Carnival Vista Review: Day 5 – Marseille, Arles and Aix-en-Provencefeatured

With all of this jetlag keeping me up late at night, waking up at 6:15 in the morning was the last thing I wanted. But when the cruise director mentions that you’ll be passing a historical site on the way in and you’re rolling into a new port that you’ve never been to before, the early wake up isn’t so bad.

As we sailed into Marseille, we passed Île d’If, the setting of the Count of Monte Cristo. At least, that’s what Matt told us we’d be passing in the Fun Ashore chat the day before. It was quick and fleeting and we only briefly saw it from our patio.

While our tour didn’t meet until 8:15 am, we decided to just get ready and have an early breakfast instead of going back to sleep. What’s for breakfast? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.

Last year, we docked in Cannes and we absolutely loved the port and our time there visiting Grasse and Saint-Paul-de-Vence. We weren’t entirely too sure what to expect from this region of France, but I was excited to find out what it had to offer us.

We were booked on the Arles and Aix-en-Provence tour, an excursion Stephanie chose because she took it upon herself to research every possible town we could visit and then chose the ones she thought were the prettiest. Our tour met in the Reflections Dining Room and I thought they handled the excursions meet ups well. They were held throughout the ship in different lounges, which helped keep things orderly with so many passengers and so many tours.

Our group was the third one called from the room and we quickly made our way down to Deck 0 to debark and meet up with our tour guide for the day, Alex, and our driver, Henri (who greeted us throughout the day with a hearty Bonjour! every time we reboarded the motorcoach).

As we pulled away from the port in Marseille, Alex told us that the weather was forecasted for high winds from the North. Alex said they were Mistral winds, and those always come in increments of three days at a time. Arles would be the worst of it, but it was supposed to warm up when we got to Aix-en-Provence.

Weather aside, I really love the southern region of France. It has this intangible and unqualifiable ability to just…make my heart warm and happy. I told a friend today that I’m pretty sure I could spend a couple of weeks in the region alone with my camera and find a great deal of peace in it and I meant every word of it. There’s a special kind of peace in these small towns that line the southern coast of the country.

Our first stop for the day was Arles, a city with a deep history dating back to the Roman empire but most famous as the home of Vincent van Gogh from 1888 – 1889 (a time frame in which he painted over 300 pieces!). Though Arles is considered the largest metropolitan commune in France with square mileage nearly seven times the size of Paris (a serious fact that’s slightly misleading given that most of this space is accounting for the Camargue region), it only has a population of 50,000 people.

Our tour bus dropped us off a short walk from the center where our walking tour would begin and I couldn’t help but notice that there really weren’t many people in Arles. It sounds odd. The experience of walking through a modern town that dates back to ancient times but is all but empty is odd, but it gave us a unique opportunity to really take in Arles without the distraction of crowds of people. Arles isn’t always this quiet, though – Alex said it was a combination of the cold winds and a Sunday morning that fell on a holiday weekend, where many people were heading out of town.

Our tour began at the Place de la République, the center where City Hall, the Obélisque d’Arles (a 4th century Roman obelisk made of granite that has been on the list of historic French monuments since 1840) and the Church of St. Trophime are located. Alex gave us a short break to use the public restrooms before we began touring, but I couldn’t tear myself away from staring in fascination at the monuments around me. City Hall is big and so beautiful in the simplicity of it’s design. And the Church of St. Trophime ,with its façade depicting biblical scenes and statues of Saints that have ties to Arles, was so magnificent and intricate. We were an hour into our tour…we hadn’t even really started touring yet…and I was already enamored by the beauty of this town.

When our break was over, we began a walking tour that took just over an hour, taking us through the quiet streets and past the ancient Roman ruins that Arles was built around as it modernized. See, Arles was taken by the Romans in 123 BC and was used as a trading port because of it’s proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. Though Arles was incorporated into France in the late 900’s AD and has been a French territory ever since, the Roman influences are felt throughout the town in the remains of theaters, aqueducts and even an amphitheater that mimics the Roman Colosseum.

Alex took us inside the amphitheater and sat us on the stone benches to tell us the history of the structure. The Arles Amphitheater was built in 90 AD and was the center of all entertainment, from gladiator battles to chariot races to plays. The amphitheater sits over 20,000 (which was surprising to me – it feels much smaller than it actually is) and is still in use as an entertainment venue today.

After we left the amphitheater, we walked to the Place de Forum, where the café that Van Gogh painted in The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum is located. Alex told us about Van Gogh’s time in Arles on the way, how in the 15 months he resided in Arles, he painted over 300 pieces and how Arles was the location of, perhaps, the most notorious incident in Van Gogh’s life (you know…that time he chopped his own ear off when he was in the midst of a psychotic break). Van Gogh was said to be absolutely taken by the landscape of Arles and though I’m sure the town has changed plenty in the 130+ years since Van Gogh’s residency, I felt the same kind of enchantment as we strolled through the streets, especially experiencing it in the quiet serenity of a Sunday morning.

Our walking tour ended where it began, at the Place de la République, and we were set free for two hours of independent touring. Many people in our tour headed off to spend more time with the Roman ruins, but we headed off to wander around, take some pictures and see what other corners of the town we could discover.

We stopped in a bakery we found not far from the Place de Forum to pick up some croissants and pastries for the bus ride later. Stopping for a croissant in France is a necessity, a right of passage, after all, right?

Since there are so many cafes in the Place de Forum, we decided we’d grab an early lunch since we didn’t know how much free time we’d have later in Aix en Provence. I’m not one to choose restaurants that are super touristy (you won’t find me dining at the top of the Eiffel Tower anytime soon), but dining at the café that inspired one of Van Gogh’s works just felt really cool, so we headed towards Le Café de la Nuit, opting for seating on the open patio instead of indoors, even in the cool spring air.

We ordered a round of cappuccinos and some salads. The cappuccinos were great, the salads were so so, the service left something to be desired. But sitting outside in Arles on a beautiful day, listening to the wind rustle through the trees, it was bliss. Sheer bliss. And so cliché. Painfully cliché. But I just sat there, cappuccino in hand, at a café one of my favorite artists once painted listening to the wind dance through the trees, and that was it. I took it all in and wondered (for the millionth time) how it gets any better, how lucky was I to get to take this all in, how we were just one port in and it was already so, so good.

Once we finished our lunch and settled our bill, we set out to do some souvenir shopping. We walked back up the streets towards the ruins and the amphitheater, where a series of shops and stalls had everything from French soaps to linens and every souvenir you could think of. I purchased a few ceramic pieces on the way, but my target was anything lavender I could get my hands on. Nearly every store had lavender drawer satchels, which were just a few Euro and made great souvenirs for friends (and make all of my clothes smell like the south of France!).

Two hours went by faster than I would have liked, and our group met up at an old carousel and waited for our bus to pick us up and whisk us off to our next location.

After we left Arles, we began the hour drive to Aix-en-Provence. While Arles was antiquated, Aix was almost a full opposite: cosmopolitan and modern (for a French village), with hundreds of shops, boutiques, restaurants and bars. They even have a Monoprix (which, if you didn’t follow along on our last Paris trip, I’m completely obsessed with)! And a Lush! And an Apple Store (hello, free wifi)! And best of them all, La Cure Gourmande, my favorite French sweet shop. The manicured streets reminded me of Beverly Hills, and there were people everywhere. It provided an interesting juxtaposition to our quiet morning in Arles.

On Sunday’s, vendors set up tables on the street and sell handmade jewelry, baked goods, scarves…everything. We didn’t have time to browse, though, because Alex was starting our walking tour of Aix.

Our walking tour led us through the town, past all of these fun shops and bakeries with gorgeous macaroons on display. The more we walked and the more she talked, the more I wanted that free time. At some point, she mentioned she was hoping to get us 40 minutes of free time. Our walking tour was nearly an hour and a half, so while it was nice to explore the town with Alex’s colorful commentary, I wish our time was better balanced to allow for more free time to explore Aix at our own pace.

Our time in Aix was brief, but enough to get a taste of the history and vibe, and enough to know that the next time we’re in Marseille, a return visit will be towards the top of our list. The ride back to the port took about 40 minutes and we arrived not long before back onboard. We skipped the hut at the port selling last minute souvenirs and some sketchy looking luggage pieces and headed towards what seemed like the shortest line.

Our first port day brought our first elegant evening, so we headed straight to our cabin to start getting ready for our first big night out. Our Platinum sweet plate was delivered during the day and was waiting for us when we got in, a nice treat to nibble on while we got ready.

We usually do a round of glamour shots on our balcony before dinner, but our patio served as the perfect space to snap a few pictures and enjoy the brisk air as the Vista began to pull away from Marseille.

We’re fans of My Fan Dining over the traditional static dining time because it allows us the flexibility to dine whenever we want. Since we tend to dine early, we almost never have issues with waits. The Vista handles My Time Dining a little differently than other Carnival ships. Instead of going straight to the dining room, check in is at the Java Blue Café in Ocean Plaza…unless you’re Platinum or Diamond. If you’re in the upper tiers of the VIFP program, you can go straight to the dining room for priority seating. We appreciated the perk, but it was unnecessary — at just past 6:00 pm, the dining room was nearly empty. The dining staff was efficient, but weren’t incredibly outgoing, and though we were excited for our first dining experience with the American Table menus, we weren’t particularly wow’ed by anything we tried this night.

We walked off our dinner on deck 5, stopping into the Havana Bar for a bit and strolling the lanai outside of Ocean Plaza before heading up to the Lido deck for some tea.

Our Platinum logo gifts, a stationary set for each of us, were waiting on the bed with a towel animal and the next day’s Fun Times when we returned to the room.

Once I changed from heels to flats, we headed back out to the Liquid Lounge for the first Playlist Production show, Studio VIP. Carnival ships used to have these large, grandiose theaters but they’ve been transitioning away from the traditional theater and more towards multi-functional spaces. The Liquid Lounge serves as a theater during the day and early evening and then transforms into a dance club in the late night hours. This evening, it served as the home to Studio VIP, a show that pays homage to the disco era. We’ve seen Studio VIP before, onboard the Sunshine a few months prior, but it’s always interesting to see the energy a new cast brings to these shows, especially in the case of the Vista, which has a full production troupe. A few years back, Carnival cut back on its production troupe, going from two main singers and a full dance troupe to a cast of eight or so singers who could also dance. In a move that I hope is a sign of things to come on other ships, the production cast onboard the Vista has a full troupe of four singer/dancers, four dancer/singers and four dancers that don’t sing at all – a cast of 12. It brought more depth to the show and we really enjoyed it.

Pitch Perfect 2 was playing up at the Seaside Theatre, so we grabbed some blankets and some popcorn and settled in under the stars, looking up things we wanted to see and do in Florence the next day and keeping up with the score of the Cubs game back home.

After the movie, we headed out to grab a late night snack. Carnival’s late night offerings change year to year (and sometimes, ship to ship). There’s been the late night grill, the late night tapas, late night night bites featuring sandwiches and hot dogs…it’s always something different. There’s always pizza, ice cream and room service – those are available 24/7. On the Vista, they don’t really have a late night menu, opting instead to offer “Pizza Plus” after 11:00 pm. The pizza part was self explanatory – the five pizzas on the Pizzeria del Capitano menu are available – but the plus part expanded the menu to include Caesar salad, lasagna and a chicken parmesan sandwich. For most of the cruise, some (and on some nights, all) of the plus items weren’t available, but this felt like a new program and I’m sure, like anything else on a new ship, it was a kink they just needed to work out.

We plotted out our plans for the next day over our snacks, not quite ready to go to bed. But we had an early morning wake up and we’d need any and all the rest we could get – we were hitting Pisa and Florence the next day.

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