Mediterranean Iconic Shores Ocean Cruise

Day 30: Friday, November 28, 2025 - Marseille, France

The day's statistics:
-  Weather: upper 50s
-  Steps: Linda: 6,685; Steve: 9,324

Awake, shower, breakfast, prep for the morning's excursion, today being "Scenic Marseille".
However, the ship was still pulling into port when we were back in the cabin, so we had a little bit of a delay before heading out.

Every once in a while an excursion doesn't require the Quiet Vox - especially if the entire excursion is on a bus. Our Daily indicated that the QV was not required. As the bus was departing - driven by Jacque - our guide - Carolina - wanted to do a sound check. But more than half the participants didn't have their device. Oops on Viking, a rare stumble for them.
The drive started in the new section of the city where there was a lot of construction taking place, and headed to the older section of the city. We saw a few interesting sights and landmarks along the way, including the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde.










We eventually arrived at a bussling harbor area called the Old Port that has a weekend fish market too.



After passing the Old Port, and driving along the shoreline a bit, we came upon Monument aux Heros - a World War I memorial. We debussed for some pictures, a better view of the memorial structure and the islands off-shore that were originally used for protection.







We rebussed (rebussed? yea, let's go with that...) and continued on.


The waterfront had a 2 kilometer (1.2 mile) long bench (though not contiguous), along with a pathway. A lot of the bench was adorned with mosaic.







Continuing on.


The Olympics in Marseille, France, took place from July 24 to August 11, 2024, as part of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. Marseille hosted sailing events and several football matches during this period.


At one time, the gold statue on top of the church was supposed to be able to be seen from [almost] any location within the city.

Continuing on, back toward the Old Port.






After a thorough tour of the city, the bus dropped us off near the fish market in the Old Port. Carolina pointed out a few highlights in the area, and told us to return to this spot at 11:40 - and set us free for about an hour.
We paid a visit to the nearby golden arches in order to do a price-check.

On the next block was a Christmas market.

We bode our time by sightseeing, visiting a small shop, and acquiring a post card. A shot glass wasn't necessary because we are now trying to get them per-country rather than per-city because we have been visiting too many cities. We already have Paris, so France was covered.
Even having been in Paris, we never had a... real French croissant. So we figured that since this may be our last time in France, we had better get one sooner rather than later. We visited 1860 La Palais.


We began at a table, but soon discovered that between the time and how busy the restaurant was, we should get our snack and coffee to go. The waitress put in our order and had it to us in a couple minutes with no issue. We paid and took it to go. The croissant was really good, and we were glad we finally got to enjoy one.
Not long after returning to the gathering spot, everyone was present and Carolina took the group to the pick-up spot.
After boarding, we headed back to the ship.





There was a mall called "Les Docks". It had some interesting "calendar" characteristics to it. Specifically, the buiulding is 365 meters long, has 7 levels, has 52 doors, and has 4 courtyards.




I got this company's ... whatever you might call this thing - from the other direction though it was obscured by some trees, and this time there was a security guard in front of it.

Once again, and for the last time, the Viking staff greeted the returning travelers as we made our way to the ship. Music was playing and we were given non-alcoholic berry beverages too.

After embarking, we made our way to our cabin and shed our excursion items.

Lunch was a buffet in the World Café.
I don't usually get lunch pictures - and this one isn't either - but I liked how this looked (this is smaller than it looks at it is probably the size of an old US dollar coin).

We spent some time in the Explorer's Lounge carding.
"Look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's... yea, it's a plane. Two, actually."

Due to not visiting the clock tower during our Istanbul on Foot & Bakalava excursion, we received a small refund of the excursion cost (for the record, most but not all excursions are included and free but this particular one had a cost) in the form of a shipboard credit. And Linda decided to put it to use by getting a mani-pedi in the ship's salon.

I took advantage of the relaxation too.

Linda's mani-pedi ran a little long - not that there is anything wrong with that - and we headed to dinner.
While we normally sit for a couple songs, we were on the third deck - where our cabin is - and we were heading to dinner and they were playing before we ate, not after.

Due to the late[r] hour, we decided to hit up the World Café again - the one and only day we ate all three meals in the World Café - partially because service is comfortably slower in The Restaurant and because it was already late, we knew we'd be finishing dinner even later than we really wanted to.
Plus it was "BBQ Night" [again] and we knew that there was going to be lobster tail on the buffet.
Rather than get pictures of what we ate, this one time I got pictures of most the buffet - not even all of it as there was the Asian Station with noodle soups and stir fries, and the pizzas.
I will just say that Linda had a plate and maybe a little bit of a second one, while I may or may not have had 5 lobster tail halves, along with some seafood salads (shrimp, octopus, and mixed), and probably a few other items too - but not too much of the other items because... lobster tails.






I took pictures of the desserts too - and not all of them either because there is an ice cream station as well.




Hopefully she is going line dancing by the pool after dinner... (not that I'm judging her wardrobe).

We took our wine back to the cabin to relax the rest of the evening.

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