This weekend API took us on a trip to the Provence region, which is the southern coast of France. We left early Friday morning (which meant I got to skip my class on Friday!) to take the TGV (a high-speed train) to Marseille. It was about a 3 and a half hour train ride, so not too bad. Once we arrived in Marseille, we took a bus to Aix-en-Provence, a really beautiful city, where we'd be staying at a hotel for the weekend. The weather the entire weekend in southern France was gorgious! 75 degrees and sunny! It was such a nice change from Paris weather - and definitely so much nicer than winter in Massachusetts haha.
The hotel I stayed in was a 3 star hotel by the Michelin guide (the highest rating) so it was really nice!
The first day we had a guided tour of the city which was really nice. Then we had free time for the rest of the day so I did some more exploring with friends and ate at some nice restaurants.
On Saturday, API took us to the Aix-en-Provence market where they were a ton of stands selling clothes, hand-made soaps, fresh produce and almost anything you can think of. And after our journey to the market, we boarded buses to go visit the city of Cassis - about 45 minutes from Aix-en-Provence. Cassis is a beautiful small city on the beach. API took us to a famous perfumerie that makes soap and perfume so that was kind of cool. I bought some really nice cologne! After that we had free time for the 3 or so hours we were spending in the city, so we went to the beach to be in the sun and then we got some ice cream. My favorite was violette (violet) which has a really unique flavor that I can't describe - but it was really good. We enjoyed the nice weather for a while and then it was time to board the buses and go back to Aix-en-Provence and do whatever we wanted.
Sunday we had to wake up early because we were checking out of the hotel and going to see Marseille. We had a bus-tour of the old port, and the bus would stop to let us out every now and then so we could get a better look and take some pictures. Then we had free time for 3-4 hours before we had to board the bus to the train station to return to Paris. I got lunch at a local restaurant and since Marseille is a port-city and famous for fish, I got a salmon steak. I wanted to go on the Ferris Wheel but those bastards wanted 7 euros so I decided to pass haha. But I did buy some candy from a candy stand at the harbor. After I walked around the old port and explored the area with a couple friends.
This was definitely my favorite API trip by far! It was very well organized and a lot of fun - though I wish I had more time to spend in Marseille!
Aix-en-Provence
Cassis
Marseille
M for Matt...and for Marseille :P
API at the beach at Cassis
API gave us flowers from the market in Aix-en-Provence
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