[Summer in Grenoble] Marseille - Day 1: Off to Marseille... and Hotel Montgrand

June 13th, 2015

After boarding the Spanish train, Renfe Ave, bound for Marseille, I began eating my dinner.
Even though, I was hungry well before the departure time, I waited until it was past 6PM to have dinner.

By the way, the Renfe Ave had a significantly nicer interior than the TGV.


After having 3 pieces of sandwich, and playing some Monster Hunter on my 3DS

We were already at Marseille.

The Renfe Ave and a TGV situated next to each other.
This was the final stop for the train line, so the rail only went in one direction of the station.

In the other direction was the Marseille train station building.
There are a lot of shops there, but they were all closed because we got there pretty late.

"It's only sunset, what do you mean late?" you ask?
Well, France is at a higher latitude than either North Carolina or Korea.
I believe France is also one of the countries located at the far west of its time zone.

and besides, they actually treat workers in a humane way in Europe, unlike those Neo-liberalist places.

My friends and I came back into the building because we went out the wrong exit.

We were actually supposed to come here

and take the metro to where our hotel was.

Both the metro and the metro station was way shorter than the ones I'm used to seeing.

Here it comes!

The metro wasn't as old as I was expecting it to be.
I was expecting larger European cities like Marseille to have older public transportation, because I thought they would have been using them for a longer period of time, than places like Grenoble or Korea.

The first building I saw in Marseille.
It was well-lit, but had nothing to do with us.

we had to walk down a dark alley

and then go to this hotel, where we made our reservation.
The hotel was called "Hotel Montgrand"

One of the most surprising thing we noticed while checking in was the fact that
we could actually use English to communicate!!
Oh, how we all missed speaking in Anglais after suffering from so much language barriers in Grenoble and Nimes!!

It was a pretty sketchy and old hotel.

This is where my roommate and I stayed.
European hotels have really small rooms, especially at bigger cities.

Fortunately, our room had no problems and a really nice air conditioning.
Other three friends did not share this luxury.
The first room they were in had malfunctioning A/C
The second room they got after complaining had an A/C that worked but started dripping a lot of water as soon as it started operating.
Oh... goodness...

In terms of hotels, we sure missed the one we stayed at in Nimes.
If you have more money, I would definitely recommend staying at somewhere better, like Ibis.