Berton and I began our trip in Marseille, the second largest city of France. Many have characterized Marseille as rough and dirty. Although definitely not as shiny as center Paris, I thought the city had a lot to offer.
The old harbor is really beautiful and is visible from the hills of the Panier, or historic neighborhood, which had charming old homes and kids everywhere playing soccer.
We also hiked up to the main church that you can see in the distance in the harbor picture, which gave us a spectacular view of the city.
Marseille also specializes in a special cookie called navettes which are flavored with orange blossom, apparently the method is still a secret. The first navettes we had were quite disappointing, no detection of orange, but perhaps the sweet lady at the boulangerie giving us one each for free made us imagine that it tasted like orange. It wasn’t until we passed by an old building with a sign explaining that this was not only the first bakery in Marseille, but the oven from where the first navettes came from, that we got a taste of the real deal.
Quite delicious, really reminded me of what Ici in Berkeley does with their rose flavored ice cream.
We only spent one day in Marseille. Berton and I had decided to take the opportunity to couchsurf with a couple that lived near a small village called Fuveau outside Marseille.
Eugenie met us at the bus stop so she could guide us to her place. She and her husband live in the attack of the cutest country home fifteen minutes from Fuveau which they rent from a Parisian family who only spend weekends and parts of summer there.
From Fuveau and their house you have a fantastic view of the mountain range Sante Victoire, better known as the Picasso Mountain.
When we arrived in the evening, they had already prepared dinner for us, a delicious potato and cream concoction followed by a fresh apple crisp pie. Berton and I felt lucky the entire time we were there. Such great hosts and amazing people. Both are nurses who recently returned from a year abroad where they spent time working in Africa and traveling around India.
The first morning, Eugenie took us on a tour of Fuveau, which couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes. Definitely a charming town though! Two boulangeries that trade off opening days, one little grocery store, and, of course, a church on the top of the hill that had a perfect view of Sainte Victorie!
Berton and I spent the afternoon in the biggest city nearby, Aix-en-Provence. Funnily, the city is known for the number of elaborate fountains randomly placed throughout the city, which led Berton and I to attempt to see every single one.
It was also home to the artist Cézanne. Well, sort of home. It took us at least 20 minutes to walk further up the hill to where his home and grounds use to be.
The next day, we had grand plans to bike out to Picasso Mountain, but our mobility was destroyed by some intense rain. However, it might have been a blessing since Berton and I hadn’t really gotten a chance to plan out the rest of our trip. We spent the day booking some hostels and sending out mass numbers of couchreqests. We also got to cook dinner with our hosts and spend a beautiful evening chatting and relaxing.
The next morning was still characterized by sudden downpours, one which started as we attempted to walk to the bus stop with our backpacks. We took cover under an old shed where we made friends with a kitten who was using the opportunity to catch some fresh water.
Thankfully, a young man say us ducking cover and offered us a lift to the stop. We had a bit of time before our bus to the airport, so we decided to take a bus to another small town nearby as the rain had cleared up. Ended up being a failure as the rain began pouring again in such force that it literally looked like sheets of water were continuously covering the windows of our bus. However, for the moments it was clear, we got some beautiful views of the countryside, so not all was lost!
Before heading to the airport, we grabbed some tabule and sausage from a grocery store for a makeshift dinner. It may sound like I am exaggerating, but it was incredibly delicious, which is why I am bothering to mention it. Berton will back me up on this. We got incredibly soaked transferring to our airport bus, but it gave us an excuse to get hot chocolate in the terminal.
We took our first Ryanair flight into Malta. The budget airline terminal in Marseille was a former airport hangar, which gave it kind of the feel of a Costco warehouse. The roof also had a slight leaking issue, leaving puddles randomly in the waiting area. I found the whole thing quite humorous. Despite horror stories of Ryanair, we had an easy flight. Berton made friends with the cute kid in the seat next to us as did the pilot and flight crew who let the little boy up front and then gave him his very own Ryanair plane toy—we were jealous.
Malta is one of the smallest countries in the world and probably the most forgotten member of the EU. It also has quite an interesting history which you should wiki like Berton and I did :) It is comprised of three islands. The main, called Malta, a tiny one, Comino, and Gozo.
Malta is simply not what you would expect from an “EU” country. It is kind of falling apart in places and, on a tangent, has one of the most dysfunctional (and frightening) bus systems I have ever been on. It costs an odd number of 47cents a ride and, in addition, you pay the driver as you get on. This often meant the driver was driving and drying to count out pennies of change at the same time. Usually he was also on his cell phone and or smoking too. Fun stuff let me tell you. I ended up taking motion sickness pills when I knew we would be taking the buses more because of the drivers than the slightly windy paths around the island.
Moving on, Valetta, the capital, is a very ancient and completely walled city. We began our visit by walking on the outside of the fortifications and along the coast, which gave us some spectacular views.
We then wondered through the main city that was full of ancient staircases, like where we found this cute puppy, and some really beautiful squares and parks.
That night, we also discovered that Malta has quite a rambunctious club scene which Berton and I quickly walked through and observed. Both of us enjoyed the capital Valetta, but I think we were both happy that we were heading to the less-inhabited and, as we discovered, infinitely more beautiful island of Gozo the next day.
After a frightening bus ride to a ferry, we made our way to Gozo and to our next amazing host, an older man named Mario.
We had tea with our host and Robert, a young British man he was also hosting. We would later learn what an all-star host Mario really is, not only in his treatment to us, but in his history of hosting. He’s had people pretty consistently visit his home for the past 25 years, before CSing even existed. He has two guest books completely filled, we helped fill up the third on our last day.
Mario suggested we walk down to the beach before coming back for dinner, which he had already prepared—couchsurfers are really just too nice it makes you feel guilty. The beach was only a 15 minute walk from Mario’s house and was absolutely gorgeous, the first shot was as we made our way down the hill from his town.
The red beach gets its name from the color of the sand in the afternoon as showcased beautifully by Berton's magnificent sandcastle. The second picture also gives you an idea of how clear the water was, just amazing!
The next day we took Mario’s suggestion and embarked on a day hike through Malta. We left around 11am. I was expecting to get home around 5pm. We ended up not getting back till right before 8pm. We only took one real break for lunch. It was quite a day, but incredibly worth it because we got to see SO much of Malta.
One of my favorite parts was by the spectacular cove where we stopped for lunch.
Lunch was also pretty delicious, we had stocked up on salami, cheese, bread, honey rings, and Kinnie (the Maltese soft drink). Honey rings are the cake looking things in the back. If you ever go to Malta, and if I ever go back, this should be your first purchase at the grocery store.
Malta, as I mentioned earlier, is fairly undeveloped. Most of what we walked through were paths looking down at the valley of farmland or through the rocky coast. Fantastic island.
Towards the end of our trip, we met a farmer, originally from Australia. After a long conversation, he was quite talkative, he insisted on giving us some of his freshly picked fruit. He also told us we were no more than 40 minutes away from our host’s town. With fruit in hand and a countdown, we felt quite invigorated. It wasn’t until about 30 minutes later and knowing we weren’t even half way there that we realized his estimate was a bit off. It ended up being another 1.5 hours before we finally arrived! Thankfully our allstar host Mario already had a dinner of pasta cooking when we arrived and plenty of wine to numb the pain in our feet!
We were sad to leave Gozo the next day. We went back down to the beach from the first day for a few hours before making our way back to the ferry for mainland Malta. We stayed the last night in Malta in a hostel that was in a small town nearby the airport. Unfortunately, by the time we got into the city everything was pretty much closing and our hostel was nearly impossible to find. It literally had no address but “main street” and the directions it gave from the bus stop were ridiculously unhelpful.
I’m not sure how, but we eventually stumbled across the building. I was feeling a bit ill, so Berton was left with the task of tracking down a local with a cell phone since the reception at the hostel was closed. Thankfully he found a nice lady with some cute puppies that let us use her phone.
As I said, most stores were closed already, so Berton and I made dinner from one of the Pastisseries, the Maltese take on pastry shops. The most popular and traditional Maltese pastry is actually filled with spiced mashed peas. Sounds a bit odd. Berton definitely didn’t like it, but I found it pretty delicious. Anywho, I had a giant mashed pea pastry and some cashews while Berton had some pizza and a yummy chicken wrap thing. Not the best meal we would have, especially once we got to Sicily, but for some reason it is one of my favorite meal memories.
The next morning, we took the first bus to the airport around 6am and made our way towards Sicily, which I will explore in my next blog!
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