Originally I made no plans for today. It seemed like a good day to sleep in and read up on Germany and Britain. While I was planning how many days to spend in each place, one of my roommates (Fernando from Scotland) I had met yesterday stopped by and asked if I wanted to join him on his trip to the beach. I'm not one to really go to the beach on my own; it's just not that appealing to me usually. When invited, however, it always sounds like the right thing to do. Better to enjoy the sunshine while I can than sit inside.
We walked down to the port and along the S side until we ran into Fort St. Nicolas. It seems like every fort I've come across in France is still being used in some capacity as a military establishment and therefore not open to the public. Fernando seemed curious, so we hiked up the steep incline to find a monument with a large plaque honoring those who died at sea, on land or in the air in service to their countrymen, for the honor of their country and in pursuit of a goal which they didn't get to enjoy. I got about 90% of that from the French--go me! The views of the city were really nice. To the left you could see Chateau D'If and toward the right, the rest of Marseille sprawling out along the coast.
Still not to the beach yet, we pressed onward. After crossing 5 lanes of traffic going in all sorts of directions coming out of the tunnel under the port (at least they put up signs reminding drivers that people walk here even though there really isn't much sidewalk there), we started wondering how far the beach was. I consulted my map and we found it should be fairly close. One beach finally appeared ahead of us with a sandy beach that must have been artificial as most of the coastline is rocky. There was plenty of space so we staked out a patch and kicked back. We waded into the sea at one point, but it was way too cold to do any more despite Fernando's eagerness to swim.
Somehow four hours passed whilst we were enjoying the sun and I had been reading up on future countries. I had eaten a late breakfast, but we had both skipped lunch making us quite famished by 5pm. We walked back to the port seeking a place to eat dinner where we came across a tapas place that looked good. Dinner wouldn't be served until 7pm. What to do with one hour? We settled on drinks and then shifting back over to the restaurant. What great food we had! For E21 we had a pitcher of sangria, bread, and 4 plates 1. Grilled chicken with grill seasoning 2. Mussels with tomatoes and basil, 3. Grilled shrimp with cumin and pepper, 4. Fried calamari. I was certainly stuffed after all of that. The walk back to the hostel helped settle the meal. It made for such a great, well balanced day.
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