I must confess I never had a desire to go to Marseille in the South of France. The only reason I went to Marseille was that Euro Pride was in Marseille in 2013. This is why I travelled from Nice to Milan and then back to the South of France to Marseille so that I could see and experience Euro Pride.
I love queer culture. I often seek out queer cultures in foreign cities. I love finding how people in other parts of the world live out and perform their queerness. So when I found out that Euro Pride would be in Marseille, and Marseille was reachable by train while in Europe, I decided to go to Euro Pride.
So I travelled from Milan by train all the way to Marseille. I changed trains in Nice. The journey was pleasant. I even managed to get a stranger to take a picture of me while reading my magazine during the train ride. I had bought myself an issue of Vogue magazine. You need something beautiful to read when you are travelling.
I had made accommodation arrangement through Airbnb I think. I had reserved a room with a man who lived alone. I also arranged with him to go pick me up from the train station. This was a wonderful service that he offered for a couple of Euros. I had travelled for most of the day by train, and I was a bit tired, but I was also excited to be in a new city, a very different city.
The man who picked me up was regular. He was wearing shorts when he picked me up in his old car. I remember thinking, how does the apartment look like when his car looks like this. I know it was horrible to have such thoughts, but I did have them. While we were driving back to the apartment he pointed out the shops and the public transport stations and told me how the public transport works.
Marseille felt old. It also felt regular. It felt like a city without much of a pulse, at least not its initial impressions. What is vivid in the city is North African /Arabic influences. The architecture, the colours, the food smells in the city and the shisha smoking places.
My discoveries of Marseille were tied up with Euro Pride events. So I spent most of the two days before Pride doing touristy things during the day. I then went to Pride events at night. There was really one huge Pride party I went to before pride, and it was crazy. It was a bear and leather party. It was in a warehouse-like building with motor spare parts and car tires as part of the decorations. It had a military feel as well to it. As expected, there was a huge maze where all kinds of sexual fantasies were lived out. There were lots of big white men in leather. It was a scary environment because I was the only black person around, I didnโt speak French, and I was relatively young compared to the other people who were at the party.
While having a drink, listening to music, trying not to draw attention to myself, watching people go in and out of the sexual maze, a woman and a man came out wearing white aprons. I remember noticing the womanโs red high heel shoes. They were noticeably high and femme in a rough, leather and bears environment. They were pushing a trolley with what looked like a slaughtered pig on it. It turned out that it was actually a slaughtered pig. The hair on the pig was removed, and the pig was smooth, but I wasnโt sure what they were going to do with it.
Initially, I thought they were going to do a spit roast or something like that, but as it turns out, they were about to tattoo the pig. Yes. They spent the night literally tattooing the pig while people watched, while people danced, and while others fulfilled their sexual fantasies. It was the most bazaar and most amazing and interesting thing I had ever seen. I was mesmerised, so I watched them do their thing and I took pictures. The art on the pig turned out pretty good. That alone made me glad I was out there having fun but also seeing the weirdest and wonderful things.
The next day, I went to see some of the cultural institutions in the city. I first went to Fort Saint-Jean, which is a fortification in Marseille situated at the entrance of the Old Port built in 1660 by Louis XIV. The fort is an enormous structure. It is beautiful and has scenic panoramic views of the Vieux-Port ร Marseille. The building was empty when I visited, not many tourists. I spotted a soldier or two, otherwise not busy. This gave the fort an eerie feeling like it was trapped in time and only the ghosts of the past lived in there. It was an impressive structure, and of course that it has lasted this long means it was built very well, and it has been well maintained. I loved visiting the Fort and I thought it was a beautiful structure.
Probably one of the most impressive national museums I have ever been to the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations, which is linked to the Fort Saint-Jean by a bridge. When I visited the museum I remember thinking how Marseille all of a sudden as a city made sense, because I could connect the city and its history from what I was seeing in the museum. The museum is an impressive institution that chronicles the history of Mediterranean civilisations, which means North Africa and Arab countries, and their connection to Europe. The history of places like Marseille is intricately tied to the history of North Africa and other countries. I loved the interaction of the museum with its surroundings, and how the building was part of the art, in that itself is a historical artifact.
The Vieux Port ร Marseille is also impressive. There is something similar about the ways the ports in port cities in the South of France are organised. I am speaking here particularly about the yachts and the speedboats for recreational use. A port filled with yachts and speedboats always give off a sense of glamour. I found myself thinking that Marseille was like an old lady who used to a beauty queen, and now the beauty has faded, but she still retains her glamour. She still rocks her rouge lips and drinks champagne and you want to hear all the stories she has to tell because you know, she has lived a life worth writing about.
The last big event in Marseille for me was the Euro Pride parade. This was fantastic. Thousands of people gathered at the port in Marseille. It was very diverse, well, as diverse as a city in the South of France can be.
There was an amazing drag queen in the parade that was basically wearing a dressing table costume. It was complete with powder, lipstick, foundation brush, eyeliner and the dressing station was wrapped around her waist. It was amazing. I did feel like this is the costume she wears every Pride. The details on the costume demanded that she wear it every year perhaps otherwise it would be a waste of all the work that went into creating it.
The Pride march was well attended. We marched through the streets of Marseille. We then ended up by the beach somewhere and there was a massive party. I remember dancing to a remix of Deborah Cox and thinking how in Queer culture there is a universal appreciation of Deborahโs remixes.
I went home tired after all of that dancing. It was time to rest as I was leaving for my next destination after Marseille. The next stop was Barcelona.
