As much as I’ve loved all the baecations I’ve been going on over the last year, it’s a travesty that it had been so long since my last girls trip! So after lots of umming and ahhing earlier in the year about where to go, we ended up going for the most amazing weekend in Marseille. None of us particularly had a clear idea about where to go but we knew we were doing a long weekend so a city break made the most sense. But going for a hot city break in July, you kind of want somewhere that gives off summery, beachy vibes! So although none of us had particularly thought of it as an option, when we saw Marseille flights on skyscanner, it ticked all the boxes! City, beach, pool, beautiful weather. And in the South of France no less.
We thought we’d chosen perfect flight times, as we didn’t have to get up crazy early but were still set to arrive in Marseille at a decent time. But then when we got to the airport, we had a 2 hour delay! Not an ideal start, and it did eat into our holiday time but we found ways to entertain ourselves and got into the holiday spirit with a bottle of prosecco.
When we did arrive, we headed to our hotel and planned to get straight by the pool. We’d arguably chosen pretty simply with the Novotel Vieux Port, but it was much nicer than any novotel I’ve stayed in before and had a lovely pool area, was in a great location and had the dreamiest views of the port from the restaurant terrace. Although they thwarted our plan straight off the bat, as when we headed to the pool at around 6pm, the whole pool area was already in the shade (damn it). Not to be deterred from squeezing in a few early evening rays though, we headed off for plan B… Our hotel had a sister one right next door and as luck would have it, that one had a lovely little sun trap of a rooftop bar. So we got the sun we were in search of, as well as a bottle of wine to toast to arriving in France. Another way in which I toasted France was with my outfit. I know it’s stereotypical, but whenever I go to France, I enjoy dressing very “French”. So lots of red, lots of floaty things, lots of stripes. I started how I meant to go on with red layered skorts, multi-coloured bikini and textured short sleeve white shirt over the top (all Shein).
I always find that Europeans eat super late so when we finally got back to our rooms to start getting ready at gone half 8, we figured we’d still have no problem with finding restaurants a couple of hours later. But Marseille was a bit of an enigma, as it seemed like loads of the restaurants actually shut or stopped serving food kind of early (I’m talking like 10pm). Nevertheless, we set off on the 10 minute walk from our hotel to the port area and managed to find a cute little spot still serving food along the main stretch of bars, where we shared the most amazing (see also, most gigantic) pizza. For night 1, I went with a fairly neutral outfit (by my standards) and wore cream linen shorts, black top with mesh spotty sleeves and Gucci belt with black lace up heels. We’d all gone with quite similar vibes actually (as we would continue to do all weekend) so we looked like a nicely put together girl band.
And then it was time for drinks! It was very much an outdoor cafe kind of vibe in Marseille, all the bars were next to each other in a main stretch but everyone was sat outside drinking, rather than inside dancing. So after a little walk, we figured they would all offer very much the same thing and chose one at random. It wasn’t until we went inside to go to the toilet that Katie pointed out that it looked very familiar. We’re all (with the exception of Staci) obsessed with the film Love actually and it looked exactly like the restaurant where Jamie professes his love to Aurelia. Well, after much fangirling and photo taking, we later googled it and found that it was the exact place where that scene was filmed! Honestly how exciting.
With us having (largely) 3 whole days in Marseille it worked out as a perfect split of the three things we’d wanted from the holiday; city, beach and pool. And up first it was beach! Given that we were staying in the Vieux-Port area, our closest beach was Plage des Catalans (only about a 5 minute walk away), however it was a pretty tiny beach. After a little bit of googling for beach clubs, we decided to instead get a taxi to the much bigger and more commercialised Plage du Prado just round the bay. Which ended up being a fabulous decision! Pretty much all of my outfits for the holiday were designed with coordinating hair scarves in mind. A fashion forward decision you might think? No, my scalp gets sunburned each and every time I’m away somewhere hot and I was determined to buck the trend. So today’s look was a cream floral print hair scarf, the palest green fit-and-flare strappy top, denim shorts and my new wedge heels which are my best purchase of the year. First up on the order of the day was lunch, which we went to La Rhumerie for. It was chicken caesar salads all round (the perfect summer lunch as far as I’m concerned) and of course, we had to have a cocktail or two.
And the cocktails just kind of continued from there! La Rhumerie didn’t have any free sun loungers so we ended up at the next beach club over instead. It wasn’t a beach club in the Ocean Beach sort of way, but it was the kind where you could get cocktails endlessly brought over to your sun bed so it was still pretty good. Essentially though, we had a lovely chilled day on the beach, sunbathing, fighting our way into the rocky sea, enjoying the weather and unknowingly burning (some of us more than others *cough* katie and katie *cough*).
That night it was girlband central again, as me and big Katie were the ladies in pink, while little Katie and Staci coordinated in green. My pink top was a new one I’d bought specifically for the holiday from Stradivarius; a brand quickly becoming one of my favourites. We actually managed to get out a bit earlier this time so we headed off in search of restaurants and found a lovely big open square of them just one block behind the main waterfront row of bars we’d been at the night before. We may have read almost every menu before deciding on our favourite looking one, but it ended up being a great choice as I had the loveliest grilled salmon and the chairs were suitably French-looking (I always always always judge a restaurant by their choice of chairs and tables, especially if there’s any kind of tablecloth or cover). Then we finished the night with a few cocktails!
Following suit with spending a day on each different thing, we were due a chilled pool day on Sunday. But first, we were headed off in search of breakfast! Anyone who has a good memory or who is a stickler for holding people to what they say they’ll do, may remember that I said one of my new year's resolutions was to learn French and Spanish. Well, we’re nearly 7 months in and I can’t say I’ve gotten very far with it. But actually, I think I know more than I thought I did, as I got by pretty well in Marseille on my existing French vocabulary! It was a good place to be forced to practise actually; they weren’t non English-speaking but certainly less so than in more touristy places like Paris so being able to speak some French came in very handy. Like when I knew that the word we were looking out for on our search for a cute French bakery was “Boulangerie”. We definitely didn’t have to walk too far for one and the food was amazing! What a way to start the day.
And then for the rest of the day we just relaxed! Read, swam, had a lovely lunch at our hotel terrace (beef carpaccio was another perfect summer lunch). Although we already knew we’d lose the sun by 6, we were in a perfect sun trap for the rest of the day so we couldn’t exactly complain. Plus, we made the most of the golden hour with a cheeky bottle of rose!
How quickly it felt like our last night had rolled around! This time, we were on a mission to get out and about nice and early with one clear goal in mind; to see the sunset. I’d gone with quite the sunset theme for my outfit actually; burnt rusty coloured midi skirt with printed corset in all the sunset tones. And clearly from the photos you can see we managed it! The small beach just 5 minutes away from us had a perfect sunset view and we caught it at the most perfect time, before carrying on round the bay in search of a restaurant.
There were actually fewer restaurants round that side than we’d anticipated but as they say, it only takes one. The one we found was perfect! It was a bit of a randomly put together building as it was cliffside, but that meant it had a perfect ocean view of the sunset and the beautiful bay, and the menu had a nice selection. When they started asking us about reservations, we were worried we wouldn’t get in as it was already pretty full, but they managed to find us a table with the most gorgeous view in the house! So over a couple of bottles of the most amazing pale rose and some incredible food (incredible tasting, but not incredibly picturesque, hence I forgot to get a photo), we watched the setting sun disappear altogether before party time started.
In a hilarious routine of shots at the restaurant that ended up with each of us getting about 5 or 6 free ones each (we were counting up in French as more staff arrived to invite them to do a shot with us; they probably wrongly thought we were buying them), we headed off back to the Vieux Port area to go to a few bars. A plan that was a little bit thwarted when we arrived a little after 1am and a lot of them were either emptying out or not letting in anymore. We did manage to find one though and had a couple of cocktails and some more shots before admitting defeat when we couldn’t find anywhere else open any later.
And just like that, it was our last day. But we were far from done! We still had the city to explore after all. And given how hot it was, we had definitely chosen a perfect day for lots of walking around (not). I’d chosen an even more perfect day to wear a knitted top - I figured the fact it was a bandeau would mean it wasn’t too hot but boy was I wrong! At least I looked cute though. I paired the cream top with brown linen shorts and a brown and cream leopard print hair scarf to tie the whole thing together.
It may have been a hot day of exploring but it was certainly a pretty one. We didn’t exactly have a set idea of where would be good to explore so we figured we’d do a big walk round the port and stop off at any buildings that looked pretty along the way. The intention was originally to then go and visit the Notre Dame de la Garde later but we ran out of time to do that in the end. We didn’t miss it too much though; we got a lovely view of it from where we were.
We saw lots of pretty churches and beautiful French architecture and there was a cute little market that we had a nosey around (and obviously all bought ourselves a trinket or two). Then we stopped off for lunch and a break from the sunshine. Naturally, we just had to have some champagne while we were there. When in Marseille!
And then before we knew it, it was time to head back to the hotel and spend a chaotic half an hour trying to shower in the outdoor shower without getting drenched or undressed, so we could get ready to head home. It was truly an amazing trip and a great place to choose for a city break if you want a bit of everything that European holidays have to offer. Boy have I missed those girls holidays too; we're definitely not waiting another 3 years for the next one!
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