Paul arrived, as planned, at Marseille train station on Saturday afternoon. We were there to meet him, and walked back to the boat. Midsummer night is traditionally a major music festival across France, and Marseilles celebrates with gusto. We wandered the streets of the district known as Le Panier into the wee small hours.
The area was the old town until systematically destroyed by the Nazis in 1944. It was rebuilt in the '50's, and there are many small streets, unpassable for vehicles, and steep stairs clambering up the old cliffs of the defensible creek that attracted the Greek colonists who founded the first city here in 600BC.
At every corner, in every square, there was music. Funk, hip-hop, rap, salsa, rock, fusion. Guitars, accordions, ouds, drums of every shape and size, sax and trumpet and whistle. DJ's spinning, people dancing, drinking, talking, kissing.