Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Marseille


MARSEILLE Last week we visited the Alps, and this week we decided to change it up a little bit. We are visiting Marseille. Marseille is the second largest city in France, just a little bit behind Paris. Marseille is located on the southeast coast of France. It is the capital of the Provence-alpes-cote d’azur region, and it is also the largest mediterranean port. Personally I loved the city, it was the perfect size. It had so many different things to do, place to eat and stay and it also had the mediterranean sea right next to it which gave a nice touch. 


The first place we visited was the museum of mediterranean Archaeology. We never imagined that Marseille had so many museums. They had a museum for the fine arts, natural history, porcelain museum and also the Egyptian antiquities collection which is the second most important museum in France (right after the Louvre of course).


 We also visited the Vieux Port which is the main tourist area of Marseille. The port was small but very warm. There was a fish market, it has cafes and restaurants and a lot of sailing boats and small fishing boats. I heard that you could take ferries that can take you to different islands that are close to the city. Islands like Chateau d’if, Isles of Frioul, and the calanques. That same afternoon we went to the Palais Longchamp which has some beautiful fountains. This palais was built to celebrate the bringing of water to Marseille from the river via the canal. 


While we were in Marseille we had to try the Bouillabaisse, which is Marseille’s most famous dish. The dish consists in Fish soup and then you eat the fish that was used to make the soup. You can eat the Bouillabaisse with different kind of fishes. Also we tried this little but very cute things called Navettes, which are biscuits shape like boats and they taste a little bit like orange. One thing that I thought it was bizarre and I would like anyone who is going to travel to France to know is that the price of the fish is given by weight, so if it is a very fat fish is a very fat price you pay for it. 


Wednesday, April 3, 2013

The Alps


The Alps
After visiting the beautiful and warm Cote d’Azur we decided to go to a totally different place in France. We wanted to go see the mountains and the snow. Our next stop was The French Alps. The Alps are part of the large European chain of mountains. They are very huge tourist attractions. The French portion of the Alps are very famous! They are some very famous resort towns that had hosted the Olympic Winter Games, one time in 1992 and the other in 1968.
We stayed at a hotel called The comtes chateau is a typical French castle that was very close to Chambery. The hotel was awesome. It was built in the 1400’s. so there was a lot of history and it was very elegant. I felt like a princess. The hotel also had some hot springs and we could walk every day to the casinos. 
When we were in the Alps we took a cable car to the top of a mountain. The mountain  was 12, 600ft tall in the Mont Blanc mountain range. That same day we decided to go skiing it  was pretty impressive to see the views from the top and skiing in one of the most famous mountain in the world.  We also toured the village and we went to a fromagerie which is a cheese store where they make cheese. We tried a little bit of the local Reblochon which is the cheese specialty of the region. 
The trip to the Alps was very refreshing. It was awesome to see the nature, and  breath a little bit of fresh air. We were also tasting all kinds of local cheeses, chocolates, hazelnut oils and wines. Everywhere we went there was melted cheese also known as fondue. The french love to mix it with vegetables or tartiflette which are sliced potatoes baked with bacon, cream and local cheese. It was very delicious. They really love they cheese and its because its so delicious. Like good french we had some wine with our meal, and for dessert we chose some hot chocolate because it was getting very cold and some crepes with chocolate (kind of like Nutella) and fresh strawberries and bananas. It was a very good dinner.