Daron, Melanie, Stephen, Kassie, and Kenny

Friday, June 3, 2011

Off to Marseille, France!

What a treat for us to enjoy the 2nd largest city in France… and to take a tour out into the Mediterranean to visit several islands, including ‘If’ where we walked thru the Chateau d’If… the legendary prison from The Count of Monte Cristo! Stephen especially loved it since he just finished reading the (unabridged) book.  We stayed in another Formula1 Hotel – very nice, and the kids of course loved the “bed, bread, and spread” (bunkbed, and breakfast of soft bread with nutella spread…)

We loved walking on the pier past the fish sellers in their fresh fish market – very cool to see all the things they just caught out of the turquoise blue water – fish, octopus, lobster, and big sting rays!  We jumped onto the boat, just barely made it onboard as the last passengers – we sailed past the fort that used to guard the port and the Notre Dame church up on the hill overlooking the city – the view of Marseille once we were out in the water was just beautiful. Kassie thought she might get seasick so the poor guy next to her moved his stuff after seeing her face…

 



That's Marseille behind Daron and the kids ~




D’if was so cool – we totally felt like Edmond Dantes… we got to walk thru the cells where real people were housed – can’t even imagine being cooped up in one of those dark prisons for years ~ some had no light at all, and some, if your family was rich, had a seaward view. They’ve made 23 movies from the Count of Monte Cristo – amazing. The kids’ favorite thing, we think, was talking to the seagull they named SuperDuck (because he apparently told the kids and Daron that was his name ~ they’ve been on this talking animal kick ever since they watched the funny youtube video of the talking dog: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504784_162-20058858-10391705.html?tag=re3.popula).

 

 We’ve never seen a double-decker carousel – that was fun to ride!

No comments:

Post a Comment