Monday, January 5, 2009

Walking around Marseille (1/2/09)

Chris & I wanted to take Carolyn and David around Marseille today to see a few things. We walked down to Castellane because we wanted to take them to Pizzaria Magia for supion. It was closed though, so we went into Cafe Messena on the corner. It's always packed, so we figured it would be a good choice.

It was actually a WONDERFUL choice! We ordered the plat de jour...Chris & I had mussles with Roquefort cheese on them and fries, Carolyn and fish with a cream sauce, and David a steak with Roquefort on it. The food was the best we have had yet! For dessert, we all had profiteroles and Chris had a citrus tart. While eating, we saw a lot of people around us eating coquillage (a plate of raw seafood...mussles, clams, oysters, and urchins). Chris & I are definitely going back there again and ordering that!

Chris splashed some Roquefort on his shirt, so we had to head back to the apartment. We spent some time taking care of the missing debit card (see "Crazy Train Strikes Again" blog post), and then we were off to the Cours Julien.

I wanted Carolyn to see the Savonnerie soap store since it's one of my favorite shops. We got there just in time for the tour to see how the soap is made. It was all in French, but David and I still enjoyed watching the guy make soap with very old hand machines. Chris translated some of the information to me so I had an idea of what the guy was saying. We came back out into the store and loaded up on soaps. The soap there is the best! I am going to have to ship a huge box full back to the states when we move. The soap is pure and made with olive oil. The guy had told us that some soap places say they have soap made in Marseille, but it's not true and those places will use french fry oil in their soaps. GROSS! The soap at the Savonnerie is so clean and has really done wonders for our skin.

On our walk, Chris found a game store that had lots of board and cards games in it. He was in heaven!

It was getting dark, so we decided to forego going to Notre Dame de la guarde and just head home for dinner. We ordered pizza from Le Verdi downstairs. Since we ordered two pizzas, we got a bottle of Rose wine for free.

1 comment:

Monica Pileggi said...

Cafe Messena: Could you please tell me what price you paid for your meal? I'm looking for a place for my friends and me for November. We'll be in Marseille for just one day (on a cruise) and don't want to spend a lot for lunch.

Thanks!

Monica