Day 49 - Marseille - Chateau d' If and the island of Frioul

Sunday, August 19th, 2018.

 Today Gregory got up early to go buy the ferry tickets to go visit the Chateau d' If. We didn't want to miss it again. The rest of the family got up late and got ready for our guests! I cooked a Mexican meal for the Amabile Family. I made a taco salad with whatever ingredients I found at the grocery store. It turned out ok, at least I think they liked it because they finished it all! We had a good time eating and chatting. They left early because Clara had to get ready to leave to finish her studies to be a doctor and we had to leave to take a ferry.

 We walked, we took a bus and we made it to the 4:00 o clock ferry. It was so hot that I wanted to jump into the water right there. The kids were excited to ride the ferry outside!  We only had 45 minutes because we wanted to catch the last ferry that stopped on another island. At first, I thought we were not going to finish but the chateau is not that big. It is very impressive but we mostly saw prison cells.

 The Chateau d' If was built in 1529 on the orders of Francois I and it was built as a fortress to protect the trade port. Later it was used as a prison. But most of its fame is thanks to Alexandre Dumas who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo in which the hero, Edmond Dantes is imprisoned on the islands and later escapes. It was very interesting to see and imagine life in that chateau. We took some amazing pictures from the top, it just had amazing views from any angle!

 We rushed out to catch the last ferry. The lines were long and when the ferry arrived, people were pushing to get in the boat. The captain said that they had called another boat to take more people. We took the second boat and this time, we ran to the front, to the shade and to avoid the smell of diesel in the back. It was now 5:30pm and it was still very hot. We made it to the Island of Frioul, we looked at the map to see where the beach was so we could jump in the water. We found a calanque, which according to Wikipedia is a  narrow, steep-walled inlet that is developed in limestone, dolomite and found along the Mediterranean coast."
It was beautiful but unfortunately quite dirty. I tried to remove some of the plastic bags that were at the edge and I would have picked them up but I didn't have a single plastic bag to put all the trash. We moved to the clean side and jumped into the water. This was my favorite part of the day! I love swimming and mostly, I loved seeing all that sea life underneath me! Sunshine and I spent like an hour swimming and taking pictures of the fish. It wasn't like Hawaii that you can see colorful fish but it was beautiful in any case. 
We left and again rushed to take the 7:00pm ferry because we didn't want to wait for the last one at 9:00pm. Well, when we got to the ferry, the lines were super long and we ended up leaving around 8:00pm. Coming back we chatted with a french old man who wanted to go to Mexico to find a wife! The sunset was amazingly beautiful, we took more pictures and we finally made it to the port. We took the metro, the bus and walked home.
We had a late dinner and went to bed late even if we have plans for tomorrow to go to Aix!
Walking to catch a ferry
On the ferry, so hot!


Behind Old Port in Marseille 







Chateau d' If


Entrance to Chateau d' If
In prison!
Did I mention that I already lost my cap and my glasses! 
Lighthouse


At least, some of the prisoners had an amazing view from their cells









Waiting for the ferry to go to the next island.


Bye bye Chateau d' If
Sunshine and Daniel swimming in the Calanque
 Frioul Island



Going home!

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