MARSEILLE

What a great day!

We spent the first part of the morning shifting the depth sonar from the starboard side of the boat to the internal helm.  Now we can see the depth at both the interior and exterior helm and this might help to avoid the occasional grounding.

We then wandered off to the shopping precinct (we started at the Chandlers, of course).  This time we tried La Canebiere.  We went into Gallarie Lafayette, but the empty destockage bins indicated that the sales were over.  Lafayette is a clone of David Jones; even the gear looked the same.  There is a large mall  full of shops alongside, but none of them was special to us.

We went outside, got lost and found the Algerian markets.
Huge slabs of halva and spices and dried herbs in pots filled the shop. The aromas were amazing! 

What a wonderful experience cruising past fruit, vegetable, meat and fish stalls with the most delightful looking produce and with prices that reminded us of Spain last year.  

We found some discount stores with cutlery and then a couple of drapers.  Anne was rapt.

The theatre 'La Criee' (red) in the distance.

We returned to the boat to drop off food and trinkets and then at 7 went to 'La Criee', a nearby live performance theatre.

We watched a dance performance by the 'Ballet National de Marseille', 'Moving Target', that explored concepts of sanity, normality, conformity and gender.

It had some quite spectacular effects. A mirror the size of the stage was lowered to an angle that allowed you to see the floor where  dancers performed.  Their movements made them appear to be jumping into the air, falling and flying.




Huge images of women were projected onto the screen which appeared to be on the floor.  A male dancer then interacted with the reflection as though it was his fantasy.  The whole performance was quite captivating.

It was first performed in 1996 and I reckon has been doing the rounds since then.  It had been at La Criee twice before.  There were about 1000 people in the audience including many 10 year olds on an evening 'school' type excursion. The scenes of partial nudity didn't phase them at all.

As we walked home, admiring the floodlit ancient fortresses through the maze of masts and the old multi story housing abutting each other, we reflected that this day was one of the most stimulating that we had experienced so far.




We fell into bed and woke at 8 the next day; 2 hours after our normal wake up.