a little insight into the Marseille mentality about driving and roads, which is :

GO FAST.

Busy sidewalk? Scooter don't care.

Crosswalk full of pedestrians? Peugot hatchback will approach it at 50km/hr and assume that they'll get out of the way.

There was a boldness mixed with paranoia to the way it seemed that pedestrians moved in the city because damn, so many of the motorized forms of transport seemed hellbent on mininizing fuel economy and maximizing g-forces experienced by everyone involved.

Unfortunately, this is very hard to photograph or video.  Suffice it to say, it's a place to keep your wits about you when on foot, and I enjoyed myself immensely because while all that was happening the pedestrians are ALSO in this mindset and so will stride into the street with purpose and also reclaim what they can.

(A couple of times when I saw young drivers try to sneak through a light and wind up with their car in a crosswalk, I witnessed pedestrians get loudly verbally abusive with them about it, which was honestly, a delight.  More people in cars should get berated for thinking they are entitled to block or disrespect traffic that isn't also in cars.)  

A couple of other things stood out about Marseille, and I think they're both summed up in this picture.

The architecture of Marseille is gorgeous -- the city really thrived in the interwar years, and the result is that it has a huge amount of Art Nouveau architecture that is just stunning.

And as a port city facing North Africa, with a massive immigrant population and people passing through all the time -- there is a constant struggle among the young and poor in the city to grow, make the city their own, and express themselves, and one of the ways that comes out is in street art and tagging culture.

There's so much beautiful architecture and embellishment on buildings here.

And there is so much street art and vandalism, and the line between those two things blurs, and makes you question what counts as embellishment.

The visuals of the city blurred together for me over my time there, but left me with a very strong impression that I want to return and spend more time in this city.

I have a couple more specific stories to tell.  Next, we'll take a trip down someone else's memory lane.