Fish.

Every morning, fresh fish is sold at the top of the old port (and right across from the restaurant Marc worked at). Each stall sells different fish/shellfish/octopus type fish and lots of other sea creatures. Some stalls have their fishing boats right behind in the water, with some scruffy looking fisherman. It's really neat to wander by and watch them bargain and butcher the fish. All these pictures were taken last Friday.

Marseille.

We arrived in Marseille at the end of February, Marc began working at Une Table, Au Sud ( http://unetableausud.com/uk_index.htm ) on March 1st. Marseille is the 2nd largest city in France, after Paris, and the largest port. It's a multicultural city with a huge North African population, and also a huge rat population! No joke. Some rat sightings include a very happy rat jumping down the street with half a baguette in his mouth; regular sightings of scurrying rats on the streets at night; and my personal favourite (although thank goodness I never saw this, only heard from Marc) a rat eating a dead rat. Yuckkkkkkkkkk.

The city has some pretty areas, parks, etc, and also some gritty areas. It is like any other metropolitan city and after about 7 weeks in the city, we found some good lunch spots, some nice parks, and an internet cafe we frequented with a friendly owner who soon became Marc's good friend.

The old port, used now as a marina. Prior to steamships, this was the main harbour for merchant ships. It was also taken over by the Nazi's in WWII.

Here, we walked about 2 hours east of the old port, along the coastline.

One of our last days in Marseille, we found this huge fountain with a small park behind.

Some of our favourite eats in Marseille...

There's a nice little lunch place around the corner from Marc's apartment. The owner was a cute little Frenchman who was always happy to see us. He made fresh salads with any combination of bulgur/quino/arugula/watercress/almonds/tomatoes/sundried tomatoes/smoked salmon/prosciutto/mushy peas/lemon/parm/goat's cheese/etc. He also made delicious cheesecake and chocolate tarts, and fresh juices like apple-carrot-orange or strawberry-apple-kiwi.

We regularly got pastries or baguettes for nutella sandwiches. Here's Marc with a Peche (surprisingly no peach flavour, only a peach shape).

Rose, champagne, beer and cheese! When in France... and so delicious.

Uncle Howard and Aunt Tilly were on a cruise which just happened to dock in Marseille. Somehow, between the huge docks and all the construction, we just happened to be looking for each other in the same place and we got to spend the day together. So, we started with a typical French past-time, cafe.

...after some shopping and lunch outside at another cafe, we took the petit train touristique and did a little grocery shopping...

...before boarding their ship for their next destination. Bon Voyage!

Our last few days in Marseille we bought some last minute items...Marc carrying the 'heavy' luggage (fyi-tram behind)...

...and I had to get my picture taken infront of this shop, which I often passed. If you're looking for a ski suit from the 80s, you can find a great selection at this shop.

Au revoir apartment! (...if you look closely, you can see our nutella and baguette)

...salut! apartment entrance (Marc's apartment is the small windows on the floor above the door).

Still to post: pics from the fish market, held every morning at the old port with loads of different sea creatures on sale; and a posting from the chef himself!

Nice.

Nice was nice. We had the best, and cheapest Nutella crepe here, made by the new guy working in the shop....so it was loaded with half a bottle of the delicious hazelnut chocolate spread. We've started to judge an area by the price of a nutella crepe. Very touristy areas will charge up to 4Eur, we pay no more than 2.50Eur, then also know we are off the tourist track. So please, send money for our Nutella fund! (We're also addicted to nutella on baguette).

Marc expanding his mind while tanning at our hostel.

A day trip to Eze village...specacular views!

More knowledge expanding...

The streets below the lookout point of Eze village

The next day we went on another day trip to Villefranche-sur-mer, a little disappointing town, everything was closed. Then we found a seaside hike back to Nice (similar to our Monaco walk but defined as 'medium difficulty'). It was really pretty and we had lots of views of the big Corsica ferry ships.

Above pic - we hiked 308 steps to get to the top (below pic)

Nice port, the yellow ship is the ferry to Corsica

There just happened to be this big carnival happening in Nice, so we watched the night parade from outside the barriers. Kids were dressed up in costumes and everyone was spraying silly string and throwing confetti, it was pretty neat.

The floats were pretty impressive...

...by the way, the theme was 'under the sea'.

(...FYI, I'm about 7 weeks behind blog postings, to where we actually are in our trip! Right now we're in Cork, Ireland looking for an apartment, and as soon as we do, we'll be doing a bit of travelling through Ireland/UK until Marc starts work May 2nd - his time in the Marseille kitchen is now done! ...and Marc's Mom is here with us now!)

Menton, part trois.

Menton is famous for it's lemons and every year they have a citrus festival. There are lots of lemons. And oranges too. And that's about all there is to say about that....oh, but no limes.