Chateau d'If and Frioul Island

May 19th
Since the weather was so nice, we decided that today would be the day to go to the islands off the coast of Marseille. We went to the mall and bought some sandwiches to eat for lunch, then walked down to the Vieaux Port to buy our tickets to Chateau d'If and Frioul island.

We had to wait about an hour for the boat, but that gave us time to show Mom the fish market and to eat our lunch.

The boat arrived, we went to the very top, and off we went to Chateau d'If. Chris and I had not yet had the chance to go to Chateau d'If and were looking forward to seeing something new. Mom really loved the boat ride out to the island.

We bought our tickets to the Chateau and walked around the island for a few minutes before heading inside. The Chateau was once a fortress, turned into a decent prison, with fireplaces and windows with views of the sea. At one time, there was a rhinoceros kept at the Chateau, but that was a very sad story.

We were a bit disappointed with the Chateau, it was interesting and fun to walk around, but quite small and easy to explore within a couple of hours. Also, there was an entire room devoted to the Count de Monte Cristo and all the different movie versions of the story.

CLICK HERE for our pictures of Chateau d'If

After exploring the Chateau, we took the boat over to Frioul Island to hike. Chris and I had explored one island, so we decided to go to the other one on this trip (Frioul is made up of 2 islands connected by a dam).

It was a hot day for hiking, but we had a blast. For the first time, we saw baby seagulls! They were SO cute! We also saw a rabbit, which was a first for us here in France (outside of a restaurant menu).

We hiked a large part of the island, but there is STILL more to explore!

After hiking, we stopped off in the village for some drinks and ice cream. Chris had Thyme sorbet and I had violet. It felt so good to sit and cool off for a little while before catching the boat back to Marseille.

CLICK HERE for pictures of our trip.