Marseilles vs. San Pedro

I'm on the train to Cagnes sur mer right now to visit the Renoir house and begin my impressionist tour of southern France. I spent last night in Marseilles. My friend called it the "San Pedro of France", which in a sense is true, accept for the castles, museums, incredible food, and fresh fish markets every morning.

The people in Marseilles are also the nicest people I've met in France so far. Even the night clerk at my hotel after telling me my room wasn't in fact mine....
"Room 30 sil vous plez"
"That's not your room"
"Huh? I was in there earlier. My bag is on the floor and my name is in your book."

They make you check your keys before leaving most hotels in Europe, just so us tourists don't get drunk and throw our keys in the harbor or get mugged. It's understandable. They don't use disposable key cards like so many places in the US. These places were built 300 years ago some of them, and they hand you these skeleton keys that look like they could open a dungeon gate in a Hobbit movie.

So the clerk looks on his list...
"That is your room."
He cracks this great smile and starts laughing. He wasn't even mean denying me my key. Just matter of fact. So I laugh with him. I'm starving, so I decide to ask my new friend whether or not he has any food in the kitchen of the hotel. The town shut down early and I couldn't find anything on the way back.

He says "pain?" (bread)
I'll take anything..."oui."

He goes into the kitchen and cuts me off half this fresh french roll and puts it in the toaster. When it's finished, he comes out with the 2 pieces cut open on a plate, butter and jam. Doesn't charge me anything. I go out on the patio over the water (I put a couple of pics of the view from earlier that day) and ate my bread.

Outside of "The Ant Farm", we'll call it, that I stayed on my 2nd trip to Barcelona, this is the LEAST expensive place I've stayed in Europe. Right on the water. Incredible. ("The Ant Farm" by the way literally was infested with ants. In the hotel's defense, the night guy did offer me a can of Raid when he saw the were sold out and couldn't switch my room. Unfortunately the hotel also had paper thin walls, drunk people throwing parties, and a highly active sexual clientele. I'll check the guide book more carefully next time.)

Let's just say I'm happy to be at this hotel in Marseilles tonight. And really grateful to my new friend at the desk for helping me out.