Day Trip: Martigues

During the February week off, some Erasmus friends and I went on a day trip to Martigues. We took the 39 bus from the main bus station in Aix to the end of the line where it finished in Martigues – using the same resident card as the bus to Marseille for a 4 euro return. I often go to just outside Martigues – La Mede – for dance lessons with three times French 10-dance champion Eric Laurencont, but hadn’t yet been to Martigues itself.

Martigues is a beautiful town situated between a lake and the sea, which means it has lots of bridges and boats floating around. Such an abundance of canals has given it the nickname ‘Venice of Provence’ – something it certainly deserves! As we knew it was a lake connected to the sea, we were wondering what kind of water it was – one of our group bravely tasted a drop of the water and confirmed it was mildly salty!

When we arrived on the Sunday, the market (where the above photo was taken) was just finishing at noon. Dazzled by the colourful houses and peaceful water surrounding us, we wandered harmoniously through Martigues, enjoying the beauty of the little town.

After having done our initial wander, we realised we felt rather hungry, but soon discovered we had forgotten the holy Sunday rule: by 1.30pm none of the restaurants were serving food anymore (with the exception of one, but which was full). We ended up eating at a chicken shop which had a dubious amount of flies circulating the air nearby. However, none of us had food poisoning and it was considerably cheaper than all the other options even if they had been open.

Having eaten, we made our way towards Musee Ziem which we had spotted on our earlier stroll. They had their permanent collection of Felix Ziem’s paintings in the upstairs rooms of the gallery, and the temporary exhibition was the landscapes of Martigues-Provence. The works were very beautiful, filled with colour and the light of Provence – well worth a visit, especially as entry was free.

One of the museum workers recommended that we go to La Pointe from which you can get an almost 360 view of Martigues and the lake. We went there and sat for a while, enjoying feeling the sun on our faces. There were a great many paintings of the Miroir aux Oiseaux which we had walked around earlier. These inspired me to return there and just gaze on the water – this we did as the last part of our visit in Martigues, via a boulangerie.

The sunset was just in its early stages when we had to leave this beautiful canal to walk to the bus stop. The walk was along another canal for the first half, before then going between buildings and losing our view. However, sitting at the back of the bus provided a gorgeous lookout on the sunset as it drove us back to Aix.

This day trip was the perfect remedy to a month of non-stop deadlines. My face hurt from smiling the entire day and I felt the happiest and most content I had in a long time.

A plus,

Zoe x