Le Panier is in the second arrondissement of Marseille, is the oldest part of the city, and perhaps has been made most famous by Jean-Claude Izzo's novels. Its name dates from a former inn that had a basket as its sign. There is an exchange 'shop' there in which you can take one of the items and replace it for another. That was the problem this morning: the bookcase outside had a book I wanted: Emmanuelle Pireyre's Féerie Generale. Problem is, we didn't have a book to give in exchange, a problem made even worse by the fact that it was Sunday: no way of buying a book for three euros at Gibert Joseph to leave in exchange for this. Then my partner Penny thought of a brilliant idea: dash to the giraffe near Réformés Canebières. Unfortunately the giraffe's belly was empty, but even as we were turning away a guy came up and left two books in the receptacle: I grabbed the scholarly non-fiction work on Martin Luther King and we sped back to leave the MLK work in exchange for the Emmanuelle Pireyre. OK, I know that some would argue that Féerie Generale is unreadable, but I'm happy with the exchange: how else can you find good literature on a French Sunday in Marseille, apart from the vide grenier in the hippodrome?
Oh, yeah, Le Panier: my photographic comments below:
This last shot was taken from La Place des Moulins, and is one of the three windmill remains here.
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