Last Thursday Sept. 5, shortly after noon, we drove to Pearson International with Jessie to catch our Air France flight to Marseilles. We were early as usual, which is fine with us - no stress with the totally unpredictable 401. We’re good at this now. A little early, head for the Sheraton and in this case we had lunch. The beni of flying Air France is that the Sheraton is at the same terminal. Anyway, after that interminable line up process, we took off with the other 350 hot bodies for Paris. The next leg to Marseilles of slightly more than an hour was much more tolerable.
In Paris we got a text from Bill Fraser saying that he and Brenda were in Marseilles for the night. We knew they’d rented a property in the Luberon for a week, but didn’t know when or how they were getting there. We proceeded to text back and forth and set up a meeting in Marseilles.
We landed in blue skies and summer heat. Bienvenue en France! Now we were ready for a new adventure - get to Marseilles without a leased car - I say leased only because we’ve never rented a car. So we got to The Marseilles Mercure Vieux Port Hotel via a cab for a cool 55 euros. Maybe we should have explored the bus.
The hotel had a great location, beside the ancient port which is currently an archaeological site. That and a fabulous vista of the city and Notre Dame de la Garde were affordable from our 10th floor room. This four star hotel was a pretty good deal at 110 euros for the night.
We were also only a block from the old harbour, and to try to adjust to the time change, we headed out to La Marseillais, a harbour front restaurant where the Frasers had made reservations.
The speciality here was Marseilles meals from the sea, so I had a salted dourade done in a complete crust of salt and then filleted at the table. Brenda, Bill and Dawn had bouillabaisse which was brought out in a large platter and served from there.
As we sat at our table we - not just me - remarked - once again - on the quality of French women. It is said that French women dress for men whereas North American women dress for women. Needless to say - Vive la France!
We had a great visit/meal and then returned to the hotel for a jet-lag crash, not sure whether or not any of us would ever awake for dinner.
Thanks to alarms, we did arise and walked up to Gare St. Charles to see about the next part of our new adventure - a train trip to Orange. We discovered that this recce was well advised, as getting tickets was not perfectly straight forward. We did however, walk away with tickets for the train to Lyon on Saturday with a stop in Orange, for 54 euros. Need I remind anyone what we paid for the cab?
We continued down to the old port again and enjoyed the ambience of the tourist traffic. They’ve created a number of funky sculptures of African animals, which are situated around the port and are great photo ops. Also, they’ve constructed an area with a flat roof that has a mirrored bottom and is extremely cool to walk beneath and take pictures beneath, day and night.
Through texting, we met up with the Frasers again at a little bistro along the port called Bar De La Marine. This name meant nothing to us until we talked to Brenda, who informed us that this was the bar used in the movie Love Actually, where Colin Firth’s character asks his Portuguese housekeeper to marry him. She was standing on the balcony where the girls are standing in this picture. The film producers certainly chose an authentic location for their shoot.
Dinner was rose and tapas - PERFECT! The bonus was that everyone stayed awake. Our tapas included duck breast on toast, skewers of coquille St. Jacques, fig compote, chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, crispy mussels, foie gras and calamari.
We parted company hoping to meet up sometime in the next week - somewhere - and then departed to crash at our hotels.
Alarms got us going the next day and after a short cab ride to the train station - only 10 euros this time - we found some breakfast and awaited the announcement of from which of the 15 tracks our train would depart.
The train ride was quick and smooth and one and a half hours and 4 stops later, we arrived at Orange. Here, we were to find a cab to Cairanne. Easier than it sounds. First of all, not all cabs will venture out of the city. Secondly, standing at the station cab stand will do you no good, because no cabs show up. But, with help from the proprietor of the Hotel de Provence and close to an hour after we arrived, we got a nice lady cabbie who knew Cairanne and took us to Chez Pigeon - for only 21 euros + a 4 euro tip.
The cleaning lady was still busy after the last tenants, so we dumped our bags, got in Peter’s car and took off to Carrefour in Orange for groceries.
Close to 400 euros later and a trunk full, we headed back to Cairanne to unpack and settle in. During this time the weather had changed and rain threatened. We didn’t care. We just wanted to unpack and crash - AGAIN!
Now as I write this, the rain is falling, but we’re here, tired and happy. What a great spot to unwind! And drink good wine! Damn the weather!
The hotel had a great location, beside the ancient port which is currently an archaeological site. That and a fabulous vista of the city and Notre Dame de la Garde were affordable from our 10th floor room. This four star hotel was a pretty good deal at 110 euros for the night.
We were also only a block from the old harbour, and to try to adjust to the time change, we headed out to La Marseillais, a harbour front restaurant where the Frasers had made reservations.
The speciality here was Marseilles meals from the sea, so I had a salted dourade done in a complete crust of salt and then filleted at the table. Brenda, Bill and Dawn had bouillabaisse which was brought out in a large platter and served from there.
As we sat at our table we - not just me - remarked - once again - on the quality of French women. It is said that French women dress for men whereas North American women dress for women. Needless to say - Vive la France!
We had a great visit/meal and then returned to the hotel for a jet-lag crash, not sure whether or not any of us would ever awake for dinner.
Thanks to alarms, we did arise and walked up to Gare St. Charles to see about the next part of our new adventure - a train trip to Orange. We discovered that this recce was well advised, as getting tickets was not perfectly straight forward. We did however, walk away with tickets for the train to Lyon on Saturday with a stop in Orange, for 54 euros. Need I remind anyone what we paid for the cab?
We continued down to the old port again and enjoyed the ambience of the tourist traffic. They’ve created a number of funky sculptures of African animals, which are situated around the port and are great photo ops. Also, they’ve constructed an area with a flat roof that has a mirrored bottom and is extremely cool to walk beneath and take pictures beneath, day and night.
Through texting, we met up with the Frasers again at a little bistro along the port called Bar De La Marine. This name meant nothing to us until we talked to Brenda, who informed us that this was the bar used in the movie Love Actually, where Colin Firth’s character asks his Portuguese housekeeper to marry him. She was standing on the balcony where the girls are standing in this picture. The film producers certainly chose an authentic location for their shoot.
Dinner was rose and tapas - PERFECT! The bonus was that everyone stayed awake. Our tapas included duck breast on toast, skewers of coquille St. Jacques, fig compote, chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, crispy mussels, foie gras and calamari.
We parted company hoping to meet up sometime in the next week - somewhere - and then departed to crash at our hotels.
Alarms got us going the next day and after a short cab ride to the train station - only 10 euros this time - we found some breakfast and awaited the announcement of from which of the 15 tracks our train would depart.
The train ride was quick and smooth and one and a half hours and 4 stops later, we arrived at Orange. Here, we were to find a cab to Cairanne. Easier than it sounds. First of all, not all cabs will venture out of the city. Secondly, standing at the station cab stand will do you no good, because no cabs show up. But, with help from the proprietor of the Hotel de Provence and close to an hour after we arrived, we got a nice lady cabbie who knew Cairanne and took us to Chez Pigeon - for only 21 euros + a 4 euro tip.
The cleaning lady was still busy after the last tenants, so we dumped our bags, got in Peter’s car and took off to Carrefour in Orange for groceries.
Close to 400 euros later and a trunk full, we headed back to Cairanne to unpack and settle in. During this time the weather had changed and rain threatened. We didn’t care. We just wanted to unpack and crash - AGAIN!
Now as I write this, the rain is falling, but we’re here, tired and happy. What a great spot to unwind! And drink good wine! Damn the weather!
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