earth walk

The context is that for the last few weeks there has been unrest in outer Paris suburbs, with buses and cars burnt. The cause is general unemployment and dissatisfaction, and the street skirmishes have been a bit organised. Saturday night was expected to be a problem as it was a significant anniversary unrest wise.

Marseille is another story, miles and miles away with no history of the parisien politics. However, in an unrelated incident, teenagers set fire to a bus here after the driver refused to let them on, seriously injuring a passenger. With the link to the expected unrest that night, France was half expecting a bus to be burnt by extremists, as opposed to drunken adolescents, so was primed anyway & went into anti-terrorist mode. The entire bus and metro system was shut down for the whole of Sunday. Being a city about 2/3 the size of Melbourne in both population and distibuted suburban sprawl, this was no small thing. The incident was page one, lead story stuff. The president, prime minister and opposition all devoted lengthy airtime, promising to immediately ramp up transport security. Personally, I would have thought the numerous teams of soldiers with machineguns who patrolled stations anyway would have done it.

To compound things further, Marseille has a tram system like Melbourne’s and had been upgrading the tracks. The way to upgrade tracks here is to simultaneously tear up ALL roads with trams and dig down a metre, fencing off the works along the footpaths, and letting cars crawl between posts. So transport was a bit chaotic anyway; the shutdown made it complete.

It meant that I relocated from where I was into central Marseille, at an Ibis right next to the station. I didn’t want to risk missing my Monday morning 6am train back to Paris, which would have resulted in a missed flight too. It turned out pretty well. It meant I spent the last night in central Marseille and could arrive at the station more relaxed.

I walked past the forts at the mouth of the port, and followed a beautiful boulevard along the coast. It was one of those rocks, drops, crashing-wave and gale-wind type of walks. At one stage i had to lean forward to walk, and my backback, despite having a couple of kilos in it, was in risk of flight slung over one shoulder. Very refreshing ! and very scenic.

Slept well, very reassuring to be sleeping outside the Marseille St Charles station ! Had I  slept out of town as initially planned I think I would have been clock watching and evaluating contingencies. 

Not dull.

Took a 30min train ride to Aix-en-Provence, a beautiful city and one of the main cities of Provence. It has a few wide boulevards lined with plane trees, looks a bit like Parkville. The rest of the streets are about 2m wide, with 3 storey residences and shops lining each side. It was pretty full on cafe wise and a perfect spot to sit, watch the crowds, and read a weekend newspaper. Aix is a very old city, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aix-en-Provence :

“Aix (Aquae Sextiae) was founded in 123 BC by the Roman consul Sextius Calvinus, who gave his name to its springs”.

The roman influence is evident. There are several universities. Although it is an ancient city, it has a young feel as well, probably due to the huge student population (a la Parkville again). Everyone was out and about in the sun today. All buildings are shuttered and that Provence blue colour is everywhere. The whole town is a mix of drab stone walls and vibrant colours which makes for a very aesthetic combination.

Today I had the best eclair I have ever had in my life. That single cake may well have been what drew me here. I ordinarily wouldn’t have indulged but it caught my eye. The patisserie was right over the top and would have done well in Acland Street. The eclair was not only gorgeous, but surprisingy heavy and filled as I found out with a chocolate mousse filling. I had second thoughts but snapped them like twigs. Wicked (both the eclair, and me for eating it). But you had to see it; I doubt anyone could have walked on by. If anyone wants more detail or a photo, drop me an email. BTW, I like eclairs.

Apart from that I have been in Europe eating mode : coffee, juice and bread/jam for breakfast (it sounds better when you say viennoiserie avec de la confiture), a light ham cheese thing for lunch, and a relatively nice meal at a restaurant for tea, fixed price.

I caught a film Saturday night called Bamako (http://www.bamako-film.com/index.php?en).  Bamako is the capital of Mali. It cleaned up in Cannes in May and is a truly stunning film. It should be out in english soon. If you are interested, click on the ‘The Context’ link of the above site. It is an experience being in a french arthouse cinema just quietly.

Sleeping really well. It is hot here. Worryingly, french newspapers are a bit like melbourne ones in the weather commentaries : ” record hot averages this month”, “what happened to the start of winter”, “another indian summer” etc. It is t-shirt weather here day and night, despite the fact that winter is only 5 weeks away.

Back to Marseille to walk around the port, chillax in the Mediterranean sea breeze, and wander home. Marseille is a pretty cool place.

For our google map readers :

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.2972,5.381
&spn=0.044092,0.114326&t=k&om=1

I had booked a hotel in a village about 10km from Marseille central. Not an obvious choice, but booking in advance online with the french train system includes train/accomodation packages that are really attractive. As it turns out, there are so many hotels here you could pretty well walk in any direction from the station and find one easily. Firstly i found out how the Metro worked, and fortunately it is simple, cheap and frequent. 10 euros gave me a card for unlimited travel on all trains and buses for 3 days. I arrived at Plan de Cuques and checked into my room. Comfortable enough, including a washing machine and drier. It is a nice little village, with bakeries, the usual range of speciialist food shops, narrow streets and a quiet feel to it. A shower, brief rest and back to Marseille.
Marseille is nothing like Paris. Everyone speaks French, but that would be about it. I guess I had been expecting a port-city version of Paris, with a bit of local flavour. However it is pretty well the opposite of Paris in almost every way. No one dresses ‘chic’ here or does the fornal Parisien thing. Think South Yarra vs Fitzroy/St Kilda, or Darwin vs Sydney. The demographic is interesting, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseille :
“Many Marsellais are descendants of the waves of immigrants that arrived at the port in the early 19th century. For example, many Marseillais are of Armenian, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Russian or North African descent. Unofficial statistics says that approximately a quarter of Marseille’s population is of North African origin, mostly Algerian or Kabyle, and Tunisian. The Jewish community is also said to be the third largest in Europe (France has the largest Jewish community in Europe and the third largest in the world).”

The North African influence is immediately obvious. There is an open Islamic presence as well. The port itself is very beautiful. It is huge, and full of boats - thousands and thousands. I love port cities full of small boats. The port was settled by Phoenicians in 600BC, and original walls remain. When I learnt this, it explained a nagging feeling I had been having : you know, the feeling that maybe the Phoenicians are behind this.
The port is surrounded on 3 sides by restaurants and walks. I am looking forward to a seafood meal; I will treat myself Saturday night for tea. It is also a very large city. The population is just under 2 million. What I find fascinating is the way that there is no zone between residential and commercial. Similar to Barcelona Old Town or Montmartre, 5 storey residential buildings and shops/restaurants are evenyl dispersed and side by side, with residences being more common everywhere. Behind the Galerie Lafayette store is an apartment block with washing hanging out of every other window. And every window I see has wooden shutters; there are millions of them. The overall effect is somehow relaxing. It is hard to take a photo in any direction without including shuttered window apartments and washing. People here really live IN the city.

Also similar to Barcelona or Montmartre, the people are very layback and cruisy. But in a different way. I can see how it had a reputation for being a tough city. The guys tend to look like ex legionnaires, wear tight knitted jumpers, and have a gallic gangster look happening. Very anti-authority I would have thought. There are little alleys and bars everywhere. But a la St Kilda, it ends up seeming much more vibrant than threatening. Very vibrant. So much of the city is old. The old quarter includes a church which was rebuilt in the 1300’s by the Knight Templars. Not built, but rebuilt.

Language wise I am nowhere near fluent, but getting by fine. First time in France I had trouble with the speed of other people talking, but now it seems ok. Very few people here speak any english. In Paris many do, and anticipate a possible switch to english when they hear an accent. But here it is french or nothing. French keyboards are another thing. In editing this entry I have changed the letter Q to A about 60 times. So you may find the odd Q. Also M,L,W Z and X are problematic.

Home again on the metro and bus to Plan de Cuques, a 25 minute trip from port to hotel overall. After 3 airline meals, not hungry at all, and crashed about 8.30pm. This is a good sign sleep wise.

On Thursday 26 October, I left Melbourne bound for France and Ghana. I will be spending the first 3 days in Marseille, then 5 weeks in Ghana, and 2 more days in Paris on the way home. I will be home on December 6.
The trip over was unusually smooth. At Tullamarine, the departure queue had only 1 person in it, so I had my boarding pass 5 minutes after arrival. Both planes on the Melbourne-Bangkok-Paris flight were only partly filled, allowing me to stretch out and sleep reasonably well. Considering it was 26 hours in the air, with a 90 minute stopover in Bangkok, I disembarked feeling relatively refreshed. I got off the plane at Charles de Gaulle around 7.30am Friday (Paris time), took the RER Paris train, which has its own CDG terminals, and was in Paris Central by 8.30am. I arrived at Gare de Lyon in plenty of time to pick up my tickets for the TGV (very fast train) to Marseille, and still have a leisurely breakfast before boarding.
I like the TGV’s. At 300kmh the journey from Paris to Marseille is just over 3 hours, with scenic views and sleepy villages the entire way. They are more comfortble than a plane, have a cafe carriage, and are easier and quicker overall considering airport checkin times. The path is basically the length of France from Paris to the Mediterranean, via Avignon. All very pretty countryside. Roaming on my mobile phone works : tick.
At 1.30pm we pulled into Marseille, Gare St Charles.

If i can read this then we have liftoff. Otherwise, nothing to see here.