Scaling the hills of Marseille
It was our last day in France, so we tried to get going in a timely manner. We dressed and primped and packed our things up and checked out of our hotel. We had an evening flight to Rome, which meant we had the day to do a bit more exploring and some shopping around the city. We headed in the direction of the Notre Dame de la Garde, the basilica atop the large hill that overlooks the city. Upon looking at it this morning, we were somewhat apprehensive about making the climb, but set off up the hill.
Communing with the Count of Monte Cristo
We were able to get out the door at a decent hour, as we had exciting sightseeing plans for the day. We planned to catch a ferry to visit Chateau d’If and the nearby island (Ile de Frouil). We packed ourselves a tote with beach goods, as the island was purported to have some beaches. We grabbed pastries from our now usual boulangerie around the corner and headed to a wine and goods shop. We took a stroll what turned out to be a pleasant little neighborhood, with cute little shops, most of which had opened yet and passing a massive, gorgeous striped church.
Architecture and mechanisms
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I woke up relatively early and was able to take my time getting ready for the day. We decided to skip the first session of the conference, as we were both presenting later in the day and wanted to be rested and refreshed. We meandered out to a little boulangerie around the corner to grab some morning pastries and sat out at a table to enjoy them (and the people-watching). We decided to take a very round-about route to the conference site in order to explore the area a little bit. We wandered the shaded streets, past little discount clothing and shoe shops until we came across a beautiful set of steps leading up to the train station.
Miles to Marseille
It was a beautiful morning plane ride over Marseille, and it wasn’t long before we were off the plane and I happily collected my luggage (pleased/relieved that it made it through both my connections). I grabbed a ticket for a shuttle bus into town and was soon on my way to Marseille’s central train station. It was surprisingly hot for so early in the morning (28 C at about 9:30 am). In the interest of not being a sweaty mess and getting to the conference in a timely manner, I decided to grab a cab to the hotel. A somewhat regrettable choice as the cabbie informed me in somewhat broken English something about minimum distances/fares which resulted in my paying 20 Euro for a 10 minute cab ride. Ah well, nothing like a likely unscrupulous cab driver to start things off!
Bidding 'farvel' to Scandinavia
It was a beautiful sunny day to cap off the end of my time in Scandinavia. I wanted to see if, by any small miracle, the cake shop (Conditori La Glace) was open, so we walked over to Strøget. Unfortunately, it was closed, perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it was Easter Sunday. As the wifi wasn’t working at our hotel again, we picked up some pastries and coffee at a nearby café that I knew to have wifi to get in our morning fix of the interwebs.
A smorgasbord of smorrebrod and Renaissance delights
We were delighted to discover wifi had been restored at some point during the night, and so I hurriedly searched the internet and finalized our meal plans for the day (in case we lost it again). Continuing our coffee tour of Scandinavia, we set out to visit Coffee Collective, a local Copenhagen roastery, in glorious sunshine. We walked up to the Christianshavn metro station, which was two escalators deep underground, and popped over two stops. We emerged and attempted to get our bearings, stumbling across what looked to be a glass-encased food market.
A wintery spring in Copenhagen
A 7am bus out of Gothenburg made for an early wake-up call. Mercifully, whatever I pulled or twinged in my back the previous day seemed to have improved, as I was able to walk around again. For some reason, our tickets to Copenhagen included a 15 minute bus ride to Mölndal before transferring to a train. We were lucky we were at the bus stop a bit early as that enabled us to get a seat. Either there were multiple buses back-to-back or they’d overbooked substantially, as there was a line of at least 20 or so people at the stop as our bus pulled away.
A food tour of Gothenburg
It was a gloriously sunny day for our only full day in Gothenburg. I had heard that it was a great food city, so we thought we’d spend the day on a relaxing culinary tour. First stop, of course, was coffee. While we had stopped at Da Matteo the previous afternoon, they have 2 locations, and D wanted to check out the roaster location. Hilariously enough, it was right across the square from the other location. We walked along the river through the bustling commercial district to the roaster, which had a vastly different feel than its other location.
Train hopping to Gothenburg
The overnight train ride was about 7 hours long, though I had somewhat of a restless night. It took me a fair while to fall asleep. We arrived at Oslo Central Station at around 6 am and had about an hour to grab a bite to eat before our next train. It wasn’t long before we were boarding a regional train, actually bound for Stockholm (which was at first a bit confusing to be going back the way we came), but we’d be getting off at an intermediate station, Kil.
Wandering through Bergen
From there, we wandered the streets, through a colourful (in several senses of the word) square, until we reached the harbour. We stopped in for a coffee and some pastries (a tasty cinnamon bun and a custard filled pastry) at Baker Brun, which was apparently established in 1893. Caffeinated and sugared-up nicely, we set out to explore the harbour around the bay of Vågen. Bryggen (Old Town) lines the waterfront with cute and brightly coloured buildings.
Fjording in Norway
It was an early start, as we had an 8 am train to catch. However, it was convenient to get down to the train station. We grabbed some sandwiches from a deli for breakfast and hopped on our first train of the day. I'd booked us on a Norway in a Nutshell tour, which isn't a "tour" in the traditional sense with tour guides and a group that you follow around but simply arranged transport from one place to another. We spent about 4.5 hours on a train from Oslo to Myrdal, a relaxing ride through the countryside, passing colourful farm houses, frozen lakes and streams and through Hallingskarvet National Park--an expansive snow-covered plateau.