Last few days with Mom in Marseille

May 23rd
Mom, Chris, and I went down to the Port for lunch. We took Mom to our new favorite Provencal restaurant, Le Dorade. We got there a little late to order from the formule (menu of the day), but there was a lot of other great choices. Chris & I ordered the dorade (seabass) for two and Mom ordered the sole. We figured since it was Mom's last day, we would go all out with a fabulous lunch!

The waiter brought out the uncooked fish on a plate for us to approve. I was scared that they were still alive, and turned my head, but Chris assured me they were dead already.

We waited for a while, waiting for the fish, and the waiter brought out the 2 person dorade (rather large fish!) all cooked with veggies to the side. He showed us the fish, we said it looked great, then he took it away again. What? Where did he go with our fish?

While we waited, Mom made friends with a little girl at a restaurant across the street. The little girl was probably 2 years old, and she loved making faces at Mom and eventually, had her Dad bring her over to the window of our restaurant to say Bonjour to Mom. It was so cute! We also got harrassed a bit by a woman trying to sell a newspaper and a guy with a bunch of trinkets and junk. One bad thing about eating around the Port, is the buskers and trinket sellers.

We waited some more, then he brought out two plates, with the dorade split between the two, cooked, cleaned, and deboned. Nice!

Then we waited and he did the same thing with Mom's sole, showed it to her cooked...then brought it out later all cleaned and deboned. No fish heads staring at us. :)

The fish was delicious! For dessert, we had a variety of sorbets that were perfect on the hot day.

After lunch, we walked up to Le Pharo so Mom could get one last view of the Port and sea before leaving the next day. It was SO hot. We sat down on a bench in the shade and watched an older woman feeding a stray cat, and watching the pigeon's trying to steal the food from the cat.

We ended up heading home early due to the heat (it was in the 90's), and just relaxing at home for the evening.

Mom left early on Sunday, May 24th. We went with her to the airport by taxi, and helped her get checked in. She got stopped going through security because she had soap in her carry on bag. Shouldn't they be use to people carrying soap bars from Provence through there?

Mom's flight home was better than the one coming here. She had more space, a TV in front of her, and the food was much better. It was hard seeing her go, but I know that I will be seeing her very soon again!

For some last photos of our trip with Mom and a few pics that Carolyn and David sent us, CLICK HERE