Marseille with Mom

The weeked in Marseille was really fun and full of adventure, surprisingly. Laurent taught his son, Cyprien, how to say "Hello, Grandma". It was super cute! Even though Cyprien is about 2 and grandma sounded more like "growma", it was very endearing and mom was touched.

We went on a little tourist train (not on tracks, but on tires and the road) that goes all over Marseille's harbor and beyond. One of the most famous parts of Marseille is the huge church called "Notre Dame de la Garde" (our lady the guardian). You can see it from almost anywhere near the water in Marseille since it's on a mini-mountain. There's a huge golden statue on top and the church is amazingly large. Our tourist train took us all the way to the church that overlooks all of the city. Here's Mom and Cyprien on the train.
It was really windy and kind of cold on the top overlooking the city but it was magnificent. The next day, we went 'hiking' in the Calanques area. Calanques are like little rocky inlets between huge hills/mountains. I loved this trail and didn't even know it existed. I am defnitely returning when the weather's a little warmer and a 2 year old is not with me. :) You can walk this trail for miles and I can't wait.

Here are Cyprien and I on the top of the trail overlooking some of the inlets.
Yes, that is a crêpe in his hand.

Speaking of crêpes, while eating all the wonderful food at Laurent's, we had a little crêpe party one night. As seen below:
Favorite toppings/fillings included: Nutella, butter & sugar and raspberry jelly. Delicious!

On Monday, mom and I took a 3-hour cruise around the coastline of Marseille. Of course, as soon as we saw that it was a 3-hour tour, we started humming the theme to Gilligan's island. Anyway, obviously we weren't shipwrecked. We did, however, get to go on this cruise on Monday with a whole class of Spanish teenagers. We really lucked out because normally the cruise doesn't run on the weekdays but due to the Spanish kids, they opened up the tour to a few people of the public. Hurray for us! The cruise was great even if it was a bit chilly. We saw the Calanques at a much closer range and the beautiful Mediterranean sea as you can see below:

We had a great time with everyone, as usual and Mom was overjoyed to finally see Laurent and meet not only his wife, but his 2 sons. Next, it's onto the train for 3 hours straight to Paris.

Here is a link to all the pictures if you are interested:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jkimpfbeck/MarseilleWithMom#