Antibes and Marseille

Antibes is a couple of hours by train from Nice. I have these pictures of the Musée Picasso so I must have made a stopover, possibly also to have lunch. At that time of my life I religiously visited all the museums recommended in the guide, but I don't have any recollection of the exhibits here. I visited Antibes again in 1997 and definitely didn't see the exhibits that time.

That azure sky is typical of this region, after all this is the Côte d'Azur.

It so happens the castle was once owned by the Grimaldis, the rulers of Monaco.

I spent a night in Marseille to break the journey. To me it's associated with the Château d'If, an island in the bay which is a setting for Alexandre Dumas' adventure novel The Count of Monte Cristo. Marseille is till this day a working city, being an important Mediterranean port. This is the city's harbour.

It seems that youth hostel I stayed at in Bonnevienne is still there. Bonnevienne is about 5 km south of the city centre, requiring a bus ride out, and that probably accounts for these pictures of the coast hugging road near the hostel. The bare slopes of the hinterland mountains are also a feature of this region.

I had a chat with a Scottish backpacker in the same dorm, and I was trying to work out what language he was speaking until I realised it was his Scottish brogue that made his English sound foreign.

When I was a child, my father acquired a used View-Master stereoscope and many "reels" of tourist attractions. One stereo picture was Palais Longchamp. I remember thinking how ornate the façade was. So I got to see it at last.

This view of the harbour entrance was taken from the south head, near the Palais du Pharo, facing Fort St. Jean on the north head.