Brigham has dreamed of visiting France every since he learned French in high school. He's used his French as much as possible, teaching our kids bits and pieces, and even used it in one of his jobs. This Sunday in February, he finally had his wish come true, and we docked in Marseille, France. Brigham insisted on attending a French ward so we booked one of the scariest taxi rides (our driver looked hung over and kept falling asleep at the wheel) out to the Marseille branch. The members greeted us with a kiss on each cheek and Brigham was in heaven chatting away.
We couldn't stay too long with so much to see and so little time, so after the Sacrament was over, we left on a bus to check out the Notre Dame Cathedral.
Notre Dame de la Garde is famous for its stripes and those stripes also carried through to the inside of the cathedral.
We lit another candle of prayer here before exploring the grounds.
Notre-Dame is located on top of a giant hill, providing panoramic views of the city of Marseille.
We could see Old Port.
The city is massive and I couldn't fit even half of it in the camera frame.
We could also see the island of If, which the Chateau Di'f from the Count of Monte Cristo resides. The Frioul islands line the background of If along with the Meditteranean Sea. If I had my choice, we would have explored both thoroughly, but we had so much to see in Marseille and so few hours.
Hopping back on a bus, we rode to Old Port to catch another bus line to get to Palais Longchamp.
Old Port seems to be a central hub with dozens of different bus stops to catch different lines. Luckily, we figured out the system quickly and even saw a French fire truck whir by.
Stepping off the bus, we came upon the back of Palais Longchamp, through the park, and started at the top of the glorious fountain before we worked our way down.
The view from the top, Palais Longchamp is a fountain that was created to celebrate the end of a drought.
However, this is no small fountain. Europeans like to go big with their monuments. This is a huge, glorious structure with columns and statues and terraces of water.
The sun was out and it was a definite peaceful part of the large, bustling city. Especially since the area around Palais Longchamp seemed more run down. I loved Palais Longchamp and I was happy we went a little out of the way to see it. Brigham liked pretending to drink the water.
We stopped off at a patisserie before catching our return bus and admired all of the different pastries before we purchased a baguette, some pain de chocolate, a lemon something, and a sugar-type donut.
The baguette was delicious, but we thought Dad could make bread just as top notch. The other pastries we bought were so scrumptious we moaned with delight at each bite.
Our bus brought us back to Old Port where we bought some sweet souvenirs at a candy store to bring back before we walked through the city to get back to our boat.
While we sat and ate our pastries we enjoyed watching Fixer Upper with French voice-overs. It was pretty funny so we took a video to remember.
With our bellies full, we finally found our shuttle back to the cruise ship and we watched the city disappear behind us.
After a well-deserved rest in our stateroom, it was time to head to dinner.
Prawns on pasta sounded delicious.
But I didn't enjoy having to take the shell off the prawn on my own. Especially when it splattered my sweater. I declined the prawns in future dinners.
Lots more fancy food followed before we turned in for the night.
Brigham's french saved our bacon multiple times in navigation and communication, and he loved every second in France. We wished we could have seen a few different areas, but we covered the basics and ate delicious pastries so I count it a win for these newbies.
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