La Marseillais (Part 1)

Hotels.com in Marseille

Best Of IgoUgo

Story/Tip

Quote:

The following tale is one of pure and unadulterated woe. It details how the wonders of modern technology and globalisation can fall flat on their face and cause some old-fashioned and extremely localized problems. The story begins in my girlfriend's apartment on her couch as we flicked between various websites in our search for hotels in Marseiile. It was an arduous process. We were looking for something modern and relatively close to both the train station and the Old Port - we also didn't want to pay too much. Eventually, we found a great deal - or what appeared to be a great deal - on hotels.com. We found the 3-star All Seasons Hotel (Part of the Accor chain) in Timone, which is just 10 mins from ...Read More

The following tale is one of pure and unadulterated woe. It details how the wonders of modern technology and globalisation can fall flat on their face and cause some old-fashioned and extremely localized problems. The story begins in my girlfriend's apartment on her couch as we flicked between various websites in our search for hotels in Marseiile. It was an arduous process. We were looking for something modern and relatively close to both the train station and the Old Port - we also didn't want to pay too much. Eventually, we found a great deal - or what appeared to be a great deal - on hotels.com. We found the 3-star All Seasons Hotel (Part of the Accor chain) in Timone, which is just 10 mins from the main attractions in Marseille, for 65 Euros. That was with breakfast.

Having spied such a bargain, we were quick to book. We did this through hotels.com and quickly received confirmation via email. Everything was good. Or so we thought. As soon as our virtual transaction turned real, our problems began. The money had been charged to my girlfriend's account, when we arrived at the hotel, they had no record of our reservation. They had neither our names nor our booking reference on file. And, the hotel was fully booked.

The receptionist at the All Seasons - a very nice Korean lady named Clarisse - was very understanding about this. She checked all her bookings and even phoned hotels.com for us. This was where the problems began to escalate. Hotels.com had booked us into the wrong hotel. As my girlfriend argued with one of their customer service representatives they offered us a number of alternative hotels, none of which were as good as the All Seasons and none of which served breakfast. My girlfriend explained that we would not be happy unless we got something equivalent to what we had paid for. Hotels.com said they would call us back.

After 20 minutes or so, we received a call from the head office in the US. A customer service representative told us how sorry he was and claimed that he would do everything to fix the problem. He said he had made reservations for us in a suite at the Holiday Inn with a complementary buffet breakfast. This sounded great. So, I asked him where it was, "Three kilometers from where you are" he assured me. At this point I hung and googled the Holiday Inn on my phone. I got two nasty surprises. First, it was 20km away. Second, it was not a special rate. The regular price was actually less than the price at the All Seasons.

We called them again. The following hour was taken up with various different people putting us on hold and transferring us repeatedly. My girlfriend did extremely well to keep her cool as he was asked to explain the situation at least six times. Eventually, we decided that there was no other option than to simply cancel our reservation and find somewhere ourselves. It was a horrible process. It was made even worse by the fact that we were on a week-end break, which meant that time was very much an important issue for us. Read Less

Cheer!
Flag

Le Petit Train

Best Of IgoUgo

Story/Tip

Quote:

Notre Dame de la Garde is a magnificent cathedral set on a mountain overlooking the city of Marseille. The mountain is located between the old and new parts of thr city. Whilst it is by no means Everest, or even Mont Blanc, getting to the top is not that easy. Walking is not impossible. However, the route winds up from the Old Town and is a little difficult to find. There is also a regular bus from the Old Port. The service is pretty good, but it can get very crowded at busy times. When my girlfriend and I visited De La Garde, we opted to take Le Petit Train: a small train-shaped bus (the type you see at many tourist attractions) that does a small circuit of Old Marseille's tourist sites.W...Read More

Notre Dame de la Garde is a magnificent cathedral set on a mountain overlooking the city of Marseille. The mountain is located between the old and new parts of thr city. Whilst it is by no means Everest, or even Mont Blanc, getting to the top is not that easy. Walking is not impossible. However, the route winds up from the Old Town and is a little difficult to find. There is also a regular bus from the Old Port. The service is pretty good, but it can get very crowded at busy times. When my girlfriend and I visited De La Garde, we opted to take Le Petit Train: a small train-shaped bus (the type you see at many tourist attractions) that does a small circuit of Old Marseille's tourist sites.

We boarded the train on the quay in the Old Port close to the Hotel de Ville. From there, it covers all thee sides of the U-shaped port before turning off towards Abbaye St Victor. The abbey is situated a little above the port and offers a good opportunity for panoramic pictures. The train slows down - but does not stop here - to allow you to take pictures of the port. The view also takes in a palace built by Napoleon III that was built overlooking the port. The train rings around the abbey before heading towards the sea.

The next part of the route is along the Corniche. In itself, the Corniche is not so impressive - having lived in Nice for a year I may have grown biased, but I thought it was nowhere near as pleasant as Promende des Anglais. However, the one thing the Corniche boasts that the Promenade cannot is a view of interesting is lands. There are two or thee forts on the islands in the Bay of Marseille as well as the island that was used by Akexandre Dumas as the basis for his famous book, The Count of Monte Cristo.

From the Corniche, the trains drags itself up the mountain to the cathedral. However, on the way there are many impressive villas. The guide explained that these were built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by rich ship owners who wanted to look out to sea to check on the return of their vessels.

The journey from the quayside in the Old Port to the cathedral on the top of the mountain takes about 30 minutes. In is a good trip to take if you are short of time as it takes in lots of sights rather quickly and gets you to the city's biggest attraction. The 7Euro fare is also for a return ticket, so it represents relatively decent value. However, if you have plenty of time, I would recommend walking or taking the bus to the cathedral and visiting the other attractions individually as the train does not really allow you to stop to appreciate them - I found it particularly frustrating that we did not pause to allow passengers to take photographs. Read Less

Cheer!
Flag

Marseille Transport

Best Of IgoUgo

Story/Tip

Quote:

Living in Nice on the Cote d'Azur I feel blessed in many ways. It is home to some of the very best food on the planet. The sea is one of the most wonderful shades of blue that you could ever wish to experience. There is a fantastic array of culture including scores of fantastic museums and galleries. Also, its location means that it is easy to visit many other wonderful places such as Italy and, as this journal would suggest, Marseille. I also feel lucky because Nice has one of the best public transport systems in the world.I noticed this on the very first day I arrived there. I was able to catch a clean, quick and efficient bus into the centre of the town for just 1Euro. I also discovered...Read More

Living in Nice on the Cote d'Azur I feel blessed in many ways. It is home to some of the very best food on the planet. The sea is one of the most wonderful shades of blue that you could ever wish to experience. There is a fantastic array of culture including scores of fantastic museums and galleries. Also, its location means that it is easy to visit many other wonderful places such as Italy and, as this journal would suggest, Marseille. I also feel lucky because Nice has one of the best public transport systems in the world.

I noticed this on the very first day I arrived there. I was able to catch a clean, quick and efficient bus into the centre of the town for just 1Euro. I also discovered that there is even a faster version for 1Euro. The buses and trams are very regular and it costs just 1Euro to travel anywhere in the city. There is also even a bike rental system that is available for both tourists and residents. Whenever, I visit other cities, I cannot help but compare their transport systems. For example, in my hometown of Rotherham when I spend five pounds to travel a relatively short distance, I cannot avoid somehow feeling short-changed. Also, when I visit Paris, I am taken aback at the lack of cleanliness and regularity of much of the transport system. So, when my girlfriend and I took a trip to. Marseille, it's transport system was put under the microscope.

It took the scrutiny rather well. We arrived at the Saint Charles SNCF train station. Our first journey was from our there to our hotel in Timone. We were very please to discover that this was seven stops on the metro and would take just 15 minutes. We were also please to discover that we could purchase unlimited travel on the metro system for the excellent price of 5 Euros. Over the course of our stay we discovered that the system was clean and efficient. Trains ran every five minutes on a Saturday. I was also very pleased to find that the carriages were not so crowded - we were able to find a seat every time we took it.

Overall, I was very impressed with the Marseille metro system. However, there were a couple of criticisms I had. On the Sunday, the trains did not run at all regularly. We had to wait almost 12 minutes for a train. The second would be that at night, it didn't feel 100% safe. We saw plenty of teenagers who were extremely loud and were openly using drugs. This made my girlfriend feel rather intimidated. There were also rats running unimpeded around the platform in the Old Port station. My girlfriend was no major fan of this either.

At the end of our trip we concluded that the metro system was very good - certainly superior to Paris. However, we also concluded that it was best avoided after midnight. Read Less

Cheer!
Flag

Blustery blustery blustery

Story/Tip

Quote:

On our first day in Marseille my girlfriend and I visited the Old Port and enjoyed a very relaxing afternoon sat sunning ourselves over lunch and doing a little shopping. We had decided to visit Notre Dame de la Garde the following day. This proved to be something of a mistake because whereas Day1 had been warm and sunny, Day 2 was exceptionally windy. This change in the weather conditions meant that visiting a cathedral on the top of a small mountain was not the wisest of ideas and would ensure we would have to endure a blustery time of things.We decided to reach Notre Dame by taking a small tourist bus that operates a small tour that culminates at the cathedral. It didn't start well. It ...Read More

On our first day in Marseille my girlfriend and I visited the Old Port and enjoyed a very relaxing afternoon sat sunning ourselves over lunch and doing a little shopping. We had decided to visit Notre Dame de la Garde the following day. This proved to be something of a mistake because whereas Day1 had been warm and sunny, Day 2 was exceptionally windy. This change in the weather conditions meant that visiting a cathedral on the top of a small mountain was not the wisest of ideas and would ensure we would have to endure a blustery time of things.

We decided to reach Notre Dame by taking a small tourist bus that operates a small tour that culminates at the cathedral. It didn't start well. It was so windy that the 20Euro note I was paying with blew out of my hand and started to whirl its way down the street. My upbringing in Yorkshire (an English county renowned for the frugality of its inhabitants) sent me scampering a good 200m down the street before I managed to slam a foot down on top of it.

Once I had managed to retrieve the money and buy the tickets, we boarded the train and found that our day would soon get even windier. We were fine whilst we were in the Old Town, but once we moved out onto the Corniche it felt as though we were in the middle of a hurricane. The Mediterranean, which had been placid the previous day, was a frenzy of white capped waves and the flags on the sea front were almost stiff in the wind. As the tourist bus was part open, we began to feel decidedly chilly.

If we had thought that things on the Corniche had been a touch uncomfortable, it was nothing to the situation we would find at the top. When we got off the bus to view the cathedral the winds were so strong that (a) we could not speak to each other, (b) they almost knocked us over, and (c) they nearly blew our shirts off. The final point there is no exaggeration. On one occasion, my t-shirt almost flipped over my head. This meant that it was not easy to enjoy the delights of Marseille. Notre Dame de la Garde offers a beautiful view across the city. However, we could not enjoy it for too long for fear of being blown away.

Later that afternoon as we sat enjoying lunch, we checked our smartphones for a weather report - an action we should perhaps have undertaken the day before - and found that the winds had gusted up to 90km/h. It all made for a tremendously dramatic morning. Read Less

Cheer!
Flag

Ginseng Vietnamese Restaurant

Best Of IgoUgo

Restaurant | "A Great Place in the Sun"

Quote:

Living in Nice, I am not used to enjoying reasonably priced food. The majority of restaurants I visit there are, sadly, expensive. This is not really a reflection on my personal eating habits - I am certainly no food buff - rather it is testament to the fact that the city is an expensive place to live. Therefore, whenever I encounter good food at a reasonable price, I become very excited. When my girlfriend and I visited the Vietnamese restaurant Ginseng and got some very good food at a very good price, I was delighted.Ginseng is located in a large square close the Marseille's Old Port. When we visited, it was a beautifully sunny day. So we opted to sit outside and top up our tans, which w...Read More

Living in Nice, I am not used to enjoying reasonably priced food. The majority of restaurants I visit there are, sadly, expensive. This is not really a reflection on my personal eating habits - I am certainly no food buff - rather it is testament to the fact that the city is an expensive place to live. Therefore, whenever I encounter good food at a reasonable price, I become very excited. When my girlfriend and I visited the Vietnamese restaurant Ginseng and got some very good food at a very good price, I was delighted.

Ginseng is located in a large square close the Marseille's Old Port. When we visited, it was a beautifully sunny day. So we opted to sit outside and top up our tans, which was very pleasant. As we sat down, the waiter delivered us our menu with a pitcher of iced water. Straight away this put me in a good mood. I grew even happier when I saw that the lunchtime menu featured three courses with a side dish and drinks for just 11 Euros.

To start, I opted for pork spring rolls and my girlfriend had the Vietnamese salad. Both of these were excellent. In fact, I would go as far as to say they were the highlight of our meal and were the best things we ate in Marseille. My spring rolls were large and came with lettuce and dipping sauce. My girlfriend's salad was also delicious and so large that she had to share it with me. The quality and quantity of these dishes were such that we both remarked that back in Nice they would probably cost 11 Euros themselves.

We both followed the starter with Beef with Vegetables. This was very good, but did not quite measure up to the quality of the starter. I found the sauce and the beef to be excellent, but there was a little too much cabbage for my liking. The servings were also very large and, again, my girlfriend simply could not finish. There was also a very large side of long-grain rice. I finished with cafe au lait and my girlfriend had nougatine, which was also good. To drink she had a glass of Heineken and I had a carafe of rose. It was all tremendous value and was very very good. Read Less

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on April 17, 2012

Ginseng Vietnamese Restaurant
27 Cours Honoré D'estienne D'orves
Opéra Municipal de Marseille
04 91 90 24 33

Cheer!
Flag

IgoUgo

Marseille Journals

Upload Photos