May Day Madness
Both sides of La Manche (aka the English Channel), celebrate May Day, a fusion between traditional pagan festivals and more recent workers’ rights.
In France, the bank holiday falls on May 1st, whereas England grants the first Monday in May to ensure a long weekend. But the differences run deeper than that….
In Oxford, all-night revellers and schoolchildren (generally in two separate groups), gather at dawn to hear the hushed tones of Magdalen College choir. For a short while, all is quiet, before mayhem descends and the pubs throw open their doors – at 6 am.
Morris Dancing fills the streets, with men in voluminous white blouses, bells, sticks and handkerchiefs dancing in formation.
Across the country, children wear face-paint and skip around a Maypole, a rod with rainbow ribbons attached at the top. Each child holds one ribbon and the choreography creates swirling patterns of colour.
In France, things are a little different. In the days before the holiday, workers buy a lily of the valley, a genteel pearly white flower, to present to a lady. This refreshingly sweet practice stems from the Court of Charles IX, and everyone overlooks the ironic conflict with the day’s other purpose – to commemorate the Republic’s workers’ rights. As a concession, sales of flower are tax-free and the porte-bonheur, or good luck charm, kickstarts the month with more bank holidays than any other.
Of course, in both countries many people mark the occasion with their own rituals – heading to DIY shops or hosting barbecues. These modern interpretations reflect the age-old promise of May Day – the hope that summer is around the corner.
For more on dances from around the world, see Famous Dances in Famous Places, When Feet Say More Than Words. For more of my blog see Inside the Travel Lab.
Photo Credits – Maypole by Pete Ashton, Morris Dancers by red betty black.
Bad boy Marseilles
Approach with trepidation.
Marseilles seems proud of its bad-boy image. As a sailor’s city, the Old Port’s promenade is awash with fresh blue paint and a salty breeze. Its reputation is formidable, its spirit rebellious. Above all, Marseilles is a city to be heard. France’s national anthem is even called the Marseillaise. Waves of change have crashed onto this harbour since 600BC, bringing all the colour, chaos and spice that characterizes France’s second city.
Marseilles remains a city for work and for action. It may find itself on the shores of the Med, but a drive along the ringroads demonstrates ash-grey skyscrapers and cranes jutting out from each wayward suburb like spines from a sea urchin. There’s no frolicking on the beach here. No massive yachts. No St Tropez.
That’s the first impression, anyway. Strolling along Quai des Belges in the Old Port, a different view springs to mind. OK, so boisterous stalls sell T-shirts that scream “we are not french, we are marseillaise!” And yes, the hotel receptionist issues fraught warnings about walking home after dark. But beneath the swagger, Marseille houses a secret that the locals just can’t bring themselves to admit.
It’s beautiful. As an industrial port, poetically so.
Following the Quai de Rive Neuve away from the city centre allows glimpses into sandy enclaves, with lapping, green-glass seas. Zesty, independent hotels surround the docks, with swimming pools and seagulls perched on their rooftops. Beyond the rocks, the crashing surf focuses your eyes on the notorious island of Château d’If, where Alexandre Dumas imprisoned the Count of Monte Cristo in his psychological thriller of the same name.
A lazy climb to the Pharo gardens shows a leaf-framed view 
of the harbour, including the sandy-soft Fort St-Jean and elegant Cathédral de la Major. The statue of a desperate sailor stretches over the citizens of Marseilles as they relax, read and chat with friends in the park.
Back in the city, the streets throb as markets hustle up oysters, Moroccan tagines and rubber shoes, fenced in by flamboyant graffitti-splashed walls.
Even Bouillabaisse - the local seafood stew, thrown together from onions, white wine and tomatoes, fennel and saffron – sparks arguments over whether adding crab to the pot betrays the background of this traditional sailor’s supper.
Whatever your opinion, be sure to have one and proclaim it with vigour. This is Marseilles – and it has a reputation to live up to. Alright?
The rest of Abigail King’s travel blog lives at www.insidethetravellab.com.
Turtle Safaris – Saltwater & Scepticism
But to see turtles in Barbados? I only needed to hold my nose and leap from a gleaming white boat. Armed with only a bikini and a snorkel, I’m surrounded. These tiger-striped, glimmering beauties close in. And they are not shy. I gulp and choke on the burning seawater as my head drops below the surface. I don’t want to swim for fear of damaging them with my flailing limbs.
But something extraordinary happens.
The romantic inside me wants to believe that they saw I was struggling; the cynic says I was in the way. Whatever the reason, a stately giant glides skyward from underneath me and keeps on going. So much so that I am standing on its back, my head lifted above the water to breathe.
It seems that I am shy – not they – and I have to wonder who is viewing whom.
Toronto
Riyadh
My childhood memories of sandpaper-dry heat and the excitement of discovering a chilled ‘soda’ in the basement have formed a veil of dust in my imagination.
I see my mother,through falling leaves of disjointed flashbacks, as a swirl of black-liquorice fabric. I taste the chlorine and smell the rubber arm-bands from learning to swim and I hear the lullaby of the crickets each night, rattling like a broken jewellery box. Yet, by sorting through these fragments, some images sharpen, the opposite process of a shimmering oasis that those children’s cartoons were so fond of.
I remember a trip to a market. My mother, my sister and me. After white-walled housing and women awash in black, the mesh of colours, chattering noises and the glitter of gold-tinged genie lamps overwhelmed me. Despite the scarcity of windows, sunlight carved its own slanted paths into every merchant’s stall.
My silence must have been interpreted as good behaviour, as a rounded man with a soft beard leant forward and placed a necklace over my head. It was an elasticated chain of daisies that matched my linen floor-length shirt, a spice of scarlet and green embroidery at the neckline. He gave one to my sister as well and we felt like Arabian princesses.
I’ve never been back, but I suspect I’d get a different reaction today.
Stone Town
Lima
Bangkok
Marseille
Cassis – the nearby picturesque port.
The city of Marseille..
Biarritz
Spotting surfers on the waves at Biarritz…and for once feeling grateful that I’m on dry land.
For those thrilled by the fact that the surfers in this photo are barely visible (giving perspective to the size of those waves) – and who actually clicked on this link to find out more information about the surf in Biarritz, go wild with this, you crazy people, you.
