Yesterday a few of us decided to check out Marseille. Megan, Brae, Jasper, Jordi (an international student from Mexico), Jerrica, Margo (an American student from California), and I met at around 9:30 to catch a bus at 10 to Marseille. The bus trip only took about 20-25 minutes and when we got there, we headed straight for Le Vieux Port.
As we were walking in Marseille, it was kind of spitting cold rain. At Le Vieux Port (or the old harbor/port), there was a fish market which was really cool. All of these fishermen and women from the area go out early in the morning and then come and show their goods for others to buy. It seemed very medieval to me but it was awesome that it’s still very much a part of modern-day life to me.
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| Fish Market |
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| Fish Market |
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| A Fisherman whacking away at a fish for his customers (he was covered in blood and while it was a gruesome sight, it was also kind of fascinating) |
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| A Fisherman and Boat in Le Vieux Port |
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| A Grumpy-looking old Fisherman with Fish and Eels |
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| Le Vieux Port |
After seeing the fish market, we walked around for a little while trying to find somewhere to sit and get something warm to drink. At this point it had started to rain a bit harder and was getting increasingly colder. Finally everyone decided to try and find this falafel place. I don’t much like falafel and I had brought my own lunch so I decided to do something that will probably make my mother faint. I broke off from the group. :) I had wanted to see the Basilique de Notre Dame de la Garde (or the basilica of our mother of the guard) and since it was such a crappy day, no one wanted to go because the view would be pretty bad due to fog and rain. So I waited for the bus and headed up the hill towards the basilica.
Once I got up there the wind was whipping so fast that I almost lost my beret and balance a few times. But I finally got up to the top and went into the basilica. Every time I walk into a new cathedral, chapel, abbey, basilica, etc, I get this exciting feeling about what I’m going to see. As I make my way there, I think of all of the people who have ever come to worship there and what they thought of their place of worship. I think of who built it and why they chose to represent certain things in the art, paintings, and mosaics. And every time I try to think of how I felt in the last cathedral. Every time a feeling of awe and amazement floods over me. No matter if I’ve seen pictures or heard rumors of how awesome/not awesome a place is. I walk in and bam!, I’m just in awe.
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| ND de la Garde |
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| The Altar of ND de la Garde |
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| Breathtaking Mosaics :) |
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| More breathtaking Mosaics |
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| ND de la Garde |
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| ND de la Garde |
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| Beautiful Mosaics behind the altar (you can see the ship represented prominently) |
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| ND de la Garde |
At the basilica the art and decoration is very centered on the sea, ships, and the port. There were ships in the mosaics, ship sterns decorating the pillars, garlands of ships and planes, and sailor memorabilia decorating the walls. Never before had I seen a place of worship so decorated in something that had little to do with Catholicism. Don’t get me wrong, there were the prerequisite artworks depicting biblical stories but there were an equal number of mosaics depicting the sea, sailors, and ships. In my opinion it was amazing. I always think that Catholicism (and religion in general) is too one-sided. It represents one way of thinking about God and the bible; but here was a congregation that had taken its view of Catholicism and shown it for the world to see. Their worldview, focusing heavily on the sea and how it’s affected their lives, could be seen very clearly in their praise and worship of God and it was really quite inspiring.
After seeing the basilica and the crypt, I headed back down to Le Vieux Port. I texted the group saying that I was back and they instructed me to meet them at Shop Square in Marseille. Almost a half an hour later, I found Shop Square and texted them to see where they were. They responded that they were no longer there and had moved on to another place. So after asking at least 4 different people and looking at my map, I found where they were. Apparently they hadn’t worried about me or my whereabouts. And while I realize that I am not an infant and would have been perfectly capable finding my way back to Aix if I could not find them, that’s not exactly the point. When I’m in a group of people, I make sure that everyone in the group is together and safe. Which seems, at least to me, to be a stretch for some people. It just boggles my mind sometimes how very little others think about the people around them. Even if they know them.
Anyway the place at which I met up with them was L’Abbaye de Saint Victor. And wow was it truly amazing. Again all these thoughts about its past, the people who walked by it, the people who worshiped there, etc, flooded my mind. And when I walked through the door, it was beautiful. A medieval abbey built in the 5th and 6th centuries, it was rebuilt in the 12th century. As I looked around at the stones, I wondered who worked to put them there, who had walked past them in the last few hundred years, who had seen this place as home? To me, cathedrals and abbeys and other places of worship hold so much history and insight into life, love, happiness, strength, and peace. And the abbey of Saint Victor was definitely one of the highlights of my trip. :)
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| L'Abbaye de Saint Victor |
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| The altar of the Abbey (breathtaking, isn't it?) |
After the abbey, Megan, Jerrica and I decided to head back to Aix. It was just too cold and rainy to really enjoy much more of Marseille. After taking the bus from Marseille to Aix, we were walking back to our dorms when all of a sudden Megan stepped in a huge puddle. Jerrica and I could not stop laughing. It seems that after an exhausting day of walking in the rain, even the smallest things are quite funny. As it began to rain harder, we noticed that Megan had some kind of foam on her cloth boots. She quickly wiped it off thinking it was something from the puddle, but a few minutes later it was back. As Jerrica and I died laughing, Megan explained that she thought her foot was creating foam.
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| Le Liquide Lessive :) |
But we later realized that it was because she had accidentally spilt laundry detergent on her boots and when it mixed with the rainwater, it foamed up her shoe. :) All in all it was a great ending to an equally great day.
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