Marseille

 Marseille

This is Wednesday April 12th and we are in Marseille.

When we first booked this cruise I checked out the excursions here and decided to not book one. The reason?? All of the excursions were more than 8 hours long, all were rated as Moderate with restrictions or were rated as strenuous and none of them were in Marseille. 

So this week we read  in the Princess  Port guide that Marseille is the largest port on the Mediterranean, and is France's second largest city and a virtual melting pot of people and cultures. It is a place of striking contrasts from the fishing boats and pleasure crafts of the picturesque Vieux Port of modern Canebiere. Dominating the harbour is the famous Chateau D'If the rocky prison from which the Alexandra Dumas' Count of Monte Crisco escaped. Marseilee is also your gateway to Provence . Explore the countryside around Aries and Avignon, immortalized in the canvasses of Van Gohg, Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso.

So we made the decision that we would at least go ashore and explore on our own.  Because of my cold we decided that we would not plan too much. We did not order breakfast in our room but would have a leisurely breakfast before we headed out. 

I went on line to check out the Hop On Hop Off bus feeling that this would be a good option considering the circumstances. Well Mr Google by way of customer reviews said that the HOHO bus does not come to the port, that it is necessary to make your way to the first stop, buy a ticket and go from there. Oh yes we could buy a ticket on line. Another customer review complained that the 12 stops were not well marked and were difficult to locate. With that information we decided that HOHO was not a good option. We decided that getting lost in the largest port on the Mediterranean would not be a good idea. The French we learned almost 60 years ago did not prepare us for that event. Back to plan A.

We went up to Horizon Court for breakfast and choose a seat at a window on the Starboard side. To our shock the first thing we saw was not one but 2 Hop On Hop Off buses. This was nine o'clock and we calculated that most round trips on HOHO buses are around 90 minutes . That meant we should eat quickly and head ashore to make certain we would not miss the next bus.  I went down to customer service to find out if they knew anything about this situation. They did not.Like me they sought information from Mr.Google. As far as they were concerned the HOHO did not come to the port. Mr Google was wrong because we saw the buses with our own eyes.

We expected to find a place to purchase tickets inside the terminal building. There was nothing inside the terminal building except a place to buy shuttle tickets. The agent informed me that the only way to get a HOHO bus ticket was to purchase her $16 US each shuttle tickets and then find a ticket kiosk for our 25 Euro HOHO bus tickets when we got into the city. 

The city was 5 or 6 miles away, we were not allowed to walk in the port because it was a working port, we had no guarantee that we would find the HOHO . What should we do??

It was just luck that I got the Marseille Magnet yesterday.

We came back on board and wondered about what had happened. We had lunch in Horizon Court and watched people and shuttles come and go. There was another mystery..... One of the ships, A Viking ship, was docked across from us and on the warf in front of us there was a structure that appeared to be 7 stalls connected and facing us instead of the Viking ship. Passengers were entering and coming out with bags. If it was a set of shops why were they situated so that only Viking passengers could patronize them? Why were there no openings in the gates to allow any passengers from the 2 Costa ships or the Island Princess to shop?

Quizicle and more quizicle.

We decided to stay on board and I had a good rest. I am feeling almost back to normal.

Oh I changed our door decoration, the last change for this cruise.

Tomorrow we are back in Barcelona, our first of 2 stops in Spain. We spent a week in this city in 2018 and with the guidance of Sandra we visited the most famous attractions. I would like to walk Las Ramblas but Ken is not keen so we will see what we decide.

Hopefully they will have a wonderful cruise ship terminal where we can explore and shop for my tree decoration.