The French Riviera stretches across the northern beaches of the Mediterranean Sea between Monaco and Spain. About halfway along, one hundred and fifty miles from Monaco, is the French port of Marseille. The red dot marks where I took fifty one photos with the iPhone. Ten of those were videos. This post only has a small sample of those.
The Oceania Marina docked at one end of the port {4} and a bus service was provided to take us to the shopping centre. {45}
The bus is the only safe way to get from the dock to the shopping centre.
We had good company sharing the dock with the Celebrity Constellation.
Since we were not interested in shopping, we took a walk along the road beside the harbour break-wall.
The Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations was a prominent building at the edge of the dock. The ancient watch tower will also show up in other pictures.
The church on the hill is one of the famous churches of France. It is called the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde. It was too far to walk to that church but there was another magnificent Cathedral that was closer. It is called the “Cathedrale La Major” and I am dedicating my next post to it.
From the parking lot at the front of the cathedral, there was a great vantage point to get an overview of this part of the harbour.
Are you familiar with this brand?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a video worth?
The large building at the end of the video is called the Palais du Pharo. It was built in 1858 for Napolean III but he probably never stayed there. It became a hospital for treatment of cholera and tuberculosis patients. From 1905 through 2013 it became an institute specializing in learning about and treating tropical diseases under the name Ecole du Pharo, a part of the French Armed Forces Health Service. The building is now used as a convention centre. There is a grand lawn in front of the palace and two buildings used by the Aix-Marseille University.
On the bus ride back to the ship, I took a picture of these two hard working dock hands. I have seen their twins in other parts of the world. They must be promoting a container logistics company.
Back at the cruise ship terminal I saw another famous cruise ship company updating one of their ships. Notice all of the lifeboats have been set aside while the work goes on inside the ship.
What wonderful photos. I’ve never been to the French Riviera, so thanks for providing these photos and video. I particularly loved the “Cathedrale La Major” and will check out your next blog post with more details on that!