Thornock Happenings 2016: France Trip Post #4 - Chateau d'If and Frioul Islands

Saturday, May 17

Saturday we had plans to meet up with Camille, a friend of mine from my exchange. She and I were both in Yokohama way back when. She took a train down to meet up with us for the day and then she stayed with a friend that night. We had some really beautiful weather, which was perfect because we had a ferry to chateau d’If and the Frioul Islands planned!

Chateau d’If is the prison-island made famous by the book The Count of Monte Cristo. The first portion of the book takes place in the prison and in Marseille, so Spencer and I have been listening to the audiobook together. It’s very long (50 hours!), but we had gotten through the prison part of it before we went to tour the island. Camille has read the book, too, so she said she wanted to go see it.

First thing in the morning we headed out to find some breakfast, internet, and do a little bit of grocery shopping. We figured we should probably just buy some groceries instead of buying breakfast from a bread store every morning. Then we met with Camille. We went back to the grocery store to pick up some lunchy things to bring with us and then we went to buy our tickets for the ferry. The ferry left from Vieux Port (Old Port), right next to the metro stop and practically just outside the window of our apartment.

The ride to Chateau d’If was probably about 20 minutes. The island/prison was surprisingly small, but the brochure said it held up to 300 prisoners at one point. It sounds like the island was reserved primarily for political prisoners. Oddly enough, very few people knew about the prison before the book came out and then it became really popular.

We toured Dante’s and the Abbie’s cells, which were even connected by a tunnel you can see into! The book made the island so popular that they dug a hole between the cells and labeled them as belonging to the fictional characters. J

After taking our time in the prison we went to check the ferry schedule and found out we were stuck on the island for another hour and a half! Ironic, hey? We found a place to eat our lunch and watch the dangerous seagulls. Turns out, the seagulls all have little fuzzy seagull chicks hanging around! They were cute!! And, to be perfectly honest, the most entertaining thing on the little island.

Next we took the ferry from If to Frioul. They had a cute, touristy town front where the ferry comes in and a hiking trail with a bridge connecting the two islands. We did lots of walking until we found a little beach. The island was beautiful in it’s rocky way. The water, on the other hand, was stunning. I wish it had been warm enough to swim, but it was pretty cool still. There were a few people snorkeling with wet suits and some teenagers cliff jumping, though. We stuck our toes in and took some pictures. At that point we all felt pretty satisfied with our trip to Frioul and decided to head back to Marseille.

When we got back we decided to check out another area around the port. We walked around to the opposite side from our apartment and down toward the opening of the port. We found Notre Dame de le Major and took some pictures. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a tourist in Europe, it’s that you will see a lot of Cathedrals. This one was pretty massive. They are a nice chance to get out of the heat and to sit down and enjoy some quiet though.

From there we went to check out the MuCEM (Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations) Camille said that it was a nation-wide night of the museum event where most museums were open late (like until midnight or 1am). She said some museums even turn the lights off and let you walk through with flashlights, which sounded pretty awesome! Spencer asked a lady at MuCEM if we needed flashlights and she looked at him like he was a moron. Haha. Apparently this one wasn’t doing that. Finding the museum was a challenge, but we eventually got there -- after lots of walking and a really big hill. Good news was that the museum had free entry for the evening because of the event though! This museum opened up last year when Marseille was designated the European capital of culture.

It was… interesting. The first part we went through was this really strange exhibition about carnival. The masks and costumes and traditions that even Camille had never heard of before. Most of it was pretty creepy, actually. Apparently carnival is a time of inverting social status or something. There was a worker there dressed up in costume and a mask running around and sneaking up on people for part of it. He really creeped me out and I could hardly contain myself. He ran into us twice and the second time said something like “so we meet again!” to me -- in French. The second exhibition was more traditional and had lots of statues and artifacts and stuff. Marseille is a really old city. By the time we were done with that my feet were threatening to fall off and I was so incredibly exhausted.

We found a kebab shop on our way back around the port. They were pretty good. The meat is rather… mysterious though. Haha. We said goodbye to Camille, and she left to go meet a friend she was staying with for the night. It was so fun to see her and to catch up a little bit. I can’t believe how long ago my exchange was.

We got back to our apartment before it was even getting dark, so it must have been before 9. We listened to some more of The Count of Monte Cristo together and fell asleep. I think Spencer turned the book off when he saw I had fallen asleep. We woke up at like 2 am from the noise outside – it’s a busy part of town on weekend nights. Apparently we were tired! So we got ready for bed and went to bed for real.