Marseille, Barcelona & Sevilla

After 4 days in Switzerland, Mark and I got back on the train en route to southern France, Marseille to be specific. This was probably the roughest train day of my entire 3 months across Europe. It involved 4 separate trains, including a train to Lyon that was so packed that we were crammed standing in an aisle with our backpacks for 2.5 hours and a 3 hour stopover in Lyon that wasn’t really enough time to see any part of the city. I haven’t talked much about the trains in Europe yet, so here goes. Traveling through Europe by rail was absolutely amazing and something I highly recommend if you’re traveling around Europe for an extended period of time. We bought 3 month Eurail passes, which basically entitles you to as many free train rides as you want to pack in during a given period of time. This arrangement was perfect for “no plans like last minute plans” style of travel, as I could literally just show up at the train station, decide where I wanted to go next and book a train from their app up to a couple minutes before it departed. It was also extremely affordable, given the flexibility it allowed and how much distance I ultimately covered. Overall it cost $1300 for the 3 months in first class (first class was only an extra $200, so we splurged on that). First class varied from country to country in terms of additional benefits it provided, but the primary benefit was just the fact that the first class cars had a lot less passengers in them and so you were much more likely not to get stuck standing for the duration of the journey or sitting next to a stinky backpacker (says the guy who has been wearing the same 5 shirts for the past 6 months 😂). A lot of countries also provided first class with free water and in the UK you get snacks, beer and wine complementary, which was dope. You can also bring your own beer/wine/snacks on the train if you want. The other amazing thing about taking the trains is that you can literally show up 1 minute before your train and hop on as opposed to dealing with all the security wait times at airports. Being able to see the European countryside along the way was also great, as opposed to just looking down at clouds below. Finally, the trains typically had free wifi. It wasn’t the best wifi, but it provided something to do along the way. The #trainlife is the way to see Europe. You’d think given all the time I spent on these trains (over 3 full days by the end of my Eurotrip) would have allowed me to keep this blog up to date, but I digress…

Our next stop was 3 days in Marseille, the second largest city in France. Marseille gets a bad rap as being a dirty industrial city, but I really enjoyed it. It gave me some vibes similar to Napoli or my favorite city on earth, New Orleans, with some interesting history coupled with great views, food and bars as well. Our first night there we didn’t do much as we were pretty exhausted from a long journey, but we spent some time walking around the port of Marseille and found a great little French cafe to grab dinner at. Best meal I’d had in a week, by a long shot. I don’t think I spent much time in my Paris blog talking about the food but all the food we got in France was excellent and Marseille had some great fresh seafood as well. Also the wine in France was top notch and very affordable, bon appetit.

We started our second day by hiking up to the Basilique de Notre Dame de la Garde, which sits up on a hill and provides great views of the city down below. It is a very beautiful church, but to be honest by this point in the trip I’d grown pretty desensitized to both churches and castles. Don’t get me wrong, they are beautiful, but every city in Europe is filled with them and after seeing over a hundred of them you get to the point that they all start to look the same. Champagne problems, I know, just saying. That afternoon, we met up with Marks girlfriend, Britt who had been on a trip with her friends to French wine country for the past 10 days and joined us for the remainder of our Eurotrip. We spent the rest of the day wandering along the Port of Marseille, up the coast and through several neighborhoods checking out the city. That night we got some amazing Tunisian food at a great little restaurant near our place. If you’ve never had Tunisian food, I highly recommend giving it a try.

Our last day in Marseille, we took an hour long train ride outside the city to a little seaside town called Cassis to check out the Calanques National Park, which are these beautiful cliffs towering over the Mediterranean coast in southern France. I think the hiking was more challenging than any of us anticipated going in, but it was worth it because the views were spectacular. I think we hiked 3 of the Calanques, or cliffs, that had great views of the Mediterranean blue water below and beaches down below.

After our hike, we then caught a train on to Barcelona to begin a 2 week adventure through Spain. We had finally made it to a country we could speak the native language (not fluently, but our Spanish is much better than our French/German/Dutch). We only spent a day in Barcelona as Mark and I spent a lot of time there when we studied abroad in Madrid and had seen most of the major sites. The one thing we hadn’t checked out was the Familia Sangria cathedral, so we walk over there the following morning. Unfortunately we did not plan ahead and buy tickets to go inside and everything was sold out, but we did get to see the amazing architecture from the outside. 

Next stop was Sevilla Spain, a city that really surprised me in terms of it’s beauty and history. We were also finally back in hot weather, which was amazing after spending some time in much cooler temperatures in Berlin and Switzerland. Sevilla is home to the 3rd largest cathedral in the world which is the resting place of Christopher Columbus. In full disclosure, Mark and Britt went in, but I did not. As previously mentioned I was all churched out and passed on paying another entrance fee to see another church. We also took a walking tour of the city where we learned more about it’s history. Back in the 1600s, after the discovery of the Americas, Sevilla was basically the capital of Europe. All ships bringing goods back and forth between the Americas and Europe went through Sevilla. This is interesting, because Sevilla isn’t on the coast of Spain but ships would come up the Guadalquivir river from the Gulf of Cadiz to reach Sevilla. Apparently it’s inland location was advantageous for security purposes to bring goods in and they would then be traded from Sevilla.

We had a great apartment in Seville, located right in the heart of the city. It was a nice penthouse in a great location that we were honestly surprised we were able to book at the last minute at such a reasonable price. We later learned that it had one major flaw. There was apparently some major problems with the sewer lines in the building as every morning we would wake up to horrific smells coming from the bathroom. Smells that really made me rethink my childhood desire to be a ninja turtle and live in the sewer. We affectionately called that place the Poop Palace, due to its unique aromatic morning wake up. By our 3rd night there, we were more than ready to get out of there.

Luckily, we didn’t spend much time in the apartment as we were too busy exploring beautiful Sevilla. We went to the Royal Alcazar de Sevilla, which is an old palace that dates back to the 11th century and was occupied by Muslim and Christian kings in different eras. The architecture in there was amazing, with lots of beautiful courtyards and a giant garden surrounding it. We also went to the Plaza de Espana, a gorgeous plaza built in the early 1900s for a world’s fair type of event that was hosted by Sevilla. It contained all these individual sections dedicated to each region of Spain. Additionally we also ate our faces off, with all the tapas and paella we could get our hands on and went to a flamenco performance that was really impressive. Flamenco originated in Sevilla, so it’s a very big deal there and certainly didn’t disappoint. After 4 days in Sevilla, it was time to move on to our next destination, Madrid!