A Sunday in Marseille

[Click photos to enlarge]

The Sunday in Marseille started again with most glorious summer weather and a breakfast which was in accordance with the price of 6 €. Our car was allowed to remain to 12 clock in the garage, so we were able to get immediately to the Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Mediterranee, short MuCEM. It was the first Sunday of the month. Since the state museums in France are free. We had oriented at 10 clock, but the museum only opened 11 clock, so we still strolled something at the Old Port.


Just in time 11 clock opened the MuCEM. We used the entrance at Fort Sain Jean. An ingenious solution was created 2013: an airy, lightweight construction on the former pier J4 connected by a footbridge to the old medieval Fort Saint Jean .

It is the first museum of culture and history of the whole Mediterranean area with a permanent exhibition and with constantly changing exhibitions dedicated to. The special exhibition at our time was called "Lieux Saints partagés" (Shared sacred sites). The content were religious sites in the Mediterranean, which are important for Christians, Jews and Muslims.

An interesting feature of Fort Saint Jean is the Mediterranean garden, a small park with typical plants which grow in the Mediterranean and play a role in the religions. The showrooms we have omitted, because our time was a bit limited. The transition to J4 is built as a narrow footbridge. Then the tour begins on the top floor with a nice restaurant. Below are the exhibition floors.

The museum in J4 is just inspiring because of the architecture. The whole building is surrounded by a light- and air-permeable grid structure. This quadrangular building appears by this so light and airy. The space between the grid and the building is accessible. There you can change the individual levels (of course in the traditional manner via a stairway or elevator, too). Also, the exhibition concept has convinced us. Many paintings, sculptures, archaeological pieces are complemented by a variety of multimedia presentations and writing tablets. It takes a lot of time to understand everything (labeling only in French and English). But we would have to borrow audio guides (also in German), we saw, when we left the J4 below. So, we were able to win more than one incomplete, but nevertheless interesting impression.

Now we had to return to the hotel to get our car out of the garage. In a parking lot not far from St. Charles main train station, we found a place easily.

After to repark our car in a parkhouse in the city centre we started a further trip through Marseille. With the metro line 2, we went to the Rond-Point du Prado and then we marched to the Avenue du Prado towards the beach. The Metro was full, and nearly all people went to the bus, which they then took to the Plage du Prado, one of the beaches of Marseilles.

We thought, the way to the beach is not so far and we can walk it afoot. But the distance was 3km and we had 30 ° C! The broad avenue extends dead straight until the coast. Right and left banks, institutions and garden land in southwest direction. At the end we met a "friend" who was standing there: a copy of Michelangelo's David. There we crossed the wide Promenade George Pompidou and now we had the beach in front of us. Of course we had no bathing suits.

It is interesting that originally the sand for beaches was scarce in Marseille. A mayor came up with the brilliant idea to grind the excavation during construction of the Metro and to bank up as beach.

The end of the Avenue du Prado (with David)

Sports and games at the Park Balnèaire

The beach of Prado

The return went back much of the Avenue du Prado along. Until the Rue Paradis. Here we turned in. This road, which leads straight to the center, was also about 3 km long and was certainly not very spectacular and was certainly not a tourist attraction. But we wanted to walk . The last part of the Rue Paradisis a 1A-shopping street. From there it was not far to the car park, in which we had parked our car at noon.