First glance at Marseille

Marseille, the oldest port in Europe. The oldest city in France and the second largest. The home of 'head butt' Zidane. My new home.

So what's it like?

You can easily tell Marseille grew over the centuries. Ever quartier is different from the other, there's old forts guarding the waterside, tiny roads going up and down, but never straight on...
The place is a mess, though. There's so much rubbish lying around it makes the Karlsruhe campaign to reduce the amount of stuff chucked on the ground look like a joke. There's roadworks or other building sites all over the place and so far I haven't found a place to just sit and relax.

Most of the beaches are extremely touristy but nice, although we did a hike into the Calanques the other day, a rocky coastline with some absolutely beatiful views and some quiet places to go swimming, sunbathing or rock climbing - I actually got a bit of a tan.

The people here rarely seem to be in a hurry, even in the biggest Pietonne noone's rushing around and bumping into you.

The area I live looks quite rough, really - lots of fenced-off roads, old houses... but it's OK, and getting into town isn't much of a problem, thanks to a pretty good transport system - as long as there isn't a creve (sorry, I can't to accents on this QWERTY. And I'm not using an AZERTY - they're designed to drive non-french people nuts).

I wonder what I'll think about Marseille in 6 months time.