Marseille
"Marseillais, pas Francais!"
 

Two joined photos of Marseille harbour taken Northward from the Chateau du Pharo, a classical palace built for Napoleon III at the tip of Pharo, the peninsula that creates the natural harbour now called "Vieux Port" (it might be off your screen at the right side. Then scroll right with scroll bar under this window). Greek sailors found and started to use it around 600 BC. I waited for the modern ferry in the new harbour (left) to leave but its size is indicated in yellow. The fort (middle) is from the times of the crusades. The Arabs ran the libraries of humanity and ruled the world (more) and Christian savages from the North raided Jerusalem, where they learned to wash and use "soap" (Fr. savon, from the Arab sabun).

The Marseille-Aix-en-Provence conglomeration is the second of France after Paris, but here the Theatre is across the quay at the Old Harbour and the down town administrative and shopping centre starts 500 m North, your yacht is moored in the city centre! Though the Old Harbour nowadays hosts yachts only, it is as crammed as the car parks.

Photo: Police is very present in Marseille. This gorgeous woman police would have no problem with me having her orders followed.

Police is very present in Marseille. Muscular, well equipped and trained to stay friendly. They seem to know exactly which restaurants will put up tables on the bus lane at sunset (those are not the cheapest!), and kindly wait till they have been removed again. The city is clean. Marseille is crammed with cars, standing in your traffic jam you will not see a free parking place, but parking garages are many and never full, albeit 190 cm, exactly my car's height now I have added my roof box. Spooky, but I got in.

Photo: Marseille parking garages are 190 cm high, like my car, now I have the box on top.

The next attraction of Marseille is a system of bikes let out by computers. Every 300 m you will find a row of 15 bikes locked to lock stands numbered 1 to 15 by a computer selling tickets with an electronic strip allowing you to withdraw a bike. The first half hour is free, then you pay one euro per hour. This is very cheap, because as soon as you reach some point were you need to be for a while you insert your bike in the local rack and your time counter stops. Just insert your electronic strip and withdraw another bike when you want it. You pay with a card, not with money. That means: the street computer goes on the internet, gets a fiat from your card company (asking a max 150 euro guarantee), then issues a card payment receipt and the electronic strip ticket. You are requested to secure it with a pin. Then you use that ticket to withdraw a bike, and Marseille Municipality will know that Mr. L. hamminga, Account No........, ABNAMRO Netherlands, ticket 143984790 is off with bike nr. 0314. Where no. 143984790 re-racks bike 0314, 143984790's clock is  halted. Needless to say, only my unlimited time budget and pleasure in getting the system under control made me spend the two or so hours to finally once get through all stages of hiring without hitches, and in that series of attempts Marseille Municipality has obtained 3 guarantee claims of 150 = 450 euro on my account. I hope the damage will stay limited to the one euro I owe them.
On the bike! Cars do the Mediterranean cock fight in traffic complete with hooting, tire screaming and arms stretching from open windows with dubious hand gestures, but stuck on a narrow lane behind a bicycle one calmly reduces speed at a respectful distance and waits for a modest and amicable opportunity to overtake. On a bicycle you feel yourself a holy cow of the new eco-religion: bicycles seem not to be subject to traffic rules. You can more or less drive where you want: counter one-way, on tram strips, bus strips, pedestrian pavements, anything goes, and you will have all smiles, children are told to pay attention to this man not just paying lip service but actually putting his shoulders under our threatened planet.
I locked my bike (my third bike), freed my car and found one (1) empty parking place where the sea side boulevard makes a highly improvised narrow curve halfway a rock hang, ideal to spend the rest of the late evening and night far from the noise of the 14 juillet firework.

Photo: Breakfast at my sea side sleeping place. The first island (indicated yellow) is a prison and was used by Dumas as the scene of the incarceration of the Count of Monte Cristo.

Marseille has money. Trams are new, the subway looks like it was opened last week, impressive harbour reconstruction is under way, and artificial reefs are sunk, somewhere over my cap in the sea side photo above, to stimulate sea life, not just steel scrap or stone waste but structures meeting architectonic and ecological standards, the billboard transpires. "Marseille se bouge" ends the billboard message.
I heard almost as much Algerian and Tunisian Arab as French and was told there are considerable Jewish, Greek and Armenian communities too. And this is not from the last 50 years but has always been like that. Most of those ethnic groups have have informal representations that talk with local government. Marseille is also the haven of those who had to flee from the French colonies in the independence wave of the sixties. I bought my camera batteries in a small shop specialized in all kinds of batteries and accumulators, small and large. The owner, around 60, a Jew born in Tunisia, studied philosophy and literature there, became teacher at a bilingual (Arab/French) primary school for boys and girls of all religions and backgrounds until things started to run down under Bourguiba. Next stop Marseille. Batteries and accumulators. I was asked, not in indignation, but in sportive philosophical defiance, how I could not believe in God when I had seen van Gogh and Rembrandt. I said it was not my ambition to explain everything and ventilated my standard phrase that I could not help it that God created me as an unbeliever. He listed his favourite as well as his least appreciated philosophers. Strongly shook my hand many times, a painful thing due to my recent fight. Another client entered and now I was the one to shake hands, suffering my pain with a smile, for a cordial goodbye.
Many people tell me that Marseillais generally do not feel themselves French: "Marseillais pas Francais". Indeed, entire quarters are alcohol free, serving excellent couscous and coffee, and reminded me of last years visit to Cairo, though I did not see any waterpipes. During the French foreigners' car burning frenzy a few years ago, Marseille actually proved to be outside France: it was quiet and peaceful.

Photo: Montagne Sainte-Victoire (near Aix) The 190 cm  of the second Marseille parking garage were just a percent shorter. I drove my roof box off, but elegantly, without damaging the wood. The next day I put the box back up on this sleeping site - illegal of course, cost me a conversation with an official but I get good at it: smile innocently, be surprised and start at the news of your trespass. Then show the immediate dawn, due to the clear explanation of this officer in charge, of your profound understanding for there being a rule like that etc. etc. Let the fucker go with the feeling he had a useful meaning in the life of a reasonable and friendly man.