Côte d'Azur
So I’ll try and keep this one short and sweet as there’s plenty of pictures to scroll over. Again hope everyone is okay and strongly advise to stay at home during these times but I hope this may be a place you would like to visit, highly recommend visiting during the summer period but just to warn… it gets HELLA BUSY when it reaches peak Summer holiday season… July and August. We visited in the February Half Term so around Valentines day for 3 nights, where we stayed in Marseilles in an Ibis Style hotel, which I must say does the job if your looking for a proper travel around city-break like we did. Also, it was located just next to the train station, St-Charles Marseille, which was a bonus for travelling around the coast so all in all highly recommend this taking the route if your looking to visit not just Marseille but Cote D’Azur. This me and my Dad’s itinerary of Cote D’Azur. Enjoy!
Day 1: Marseille
Morning - We travelled from London Heathrow to Marseille Airport, where we took an early flight in order to make the most of out trip but it was defiantly waking up at 2.30 am… yes 2.30 AM but we did try and get an early night plus we managed to sleep on the plane for a bit so it worked out well. We grabbed some quick breakfast at Eat., the vegan coconut quinoa porridge with berry compote is so so good. We travelled with British Airways and got on the plane at 7.30 am and arrived at 10ish. Once we landed we headed straight to the hotel taking a coach shuttle transfer to the main train station, St-Charles Marseille, which only took about 20 minutes and then we pretty much relaxed for a bit in the hotel room… needed a bit of stretch tbf from being sat down all morning.
Noon - When noon hit we were starving by now having had breakfast at 6 in the morning so we went to the Old Port where all the main restaurants are and there was a tiny street just behind the port, full of brasseries and restaurants with menus of the day so we went to one called La Daurade, the grilled prawns as shown above and the bouillabaisse was unreal! We then strolled around and took in all the scenery - Love Love Love French architecture and style.
Evening - We heard about the famous Notre Dame de la Garde of Marseille, which was on top of this hill, so we obviously had to pay a visit (would be rude not to), taking a bus from the old port to Notre Dame de la Garde. Going up there though, was soooo steep and the road was so narrow at one point we thought we were going to crash against another car. Anyways the views at the top were out of this world and the famous Notre Dame was gorgeous too! Before sunset we headed down to the Old Port on foot, to get some more steps in of course and we wondered around for longer until night time.
Day 2: Monaco/Nice
Sooo we asked this guy at the Information Desk if it was possible to visit Monaco and Nice in the same day and he was like ERM ARE YOU GUYS OKAY? But we were only here for 4 days so we were up for the challenge.
Morning - 6.00 AM alarm goes off… my poor Dad thinking this was going to be a chill little city break, but I made this some sort of obstacle course ofc. Anyways ended up doing a 10 minute yoga morning flow by Deliciously Ella on her app, which is amazing for recipes and wellness in general, followed by an 8-minute Tabata Workout by Zanna Van Dijk on IGTV. Headed down to grab breakfast after we got ready, showered and headed straight out to the train station to catch the 9 AM train.
Noon - We arrived at 12ish (changing at Cannes) - as soon as we got off we took an easy route in Monte Carlo, where we managed to see all the good bits (the Casino and the Japanese Gardens) was something else, even though there was construction works going on all around but the place all in all as you’d imagine was so so chic. I was getting nostalgia to the Monte Carlo film with Selena Gomez, if you know then YOU KNOW how good that film is.
Evening - After our route of Monaco on foot, we went to eat in this little Italian deli, where we had an Aubergine Parmigiana, I had a MASSIVE bowl of Ravioli and some salad - followed by some Tiramisu (*insert Chef’s Kiss bellissimo!) After we headed back and stopped at Nice, where we had a quick relaxing stroll along the Famous Promenade, even though it was a bit windy that day but the views were spectacular either way.
Night - Before heading back we had a cheeky crepe at Confiserie Ballanger - classic lemon and sugar for me of course! We arrived at Marseille around 11 pm feeling pretty shattered but definitely fulfilled with this jam-packed day. Time for some zzz’s before starting all over the next day.
Day 3: Aix en Provence
So this day was definitely the most chilled days, despite the little mishap of our journey to Aix en Provence as we arrived at the main train station, which is located 20 minutes away from the actual town (TYPICAL OF ME).
Morning - We had a slow start for our last full day here. It was a Tuesday so we were looking forward to visiting the typical markets of the region. Again same ol’ same ol’ morning fitness routine, followed up by a good breakfast of yoghurt, fruit and granola at the breakfast buffet. I have to say French Breakfast Buffets are really the best thing - healthy and very ecological. Im surprised about how many bio-supermarkets there are in France (me grabbing 7 paper bags full of nuts, seeds and dried fruit). Anyways we took the train to Aix En Provence around 9ish and we arrived around 11 due to the little journey incident.
Noon - As soon as we got there we took the route going along Rue Espariat passing the famous Fontaine de La Rotonde and passing along many little, cute streets heading towards Atelier de Cezanne (Cezanne’s Studio), even though it was closed we wanted to go and visit specially the Terrain des peintres (Field of the Painters), where Cezanne painted at the top admiring the views - wouldn’t mind living there amongst nature.
Evening - After visiting all the markets and following Cezanne’s Path, we were HANGRY and can we just say thank GOD the pizza was created because we had the best pizza ever (Pizza Capri) at the small take-away pizza place, by the fountain - you could smell the fresh pizza from a mile away and so we shared a medium pizza (Half Anchovy + Tomato/Half Mozzarella + Tomato) so simple but so bloody good! BELLISIMO. After stuffing ourselves with pizza, we strolled a little more and visited some museums and art galleries before heading back. Also, we got sushi at Sushi Shop for dinner to take back with us (the best sushi too?! could’ve this day got any better?)
Night - Arriving back at 11ish we were knackered from another day out so we just chilled in, had sushi and went straight to bed.
Day 4: Marseille/Home
Our last day here wasn’t so strict with schedule apart from catching the plane back of course and our transfer to the airport so we took these last hours here slowly. We visited the Mucee in Marseille and had lunch by the Old Port again this time I had a plate of sardines and salad and my Dad had Moules Frites before having some ice cream at Amorino and heading back home (all in all we did the most).
c'est fini
