Sadly the rain followed us from Genoa to our first port of call, Marseille in the South East of France.  The weather really took the shine off our visit.  It’s kind of hard to enjoy oneself in the cold and rain.   Nonetheless we jumped on a shuttle bus to the Old Port area and did as much exploring and sightseeing as we reasonably could.  This included riding on an open-top (duurrh) ‘hop on-hop off’ bus up to the Marseille Notre Dame Basilica.  That was quite spectacular – and it was good to see some of the famous Mediterranean villas owned by the rich and famous from years gone by – on the way up.   After that we crammed into the downstairs ‘covered’ cabin of the hop on-hop off bus with about a thousand other drowned tourists and headed back down the main town.  After doing some shopping, importantly so Terry could buy some dress pants after forgetting to pack his – we hit an authentic French boulangerie for lunch.  No one, period - does baguette, croissant and choux pastry like the French.  We then dragged our wet and sorry selves back to the ship and that was pretty much it for Marseille.  Not an auspicious start to our trip … but it got much better thereafter – thank goodness!