The 5th was a travel day. It began with goodbyes to La Romita and several of the class who were not headed to the Rome airport. The rest of us were on our way to Terminal 1, 2, or 3. The airport gobbled us and eventually disgorged us somewhere else. Our plane was a late afternoon flight that got in early evening, followed by a bus ride to St Charles Station, Marseille's main transit hub. We figured out the two-line subway and found our stop. We contacted our landlord and arranged to meet and get introduced. Move into the new digs. It was her brother and his pre-teen son who met us. The boy was ecstatic at being able to help with translation. We sort of wish we'd borrowed him for the weekend. Our place was two blocks from the action around Vieux Port, which is the center of downtown and the primary tourist area. As soon as we'd washed our faces and changed shirts, we were on the hunt for dinner.
It was a sparkling scene when we walked back to the port and began assessing the menus of the several dozen restaurants lining the quai. We could usually see the food they were serving. After nearly an hour of circulating, we decided to take the next one that didn't leave us cold, which happened to be the next one. We understood that we were paying more than we should, but we were too whipped to search farther out; we'd save that for the rest of the days. At the same time, we knew we were going to have an excellent meal.
One of the great things about the French passion for food and cooking is that you get good food almost everywhere, with the big differences coming from location and price. As we got to know the neighborhoods around us, we picked some favorite places to eat or hang out for any particular time of day. That's a neat thing. Of course, we were just learning how to ride the Marseille transit as we were leaving. Gotta go back for more lessons.
The next morning, the 6th, was our real "first day." We had an agenda that got rolling slowly. Too slowly. The voracious locals and earlier-rising tourists had eaten them all. When we finally found a quality croissant connection, we had walked farther than we planned in search of simple croissants and coffees. Once we found them, we got comfortable for an hour of sketching before we dug into the city. With such a soft start, it seemed likely to be an easy pace all the way, but something got into us and we pushed hard right through sunset.
