YO HO....YO HO (Marseille, France)

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me!

My favorite day of the cruise has arrived. Tonight is pirate night and on the Ariel Vision Screen out on the deck at the Goofy Pool tonight will be one of the Pirate Movies at 11 p.m. and we can stay up late! YIPPEE! I get to sleep in tomorrow morning! NOT! (I know there will be absolutely too much to do on our last sea day.) We have character breakfast tomorrow morning and Jamie wants to go to that, so, so much for sleeping in.

Anyway, today is our last port day: Marseille, France. We got up again at 7 a.m. for our early morning Disney Excursion to the City of Marseille and to the Soap Factory.

We didn't have to tender in today. That saves time. In any case, we were about the 300th guest off the ship. Jumped on the bus and headed through the City of Marseille and up to the Notre-Dame De La Garde. This structure is the highest point in the city of Marseille and has beautiful panoramic views all around. It was build in the 19th century and the cathedral has beautiful mosaics, multicolored marble and a draw bridge. I was amazed the bus made it up the narrow streets to the top of the city. However, we did have to climb 200 steps to the cathedral from where the bus was able to reach. That was a breeze compared to the 294 at the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Marseille is over 2,600 years old our tour guide told us and was founded by the greeks. We are the only ship in port which has been great because the traffic is so bad here I can only imagine what it was like the last couple of days with the Tour de France here. Our guide told us there is a doping scandal going on right now with the guy who got the yellow jersey. All the downtown area (around the marina where the fisherman sell the rock fish everyday) has all the tour stuff and tends and people still here in the city. Then with all the construction, it is a mess!

Anyway, another interesting thing about the cathedral is on one side there are bomb and bullet holes from where the cathedral was attacked during World War II. There is a little sign up on the one side of the building outside. While we headed down I asked Robert if he had seen it. He said no, so he had to climb up 100 of the stairs a second time so he could go take a quick look at it. Can't believe I saw something like that and he totally missed it. My pictures hopefully came out with the bright, hot sun on the outside.

After our visit to the cathedral, we headed back down into town and to this soap factory where they make all this soap, the old way!. The owner didn't speak alot of english, but enough to explain the process to us on all the old, hand operated machines they use to make the homemade soap with olive oils and glycerin. It was quite impressive. We each got to finish making our own bar of soap and stamp it at the end.

I bought some soap for gifts for when I return home. They had all flavors. Can't wait to try them out.

We then headed down to the marina where the bus left us off and we were able to shop for 45 minutes. Bought Jamie 2 cute skirts, a glass ring (for her finger) and one pair of shorts for only 25 euro. July is the month of sales over here in France. There are some really good clothing buys, so they say. But we haven't had time.

Got back to the ship at 1 p.m. and did some shopping outside at the port where the little shops are (around 6-8 of them). Then had lunch at Lumiere's and now I have spent part of my afternoon in Cove Cafe enjoying the time in peace and quiet and listening to relaxing music.

Jamie went with K'Leigh to Ratatouille and Robert went to take a nap. Robert is probably at the pool about now. I am headed to the pool here in about 5 minutes as soon as I finish this and then get ready for Disney Dreams tonight which is one of our favorite shows.

Tomorrow we are going on a galley tour with T'Leene and Tom as they have not been on one. And I'm sure there will be a whole schedule of things going on tomorrow. Can't believe I am going to have to actually pack up our stuff sometime tomorrow and that the cruise will be ending. Time just goes too fast when on a cruise ship.

However, I have a BIG SUPRISE planned for Sunday on our way home from Madrid Spain that Robert and Jamie have NO IDEA about! I'll have to post more about it later. But.............SEE YOU SOON GEORGIE AND JOE IN NEW YORK CITY! I'm so excited for our "little" BIG thing we are doing. Hope the package arrived safely with the tickets and everything. See you on Sunday!

Okay, off to the pool now!

Sea U Later!