Chilling, date night and riots

We arrived back in Marseille to have some down town, relaxing and chilling out before we head away on our next adventure to Ireland at the end of June.  Our first couple of days were spent reorganizing ourselves after our weeks away and reacquainting ourselves with Marseille.   The weather here has certainly changed and summer is here with hot and dry heat - yay!

There are ferries that run from Vieux Port around to Point Rouge beaches and so on Wednesday when the temp was due to his 32 degrees we headed for the beach.  We caught the ferry there and found some shade and enjoyed a few hours at the beach - perfect!

This is Loki splashing about 

 When we were ready to head home we decided to take the bus to show mum around the waterfront and to check out the "fan zone" at Prado for the Euro 2016 which is due to start in a couple of day.  Great bus ride but we couldn't check out the fan zone as it was not open you but looked like a great large spot! Bet it will be well used over the coming weeks!

As we arrived back in Vieux Port there was another super yacht moored in port - this was a very cool boat but only the third biggest moored for the England-Russia game!

On Thursday night Karl and I headed out for 'date night' - making the most of mum being over here we are having a few date nights.....................we headed first to a cute bar for a drink and it was a bar that did not sell beer, just wine and cocktails much to Karl's disgust! Still when in  Rome (or France in this case) it was cocktails to start our evening - perfect I thought!!! Then we headed over to the other side of the port and could see all the English supporters at the Queen Vic pub.  We found a quiet little restaurant and had a great dinner.  I tried the Marseille speciality bouillabaisse which is fish soup - not a fan!

Karl then jokingly (I think) suggested we go and join the English for a beer - we flagged this and headed back to our side of the port and up to the flash hotel, the Intercontinental for a drink and to see the amazing views that everyone talks about from the bar up there.  The views were amazing and it was just one drink as it was pretty prices 10 euros for a glass of wine rather than the 3 or 4 euros everywhere else!  By this time it was around 11-11.30pm and we could hear the English supports from here singing away and sounding like they were having a fabulous time! For us it was time to head home and hit the hay - unknown to us - the fun times across the water were just about to unravel!

 Karl with the intercontinental behind him...................

The amazing view- the photo does not do it justice at all -

We woke in the morning to find texts, emails and facebook messages asking if we were okay and hoping we were staying out of the trouble! What trouble we thought - and so onto the news sights we went - holy moly!!!

Crazy scenes - on Friday we  headed to the shopping complex and market in the opposite direction to Vieux Port - was nice and peaceful.  Tonight was the official opening of Euro 2016 with France playing. Karl and Loki popped up to La Panier to check out the crowd watching the game!

Nice, peaceful watching of football! 

On Saturday we headed out to another larger shopping centre to get some supplies we needed, La Valentine.  This necessitate a walk down to Vieux Port, a metro ride and then a bus ride.  This all went well - we got the supplies we needed and then headed home mid-afternoon.  We bumped into some young English soccer supporters on the metro who advised that there were riots happening in Vieux Port right now - crap - that is our stop!  As there are two exits at Vieux Port - one right under the mirror and central and the other to the side, we decided to hop off and go out the side exit and take the back streets home rather than the waterfront! As we hopped off we could see lots of riot police, police vans, the water cannon trucks and the air filled with tear-gas! There was no time for photos! We, along with lots of others, were heading in the other direction and away from the trouble!

What a pain - the peaceful, chill vibe of Marseille is certainly very different currently!    I for one, cannot wait for Euro 2016 to be over; and it has only just started............

Once home we popped up to our local bar area, La Panier, for a beer.  We got talking to a couple of Englishmen in their late 40s/50s who were trying to stay away from the trouble! They were hear for the football and often travelled around the world watching sporting matches whether it be soccer, cricket or rugby! After talking with them a while, they advised they had a spare ticket to the football game tonight if Karl wanted to go with them - thankfully Karl declined!! It was evident there was going to be more trouble at the game - and there was!  Anyway sent the guys off to another metro station that would get them to the stadium and not with those travelling from Vieux Port - hope they survived the match and did not get caught up in the Russian attacks after the game!

On Sunday we took the boys to the park to play frisbee and soccer and then walked around the waterfront on the way home and with the street cleaners having already been you would have not know about all the carnage of the last few days.....................peace has again descended in Marseille - but for how long!