Marseille

Had a great time in Marseille taking early train from London (Eurostar changing to TGV in Paris) and arriving Monday mid afternoon stayed there through to Friday morning then a couple of evenings in Cassis.

City reminded me of Berlin twenty years ago with a urban bohemian feel to it, street art everywhere and a sense that commerce doesn't dominate the city. Locals are friendly and the weather was great (although imagine it can get pretty hot in the middle of summer)

Highlights
Pension Edelweiss lovely collection of furniture, good location, friendly staff and affordable.
Food was great with the city providing a melting point of different influences and apparently a more affordable place to get a start than some of the more traditional French centres. Particular recommendations being Regain, Caterine and ample lashings of ice cream
Calanques, we made it to were Sugiton (from Marseille) and En-Vau (from Cassis). En-Vau was particularly magical and is apparently accessible by bike (gravel/mountain) over a longer route than that traditionally taken by hikers. Traditional walking routes both require a fair hike in with some relatively solid footwear (ie not sandles) and you'll need to bring your own food and drink as there's no facilities at the calanques. There's a need to register to visit Sugiton during prime summer months although this apparently isn't the case for En-Vau. We used the return journey back from Sugiton to pop into Corbusier Marseille
We spent a lot of time kicking around the Notre-Dame-du-Mont district in the evenings and stumbled across a few interesting wine bars to while away the time
We missed out on indulging in one of the pizza vans which are apparently something of an institution
Cassis provided a good place to access the calanques from the west but it was Marseille that did more to capture the imagination