It is raining in Marseille today. We awoke to the steady drip punctuated by the songs of cheerful birds perched in the bare branches outside our window; a good morning to stay in bed.

We’ve just about recovered from the voyage across the Mediterranean and are beginning to branch out and explore the area. Yesterday we bundled up against the grey winds of early spring in Provence and walked down to the Vieux Port. The air in Marseille was thick with the scent of flower blossoms of every imaginable variety, crowded in a riotous mosaic of color in the stalls of the flower markets tucked into the crevices between tall buildings. Orchids, primroses, calla lilies, roses, daffodils, hyacinths, chrysanthemums, star gazer lilies, tulips, grecian wind flowers, and more, smiling up from beneath their cellophane wrappers, trying to keep warm. The scent of the flowers faded slowly into the thick stench of fish along the docks where fishermen were cleaning nets on their blue and white boats while their wives, hair and ears covered with bright colored bandanas, sold the morning catch: sole, flounder, squid, octopus, eels, and shining silver fish of every size and variety alongside escargot, lobster and tiny dried sea horses. The boys were captivated.

We ate our lunch next to the sailboats, while Daddy explained the merits of a double hulled cruising catamaran to the boys who would love our next adventure to be of the seafaring variety. Hannah and I, bare legged, shivered. The afternoon was full of unexpected finds: from a double decker carousel whirling in white lights and pastel colors, shiny horses nodding up and down, to a museum exhibit about Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show in Marseille. A little dose of American History in an unexpected place. We walked and walked, stopping to gaze into meat shops filled with interesting delicacies, and purchasing arm loads of baguettes and chocolate dipped shortbreads and runny cheeses to accompany our dinner. We are enjoying the variety of goods and services available here, as compared to North Africa, but we’re missing the forty cent kilos of couscous and fifteen cent artichokes.

Having walked an inch off of our combined height yesterday, we had a “resting in” day today. The children have played trains and “shop” all day while Tony sipped red wine and read aloud to them from The Three Musketeers. He doesn’t like it: “It’s the same kind of writing as Tale of Two Cities,” he lamented. His summation of Dickens is that, “Authors should not be paid by the word.” Evidently Dumas falls into the same category. Nonetheless, the children are enjoying it and I’ve spent the afternoon laughing at the voices he conjures to bring characters to life as I’ve worked away on my own projects. In the past 24 hours I’ve managed to procure train passes for the rest of our trip, plane tickets home, and the Italy Packet is almost finished… and, through the miracles of technology, I managed to attend a baby shower in NH for my good friend. Who knows what tomorrow will hold?

The sun has now set on this continent and the sounds of children making ready for bed fills the apartment. I have a nice tall slice of chocolate ganache covered cake: layers of vanilla creme, chocolate cake, raspberry filling and Chantilly cream, to be savored next to a cup of tea in the quiet, candle lit darkness of a French night. It was for this that I came.