Olympique de Marseille 1, Évian TG 0

The plain stone at bottom right is the Vielle Cathédrale

Marseille (week 30)

Into Marseille once again to check another site off our list: Cathédrale Sainte-Marie-Majeure.  It is a modern cathedral, having been completed in 1896, and it has been the seat of the Archdiocese only since 1948.  As a result, it is relatively plain, without large numbers of relics, paintings, or much in the way of stained glass.  What it does have is a beautiful view of the harbourfront, being located right next to Fort Saint-Jean, and an interesting banded exterior, as you can see in the picture.  Part of the old Cathedral still exists as a ruin next to the new one, but it is off-limits.

We then made our way to the marina where we picked up the tourist train.  Ubiquitous throughout France in the summer, these guided tours are cheap and a good introduction to the sites you might want to come back and have a longer look at.  And the kids like them.  Marseille's, at least, runs year-round and on this sunny (but brisk) Saturday ours was full.  It did the loop out along the corniche with nice views of the Vieux-Port and the Alcatraz-like island prison of Château d'If.  It eventually made its way up to the Basilica Notre-Dame de la Garde, which is a hill-top church with commanding views of the city, and which is often wrongly thought to be the cathedral.

We didn't get the chance to look around Notre-Dame because David and Craig needed to make their way to the Stade Vélodrome to watch the Olympique de Marseille play.  They are in Ligue 1 (the top professional tier of football in France) and today were playing Évian Thonon Gaillard F.C. David wanted to see a professional football game while we were in Europe (having played FIFA 14 on the iPad), and the kickoff at 4:30 on Saturday was ideal for us.  Unfortunately for us, the club's organizational skills off the field would charitably be called "incompetent" by North American professional sports standards: the field is surrounded by construction with no signage.  When we arrived at the stadium, having bought our tickets online "for pickup at the billeterie", the ticket office could not find our tickets.  After some searching, they concluded they were at the "other" billeterie on the other side of the stadium.  Following 20 minutes of getting lost in the construction zone, a conversation with the gate ushers who assured us there was no such place (!), and having to circumnavigate a seemingly needless and endless fence, we found a building with 6-foot letters on it: Billeterie.  Success! ..... or not.  When we asked there for our tickets, the clerk looked at us in confusion and asked us why we were asking her about tickets, since this wasn't a ticket office.  No, instead of the building with 6' letters declaring itself the ticket office, the building we wanted was back around at the other end of the endless fence we had just traversed - unlabelled in a construction portable that blended in with all the other construction portables.


So, we entered the Stade at the 35-minute mark.  Fortunately, the on-field product was excellent, and OM dominated the play, coming away with a 1-0 victory.  There was only one booking (for a reckless challenge by an Evian TG midfielder in injury time when they were pressing for the equalizer), so it was a clean game with very little rolling-on-the-field shenanigans.  The concessions were limited by efficient, we easily managed to get our food and get back to our seats during the half-time break.  The seating in the stadium was similarly well-designed: the side seating was for people with families and the elderly who wanted to sit and watch a game.  The flag-waving, drum-beating, dancing and singing teens and singles were located at the two ends and were an entertainment in and of themselves!

Incidentally, for those that used to make fun of the CFL for having two Roughriders teams, Ligue 1 has two teams named Olympique - neither of which are in cities that have hosted the Olympics.