We’ve been all over the old port area of Marseille this afternoon by bus. I fell asleep just before the tour was scheduled to begin, and almost missed it. As it was I forgot my camera in my haste to leave the room. Our female tour guide spoke an odd mixture of broken English, Amercan English and Elemer Fudd English.”We are gonna go to vewy vewy import place. But you must be careful to see vewy vewy beautiful statue - statue is alegory of grain.”

The paintings hanging on the wall in the Bassilica of Notre Dame were a catalog of disaters. People had commioned partings of car wrecks, plane crashes, ship wrecks, ships in storms, death beds, and earthquakes, in thanks for having survived them. John and I were interested in the tactical problems of attacking the Bassilica, built on top of a fortress, on top of a hill over looking the city.

At the end of the tour, the bus stopped to let passengers have a little shopping time. John, Andrew, and I opped to take a little walk down to one of the forts at the end of the old harbor. It was nice admiring the classical “Points” of the fortification, which was designed so that every wall was covered by the guns of another wall. On the way back to the bus, we jogged to make up for lost time - We got a few stares from the French around us. “Are you from Austrialia?”, the Frenchman asked John, as he pedaled beside us on his bycycle. “No, sir. We’re from the USA” we replied. Why the question? Well, John is wearing his hat-that-never-leaves-his-head, and it’s kind of Aussie looking. People watch him go by from accross the street, and as John happy explains, “There is no other hat like this in France”.