L'Estaque - Sea, Art and Sun...

The plan was to hold up our yearly tradition and visit the "Oursinade", the Sea Urchin Festival in Carry le Rouet. Except now that sea urchins have become an almost endangered species Carry has renamed its popular feast "Festival des Fruits de Mer" (Seafood Festival) and, when we were just starting to drive there it started pouring. So no open air seafood extravaganza! But then we remembered having ripped out an article about a museum close by, so off we went to L'Estaque.
L'Estaque is a small and not exactly beautiful fishing-port north east of Marseille's City center and its claim to fame is that Cézanne discovered l'Estaque in 1864 and came back again and again to paint the view across the Gulf of Marseille. Later Renoir, Derain, Braque and Dufy came to L'Estaque and a now almost forgotten Marseille artist: Adolphe Monticelli, whose work was greatly admired by van Gogh and Cézanne.

The Monticelli Foundation is not all that easy to find, it is almost hidden outside of L'Estaque, but once there it is easy to see what attracted the artists all that time ago - even now that  L'Estaque has become Marseille's 16th arrondissement the views are still spectacular and some of the best views across the sea -"La grande Bleue" - are from inside the museum.

Inside the Museum

Adolphe Monticelli

View from the museum across the "la grande Bleue"

And guess what? Just as we were leaving the museum the sun came out! So we hotfooted it to Carry le Rouet and got to eat some real good seafood after all! We shared an excellent "Daube aux Poulpes" (octopuss) and some stuffed mussels and left the sea urchins to those who absolutely had to eat them...

Delicious Octopuss Stew

And just to show you how nice the day turned out here are some more photos

Picknick by the Sea

Oysters on the Beach

Urchins, Frites and Wine of course

Oursinade in Carry le Rouet - Sea Urchin Festival

Carry le Rouet is a small habor town right next to Marseille where on the first three weekends in February they celebrate their famous "oursinades" - a sea urchin festival. Unfortunately, this year it was not only freezing cold, but the only urchins to be had were at the fishmongers. Normally you find stalls and stalls of this local delicacy around the port at festival time - but it seems the urchins are in danger of being over harvested and so some authority put a stop to them being sold at every corner.

Endangered species: sea urchins

Not that this mattered much to me - I am no big fan of sea urchins and much prefered to try "Calamar à la Provençale" which translates as "in a spicy tomato sauce" and was delicious, as were the moules marinières, prepared al fresco with more than just a whiff of garlic or the snails - all presented in huge round pans and steaming hot....

How do you open these prickly things?

The essentials are a pair of scissors and a sturdy glove

And because a festival needs a little bit more than just good food (and great wine of course  - we are in France here!) these Oursinades always start with a costume parade. These ladies wear Provençal costumes and play the typical one handed flute and their drum.

Playing flute against the cold