Alex Hotel was beautifully decorated in different color blues with white mixed in. The receptionist, Celia, was quite friendly and helpful. Since our rooms were not ready, we went for a quick beer at a cafe next door, which was much needed on a hot summer day! The waiter did not speak any English, so I decided to turn on my travel pass, to use google translate. Once we got all checked in and settled in our modern rooms, we headed down to the port, which was so packed with tourists, it reminded me of Times Square.
Everything in Marseille was designed around the port, which has been incredibly important to the people there for thousands of years. Restaurants line the walkways and even the streets behind the main road. Yachts and sailboats fill the entire port! We walked around all of them to reach the hop-on-hop-off bus. The Color Bus offered a highlight tour of the city.
The most notable attraction was the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde. This enormous Catholic Church sits atop another mountain southwest of the train station. Along the route we viewed the fort used to protect the city, the prison where the man in the iron mask was kept, the Cathédrale Le Major, several museums, including the Mucem which is dedicated to the people of the Mediterranean and the gorgeous coast! We learned how to take the Metro back up to our hotel, since it was up a mountain. Dinner was down by the port at an Italian restaurant called Fuxia. It was a recommendation of Celia, and ended up being quite tasty. Nothing like having Italian food on your first night in France!
Saturday we walked back to the port and took bus number 60 up to the basilica. What a sight this church is, inside and out! The view from the top is incredible with a 360 degree panorama! It gives you some perspective on the size of Marseille, which is pretty big! We then took bus 60 back down to the port and walked to Le Panier, the oldest part of the city. This area of town, though touristy, is much quieter and far less crowded. It would be easy to get lost on the labyrinth-like streets! The walls of many homes are spray painted with unique art, not the big bubble letters you find in many other cities. We enjoyed a cappuccino and tea on Le Panier Place, listening to a violinist playing with an enormous painting of a fisherman walking in the port behind him. It was quite lovely!
After finding our way out of the maze, we ended up at Cathédrale Le Major, which is tremendous in size and beauty. We also walked down to the Mucem to check out the building’s design. We continued on toward the port and stopped for lunch at one of the hundreds of restaurants on the wharf. I had the most unbelievably moist, light, fluffy, and delicious broccoli and feta quiche! Bets even got one, but quiche Lorraine. Hers was quite good as well, but I definitely liked mine more! After lunch we returned to the top of the hill and grabbed a beer at the same French cafe as the day before waiting for our train departure.
Off to Nice! Upon arrival, we checked in at the Hotel Monsigny and quickly grabbed all of our laundry to do around the corner. While we waited, Bets went for some wine at the local grocery and brought it back opened and ready to drink. We spent about an hour there listening to Mamma Mia since we were the only ones doing laundry on a Saturday night! Dinner was next on the list when we finished. We ended up going to the patio restaurant at the hotel. I had the most delicious steak with mushroom sauce cooked exactly as I wanted it. Thank you google translate! Bets was not so lucky. Her burger was medium rare/rare. The hotel also had a rooftop bar, so we went up after dinner for a cocktail to cap off the night.
Sunday morning brought our guided tour to Eze, Monaco, Cannes and Antibes. Ava picked us up at the hotel and then another two ladies after us from San Francisco. We headed off to Eze, which is a petite town on the coast with its old town sitting on top of a cliff. This was yet another town that was like a maze. We had a limited time and ended up going to the top of the hotel side, but came across some lovely foliage, shops and quite a few tourists. It was a very artsy town. Once we got to the bottom, we stopped for a quick cappuccino and tea, which was well-deserved after our trek up! Back in the van Ava told us about Sir Elton John’s house at the top of one of the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean. We also learned that King Leopold II of Belgium owned a large property worth about $500 million now!
The next stop, old town Monaco where the prince resides in his palace overlooking the new town below. One fun tidbit from Ava was that in a blue cylindrical building on the north side of the country, in its two whole kilometers, had a 5 story penthouse with a slide to get you from floor to floor! We wandered around old town for awhile, seeing Jacques Cousteau’s submarine, getting a glimpse of the Catholic Church, and having lunch for about an hour, which for me was buffalo mozzarella, yum!
Ava took us down to the new town and we rode the Grand Prix from start to the Monte Carlo Casino. There we disembarked for a quick jaunt to the tourism office for our official passport stamp! This one was actually free! They can afford it! We finished the Grand Prix drive and headed off back to Nice, picking up two additional passengers for the afternoon.
We cruised down the highway on our way to Cannes. The saw two buildings built to look similar to the great pyramids. The design was meant to provide a sea view for every condominium inside. Once we arrived in Cannes, we walked over to the red carpet for our photos and checked out the handprints of some of the great actors who have been honored there. It was ridiculously hot, so we went for some glacé. I had mango cream and white chocolate, which was refreshing and delicious. In Antibes, we walked through the Main Street doing some window shopping. Ava recommended the gelato at one restaurant, so we indulged. Oh well, it’s vacation! This time, I got vanilla and amarena. For a 93 degree day, it was warranted! We also walked up to the ramparts to get a good view of the beach and the opposite coast of Nice. It was a cute little beach town and actually had sandy beaches, which is not the case in Nice! We drove past miles of public beach afterwards, which were lined with rocks. The water looked amazing! Ava dropped us back at our hotel and we said farewell. She was a fantastic tour guide, and she wasn’t even French! She was from Latvia and had moved to Nice 5 years prior.
For dinner, we decided on a family place called Restaurant Saetone. They didn’t really speak English, so that was a challenge (no google translate today). Bets got lasagna bolognese and I ordered a pot of seafood with mussels, clams, shrimp, whelk (even though I didn’t know what that was), cod and salmon. Mine ended up being fantastic and I even tried the whelk, aka snail. Even though Bets’ food was cold, she liked the taste. While we were drinking our wine, two 28 year old guys came up to our table informing us they were from Delaware too! The lovely Australian woman we had talked to on our way in told them about us. The one guy went to Sallies and the other one actually went to goldey beacom college! Small world!
Monday was our opportunity to see the actual city of Nice. We took the tram down a few stations to Massena, which was an massive square a few blocks up from the beach. This is where we caught the Grand Teur of Nice. The bus trip was about an hour and forty minutes, which was probably the longest we had ever been on. I’m sure it had something to do with the enormity of the city. I had no idea how big Nice really was. The tour took us down the coast, into town to see all of the different museums, last the library which is shaped like a person’s head with a cube from the mouth up. We also saw some of the gorgeous hotels, even the Regina hotel where Queen Victoria stayed when she went to Nice. When we finished the tour, we decided to go to the Collins du Chateau Park, which we were able to take a lift (ascensor) to the top (thanks to Ava) of to get an exceptional view of the city below. The park had ruins of the chateau that was originally built there, but ordered to be knocked down by Louis XIV. It later became a cemetery and now is a park!
After coming down the mountain, we grabbed some lunch (petit de’jeuner) in the marketplace. I ate an entire pot of mussels cooked in white wine sauce (tres bien)! From lunch, we began our search for a private beach. It was in the 90s again, so a swim was a must! Plus, I’ll take every opportunity to get into the Mediterranean! We found a place called Ruhl Plage, which had chairs and umbrellas available. Bets grabbed a seat in the bar/restaurant area and I got my chair, which of course went unused since I spent an hour and a half floating in the temperate sea!
For dinner we went to a restaurant that puts all of their meals out on a cutting board instead of a plate. They only serve 7 or 8 items. I got prime rib and Bets got pot roast. The prime rib was two huge cuts of beef with an excellent flavor. The pot roast was so well cooked it fell apart when you put your fork in it. It was a unique restaurant with tasty food!
Tuesday morning we headed back down to the beach area to walk around and have some breakfast. I went into a cute little shop with different kinds of pastries including beignets! I got a chocolate croissant and two fruits de rouges beignets! Yum! We headed back to the hotel to check out and grab some food for the train ride. I got two peaches and two bags of olives.
Upon our arrival in Dijon, we walked past two historic churches and found our hotel Hostellerie du Chapeau Rouge. It was a 4 star hotel, so it had a pretentious feel to it. The rooms were quite large, with a separate room for the toilet.
We headed out on the town looking for something to eat. The Main Street is Rue de la Liberté, which has a huge archway at the start of the street. Our walk took us to Place de la Libération, which was a huge square filled with people watching a cultural performance on stage. We happened to arrive during some kind of cultural festival, where everyone was dressed in their native clothes and people performed dances and songs. The square is massive with beautiful limestone buildings, restaurants lining them and various fountains in the middle. We ended up going to a restaurant next to an Eiffel carousel in a building that looked more German than French. They had the classic meals of the region though, which included beef burgundy!
Wednesday morning we met our tour group at a British telephone booth by the group tourism center, Divia. The group consisted of three young couples - one from Toronto, Canada, one from Bombay, India and the last from Singapore/Korea. Our tour guide, Anne, was originally from a small town outside of Bruges in Belgium. It was quite an interesting group!
The first stop on the tour was at a winery on the way to Beaune. Most wineries in Burgundy are quite small and don’t do wine tastings. This one had wine from various wineries and had their own cellars, which is where we did our first tasting. We sampled a sparking wine, creme, which was extra dry and just like champagne. Since it wasn’t made in Champagne, it cannot be called that. It has to be called sparkling wine. We had two Chardonnays and three Pinot Noir. These are the only grapes grown in Burgundy, so they are the only wines made. They don’t do blends there. We learned a ton about what makes great wine. The most important part is the soil, terroir (pronounced telwarr). The AOC created a system of rating the terroir on each vineyard. Based on this system, there are Grand Crus, which are the very best. Some of this wine can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars. Next comes Premier Cru followed by Village. We tried all of these! The Grand Cru we had was only about 150 Euros. It was a Pinot Noir and boy was it good.
For lunch, we stopped in the town of Beaune, known for its top notch wines. We had lunch at Au Grand Cafe. I had a tasty croque madame and salad with a decent mustard vinaigrette (I say decent because I don’t like mustard). We had some time to walk around the town. It had some cute local shops and some chains, like Sephora. I really needed an eyeliner, so we popped in for a few minutes. Nothing getting makeup in Beaune!
In the afternoon, we took the scenic route amongst the vineyards instead of the Nationale Highway. Our second stop was at Chateau Corton. There was had another 3 whites and 3 reds. Burgundy is not a place where you see enormous chalets with vineyards all around. Instead, there is a small building somewhere next to a field of vines facing the best direction for the leaves to receive the best sunlight. The more sunlight they get, the less acidic the wine. Something I found very interesting was that they are not allowed to irrigate. This is why when you get a wine, certain years are better than others. Some colder and drier years make wine that is not very good, whereas years with plenty of sunlight and rain produce some of the best wine! Anyway, we started with the village wine, then premier, and finally Grand Cru. The 2015 premier Pinot Noir was excellent. Apparently most of it is already sold out!
On the way back to Dijon, we stopped near the monks’ chateau. They were winemakers and were the first to record their findings with the soil. They helped to create the current AOC system! We were able to stand amongst the Grand Cru fields and view the chateau below.
Back in town, we started to follow the owl trail to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Right around the corner was a cute wine bar that Anne had suggested called La Pharmacy. I imagine the name had something to do with wine being medicine. Louis XIV was prescribed wine for his stomach problems and he ended up drinking Burgundy wine because it was so much better than the wine from the Paris region. The people in France still have a tendency to prescribe plenty of wine!
After the wine bar, we followed more of the owl trail past the Place de la Libération and down to the theater. We had dinner at Marco Polo next door until it began to rain. Then we made a brisk walk back to the hotel just in time.
On Thursday, we hopped a train to Paris! Getting to our hotel was a challenge. Upon arrival at Gare de Lyon, we found the yellow 1 Metro and took it one stop to Bastille. Then we navigated the subway signs up and down stairs, with two 50 pound suitcases! We finally found the end of the purple 8 line to Balard and caught that train to Grands Boulevard. I went east instead of north so we had to loop around to get to the hotel, but it wasn’t too far out of the way! Arrival at Hotel 34B was never so sweet! We quickly dropped off our bags and were on our way!
Our first stop was outside the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We took a few pictures and then headed straight to the Louvre. I had no idea the enormity of this place. I now can completely understand why it can take days to go through the whole thing! The Louvre has three wings, the Danon, the Richelieu and the Sully. When we first entered, we were in the Danon and Sully. When we went on our guided tour an hour later, we ended up seeing many similar artifacts!
Our tour guide through the masses of people was excellent. We started with an explanation of how the building became what it is today. I had always been confused when watching the tv show “Versailles” why they called the Paris palace the Louvre - because that was Louis XIV’s palace in Paris! It actually started as a fort, with a moat around it. When you go into the medieval part of the Sully wing, you can see some of the original foundation and base of the towers. Later it was a palace and finally it was turned into a museum.
The tour continued past the Sphinx uncovered in Egypt. The Louvre has one and the other is still in Africa. Our guide explained the three signs of a pharaoh - a headdress that would have been made of of linen, a cobra on the forehead for protection and a beard. After the Sphinx, we ventured up the stairs to the Roman wing where we focused our attention on the ceiling with paintings and sculptures bordered in gold. This style was popular in Rome during the time Louis XIV was king, so he designed the Louvre and Versailles this way. The ceiling we were gazing at was that of the queen mother! Next up was a statue of Athena, or so they speculated. She was missing her arms. When determining the statue depictions, they depend on what is in the hands or on the arms because they are often holding something that would be their signature. Later we moved on to a statue of a Greek goddess with wings on the bow of a ship. It was located at the top of a staircase because it was originally positioned in a theater at the same location above. We were viewing the statue like the people did thousands of years ago.
The tour moved on to the European paintings. We started with 5 da Vinci paintings, including Madona of the Rocks. One of the paintings had recently been restored to reveal the hidden colors beneath. It was such a contrast to the painting next to it! Our group then moved onto the Mona Lisa. We were informed to beware pickpockets! The painting was swarmed with people, naturally. Something interesting that I learned is that all of the paintings at the Louvre Museum are there because da Vinci died in France. All of his work on display may or may not have been finished!
After the da Vinci’s we moved on to French painters. We looked at a David painting of Napoleon’s coronation. In the painting, he is crowning his wife with the pope sitting behind him, demonstrating the separation between church and state. He crowned himself. The reason the painter was able to make such detailed faces of each person at the ceremony was because he had each person sit for him individually after the event. Napoleon’s mother was not present because she didn’t agree with the ceremony plans. She is in the painting though because Napoleon thought it would look bad if she wasn’t present. We looked at a Gericault painting that was a political statement at the time. 150 men went down in a ship and no on game to save them for 13 days. The painting portrays the men on a raft that made it off the ship. Some are dead, some lost hope, and others managed to survive. This event was one that the French tried to bury, so it was quite a statement tha Gericault brought it to light in his work. The last painting we looked at was one of the French Revolution by Delacrux. It was actually used in creating some of the characters for Les Miserables. The boy in the painting was Gavroche!
After the Louvre, we made the two mile trip to the Eiffel Tower by bus. We ended up entering the south entrance and went through security. The sight was spectacular from below. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, we ascended to the base of the tower. We found the line for the summit, and waited another 30 minutes with a woman and her husband and brother from Chicago. At the top, you can truly see how enormous Paris really is. It goes on and on in every direction! Location, location, location! They are miles from the ocean coast, so they didn’t have to worry about running out of space! We took time to find all of the key tourist spots (mostly the ones we had already seen). On our way back down, we stopped at the second floor to scope out the view from another vantage point. Once you have seen it from the top, the 2nd floor just doesn’t compare!
We walked along the Seine on the way to the Metro. The sun was setting and the Eiffel Tower was in the background. What a beautiful evening! To get to the Metro, we cut though the museum of modern art. They actually had a life-size dollhouse outside the museum. We finally got back to the hotel around 9, after waking about 12 miles!
For dinner, we went to a cute cafe across the street from our hotel. I had steak and mashed potatoes and Bets had a cheeseburger. All I wanted was to lay in bed with my feet up!
Friday we headed to Normandy on the 10:10 train from Gare Saint-Lazare. It actually got pretty chilly overnight, so it was a great day for leggings and long sleeves!
Adrienne picked us up for our Normandy tour at the train station along with a young couple from Chicago. From there, we made two more stops picking up another two couples, one from Mississippi and the other from Woodbridge, VA.
Our first stop was Pointe du Hoc. This was the first place the Americans attacked because they had 6 long guns that could be used to destroy the ships approaching the coast. An army ranger battalion was tasked with taking this point. They were successful, but the crazy thing was that the guns weren’t even there! They had been moved a mile inland due to the Germans building 6 bunkers to house them. They had begun construction in April of 1944 and only finished two of the bunkers. After the Americans took over the point, the other troops could advance.
Utah Beach was “an easy landing.” There were only 48 casualties there for multiple reasons. First, the army air corps had bombed further inland and some of the Germans who were guarding Utah Beach left to go reinforce where the bombings occurred. Also, the commander of those troops was able to land their boats right on the mark due to the north/south directionality.
Omaha Beach was another story and our second stop. Almost the entire first wave of fighters was lost for many reasons. First, the Germans were on the bluffs above the beach at the end points of the crescent-shaped beach with long range guns and were able to fire on anyone or anything on the beach below. Also, the Allied troops came in at low tide to prevent the boats from hitting land mines, which meant they had about 500 yards of beach to cross. The water in the English Channel was in the high 50s at the time and it had been storming the night before, so conditions were terrible. Many of the second wave of troops were lost as well. The commander almost gave up, but one group was able to take over one of the gun points on the right side of the crescent. From there the next waves were sent, and the allies were able to take control of the 5 main roads that lead from the beach, one by one. The 1st, seasoned troops were in charge of the east. The 29th reserves were responsible for the west. They struggled, but due to a ship that ended up being beached, they were able to gain control of the last German strongholds. The fight went from about 6 am until 11 pm. From there, with success up and down the beach, ships filled with resources were able to enter France and begin regaining town by town, city by city.
Thousands of soldiers, with an average age of between 23 and 24 died.
The memorial and cemetery, our final stop, are on French soil, but are controlled by the United States government. All families of the known casualties were given the choice of keeping their loved ones buried in the Normandy cemetery or having them shipped to the states. 61% were shipped back. There are around 1,500 men still missing, most likely lost in a sea that never gives anything back. A beautiful wall at the memorial shows the names of all men who were never found. Around 800 men of the 262 infantry 66th division were listed due to their ship being sunk by a German U-Boat on Christmas Eve, 1944. They were on their way as reinforcements for the Battle of the Bulge.
What a tour! From witnessing the high cliffs where the soldiers climbed to imagining the struggle of each person stepping foot on Omaha Beach, and then finally feeling the serenity of the memorial, it was quite an experience! Adrienne was fantastic and could not be more knowledgeable! I would come back just to have another tour with him! Apparently he does different ones!
