After weeks of traveling, I was feeling exceptionally worn out, and so we spent our first morning in Marseille in bed recovering from the near constant motion of the last few weeks. We explored the harbor in the afternoon, which was just down the road from our hostel. We made it out in time to catch the tail end of a market set up along the waters edge and meandered about the harbor snapping pictures and munching on pastries before catching the last bus tour of the day to get a quick overview of the city.
On our second day in Marseille, we decided to take a 40 minute bus trip to Aix En Provence and what a beautiful little provincial city it is! Despite its quaint exterior, in many ways this city really reminded me quite a bit of a small Paris. The main shopping street was dotted with cafés and high-end stores; like a narrower version of the Champs Elysees, while the marble-work fountains could have been taken straight from the Louvre. In other ways it was every inch the clichéd picturesque French country town. People sat in outdoor cafés sipping café au lait and chatting in clipped French, smoke trailing languidly from cigarettes perched daintily between their fingers. There was a boulangerie on every corner and shopping bag trailing foodies examined vegetables with the sort of cooking savoir-faire that I could only dream of achieving. Walking through the Mezarine quarter, we stumbled upon beautiful fountains and old-world streets lined with traditional apartments. Clothing hung from the windows of every house and people meandered down the road carrying a baguette and a bottle of red wine for dinner. A trek through the old town revealed elegantly constructed churches and endearing petite squares with old French couples seated on stone benches and children playing tag with frightened pigeons. Though our day was cut short by an unexpected illness, Aix En Provence was nothing short of charming and, while easily completed in a day, definitely worth the trip. 
We had a productive last day in Marseille, hiking up a monstrous hill and some formidable steps to the church overlooking the harbor, stopping for a quick lunch at Starbucks and a little shopping on the main shopping road, and then continuing on an hour long walk up to the Palais de Longchamps before retiring for a nap. Getting up bright and early, we braved the heat and caught a bus most of the way up the hill to the St. Church. It is a beautiful church situated on the highest point in Marseille and overlooking the harbor directly. St. is the patron saint of Marseille and the church is thought to act like a guardian angel of sorts, looking out for all of the people below. The church was as stunning as every other European church, with golden mosaics and massive arches, as well as a unique Marseille touch in the form of strands of model ships hanging from the ceiling. From the hill on which the church was situated, we could get some fabulous shots of the city and the harbor, as well as enjoy the cooling wind (the very same ones which blew saran wrap over my brownie as Meg went in for a bite, thus inspiring the title of this post) from that vantage point. A quick lunch in Starbucks (Mango Smoothies and a Blueberry muffin really keep up the energy) we began our trek up to the Palais de Longchamps. Although we couldn’t go into the Palace, the façade was reason enough to walk an hour there and an hour back. As you approach the palace, which seems to spring up from nowhere, a vast pond stretches before you, fueled by the beautiful Grecian Fountain high on the front of the building. Imposing stone lions flank the gates and Corinthian-style columns rise from the ground, forming the open body of the palace. The Athenian style of the building combined with the lush greenery of the front gardens and the sparkling lake make for a truly beautiful piece of historic architecture, quite out of place among the crumbling apartments of uptown Marseille.
On our last night in Marseille, we decided to go out to a nice restaurant for a regional tradition known as bouillabaisse. A rule of thumb for European dinners in general is to not expect to be going out before 7-8 and you should expect dinner to last two to three hours. Our meal started around 7:30 and lasted a full two hours and forty-five minutes. The soup itself was what I would call an acquired taste. While I really enjoyed it, Meg, who doesn’t love fish, didn’t particularly love it. It consisted of two courses. First, the soup that cooked the fish, made with a cocktail of local herbs and the catch of the day, followed by a fish course in which you are first presented with a towering pile of the fish used to cook your unique soup and then receive the fish in a bowl. This was the best part of the meal, barring the small bones to be dealt with, because the fish was really well cooked and flavored well with the spices. Definitely a good meal choice for the avid fish-lover visiting Marseille.
As we ate, we were perpetually bombarded with competing music sources, watched carrying a drunk friend become a spectator sport, and generally noticed a surge in the number of people milling about that seemed abnormal even for a bustling port city. It wasn’t until later that we realized it was in fact the summer solstice, and we had kicked off our summer with a bang, munching on bouillabaisse and molleux au chocolat and observing the festivities in the south of France!
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