Marseille/Luminy, conference on the coast of France

I was at a conference at the CIRM in Luminy, France. It's effectively part of Marseille, but removed a bit/more in the mountains. Marseille itself is rather run down, people living in collapsing buildings. I watched my wallet when I went to town. 


At the conference, things ran surprisingly on time. Breakfast, lunch and dinner began and ended at the exact times set.  Lunch and dinner were multiple course affairs, although in the end did not feel like that much food. 


Marseille by plane:

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Here's a view of the mountains at night. Rough, limestone.

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Here's a view of the main conference center building, in which we ate our meals and in which several of the speakers were housed. The rest of us were in the Annex, and I lucked out with a room that doesn't get hit with as much sun on the afternoon, so it's not as hot when I get back to try to go to sleep. 

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We spent our evenings on the benches by the building; the weather was really pleasant at night. 

The dining area was through/inside the white arches.

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The climate reminds me of Texas ``Hill Country''. Surprisingly desert-like, with sparse, dead grass and  very sparse, skinny trees. Limestone. Humid and hot, as well.

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On our excursion day (Wednesday), I went to Marseille proper with two other conference participants. We had heard of boat trips to nearby islands, including the famed one of Chateau d'If (of 'Count of Monte Cristo' and 'Man in the Iron Mask' fame -- Wikipedia says the latter is not in fact really associated with Chateau d'If, although popularly believed to be). 

Marseille is a bit run down. This was my impression on the bus from the airport, people clearly living in buildings with collapsing/collapsed roofs and dilapidated and cracked outer walls. In the downtown, the ground floor of buildings might be a bit better kempt, but above that, well. 

Ground and 1st floor clean and tidy, and the rest more typical

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I don't know what this is, but it was around the corner from where the bus to town dropped us off:

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Finding the harbor was easy, and the boat ride was very affordable. Something like 5 euros (and 10 cents). Here's the view as the boat eased out of the dock:

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Leaving and entering, we noticed a fortress right there at Marseille proper, not on an island at all, very blocky. There seemed to be something happening there. Maybe a wedding? Who knows.

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Here's the other side of the same fortress:

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And a nice view from the boat of islands we didn't visit:

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Here's one of the prettier things in the harbor area of Marseille, viewed from the boat. I'm not quite sure what it is:

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At last, Chateau d'If. Originally a Chateau, later converted into a prison.

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View from the Chateau's 'front door'

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Someone had a sense of humor and carved what I think is ''Hotel of Suffering People'' on the arch above the door, just inside the courtyard:

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A nice view of the courtyard and out to sea, from inside one of the ground floor rooms:

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There was a tour, but in French and with no walking around of the tour guide. None of us had good enough French to benefit from it, so we skipped it. Which is a shame, because all the displays were in French and I didn't really get a feel for what I was looking at.

In 1515 the monarch of Portugal was gifted a Rhinoceros by the ruler of India.  Wanting to get in good with the Pope, Portugal decided to ship it there. However, the ship wrecked around Marseille, and they put it on the island/in Chateau d'If (not yet a prison, it became one in 1582). Someone sent a sketch on to Dürer, who made a famous woodcut, which this is a print from:

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Oh, right. So the Rhino was there a while, then they decided to send it on to the Pope for real this time, but the boat wrecked (again, I know) and this time the rhino died. But the carcass washed ashore and they had it stuffed and finally that made it to the pope. 

There are three towers when there were supposed to have been four. Here are some views from various windows in one:

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I found the entry-ways to the rooms to be very short, even though the ceilings were pretty high in general. It was fine for me, but anyone taller than maybe 5'7''(~170cm) would have to stoop. Here's the view down a hallway:

So, if you had money and you were imprisoned there, you could rent a nicer cell. They nice cells were quite nice, all had chimneys and windows and vaulted ceilings. Here's the doorway out of one:

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There was a strange display on the Count of Monte Cristo story. Also, we learned that somewhere in China is an exact replica, on an island, of Chateau d'If.

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There was a really lovely courtyard which is what the 'nice' cells overlooked. Here's a view:

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Here's a view of main/old Marseille:

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Here's a house-y building, viewed from the Chateau

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the area where we bought our tickets/entered, and some beautiful ocean water/coral nearby:

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more beautiful ocean

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and one of the towers

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One of the towers was bigger than the others, and had a good view down to the rest of the Chateau:

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The tower also had a cathedral in its top floor, so the roof was domed (which you could walk on, and had a sort of ''echo point'' in the very center):

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The general lack of rain was a bit more pronounced here. No trees at all, and lots of succultents around like this one:

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and my parting view of the Chateau

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