Quick Trip to Old Marseille

Marseille had lured itself to me for some reason even though it had a reputation as a tough, dirty town full of gangs, drugs, and violence. I must admit that I was a little apprehensive about coming here even though I wanted to see it. After all, it is a famous seaport that sits on the Mediterranean Sea in  beautiful Provence, and it is the oldest and the second largest city in France. However, statistics, history, and geography couldn't compare to the meaningful experience my four-day trip to Marseille would bring. 

I breathed the clean sea air and instantly fell in love with it. I ate fresh and tasty food, much of it coming from the sea where all sorts of bizarre creatures live and are on display in street-side fish markets. I stayed in a "little Algerian souk" and overcame my fear of being in the midst of extreme  strangeness. I witnessed extraordinary examples of urban redevelopment and contemplated the value of multiculturalism in a city that has teemed with diversity for millennia. I enjoyed the hot sun and the ice-cold Coke drinks. I even discovered that my understanding of spoken French had vastly improved. 

I plan to return to Marseille for it is a city of many faces and dimensions with much to see and experience. Meanwhile, here is a brief tour of the city and what I learned about it.


The Panier District

This older part of the city goes back 2,600 years when the Greeks founded it as Massalia, a major trading post on the Mediterranean. In the 17th century, the district became a working class neighborhood. In the 19th century, as commerce and industrialization grew, all sorts of transient people moved in and the neighborhood developed a bad reputation.  

The Panier district has seen much modern development in the 21st century while it simultaneously keeps its heritage alive. Broken down buildings are being repaired and painted in ochre while remnants of old shop signs are restored. Residents brighten up the streets with potted plants in front of their houses in order to adorn the stone pavements and buildings. (Hanging plants can easily fall and break due to the heavy Mistral winds.) Craftsmen, potters, santon makers (ceramic figurines), and restauranteurs are opening up new places of business all the time.

Market stalls on a Wednesday morning

The city is trying to make Le Panier a safe and vibrant place. Outdoor markets like this one help.

InterContinental-Marseille

 The InterContinental Hotel was originally a hospital for the poor in the 18th century. It is now a luxury hotel. Rooms start at 150 euros.

The La Vieille Charité, an enormous complex in Le Panier, shows the city's commitment to redevelopment. Such projects--and many more--have helped Marseille to be named the Capital of Culture in 2013. (Oliver Wainwright of The Guardian explains how this happened.)


La Vieille Charité was meant to be an almshouse. It was designed in the Baroque style by architect Pierre Puget and constructed between 1671 and 1749.


Almshouses served as workhouses for the poor. Children were found jobs as domestic servants, cabin boys or apprentices with seamstresses or bakers. As time passed, the number of inmates increased from 850 in 1736 to 1059 in 1760. However, once the imprisonment of the poor became less acceptable, the numbers decreased to 250 in 1781. 

The building survived the French Revolution and was then used as an asylum for vagrants and the dispossessed in the nineteenth century before it was transformed into a barracks for the French Foreign Legion until 1922. For the next 40 years, those displaced by the demolition of the Old Port and the bombings of the Second World War lived at La Vieille Charité with various squatters, pillagers and vandals in squalid and unsafe conditions. A religious community of 30 Little Sisters of Jesus lived there, too, to minister to these people. In 1962, all the residents were rehoused and the building shut down until 1968 when Minister of Culture André Malraux provided funds to rescue the complex. La Vieille Charité was restored between 1970 and 1986. 

The complex now houses the Museum of Mediterranean Archaeology; the Museum of Art of Africa, Oceania and Amerindia; the regional hub of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS); the Centre Norbert Elias, a research centre and library that specializes in anthropology and history of social dynamics; the Centre International de la Poésie de Marseille; and the Fabrique des Écritures, an innovative project that offers production facilities to researchers, as well as an environment to develop critical thinking on creative and emerging forms of narrative.

Lenche Place

 Lenche Place, the site of the old Greek agora (gathering place), is considered the oldest place in Marseille. It is named after a Corsican family who built a coral workshop on it as well as other shops and a hotel in the 16th century. Before that, the Religious of Saint Savior had an abbey here. The Lenche Theatre is here as well as several indoor and outdoor cafés. 

I had a lunch of salmon with pesto sauce, rice with herbs, and carrots. Although I wanted local fish, my salmon was from the Atlantic Ocean. My server told me that Mediterranean fish would have cost 10 euros more. 

During lunch, an older man played Spanish music on his guitar and sang. He then circulated the tables asking for tips.  He's got a good retirement gig going for him. 



One of the more interesting shops I stumbled across in the Panier is L'Espératine de Marseille, which features specialty chocolate that is made with olive oil. The oil is a substitute for the animal fats usually found in stuffed chocolates and a natural preservative. Although you can't readily taste the olive oil, it enhances the flavors of the cacao, almond and orange used with the chocolate. The shopkeeper gave me a tour of the shop as well as several samples. I couldn't resist buying green chocolates in the shape of olives and hazelnut chocolate in the shape of fish.

I also had a cup of hot chocolate, and I do mean chocolate. This chocolate was so thick, I needed a water chaser to get it down. It was melted down chocolate with a small bit of almond milk. Delicious! Accompanying the drink was a navette, a common cookie in Marseille. It is in the shape of a little boat (of course) and has an orange blossom flavor. Hmmm, good! 

 
The shopkeeper was a Greek woman born in Madagascar and now living in France. She is just another example of the multiculturalism of the city that resides both in individuals and  among the population. 

Another shop in the Panier was La Navette Marseillaise, which features the boat-shaped biscuits that come in various sizes (mine were about 4 inches) and are flavored with orange blossom. These hard, dry biscuits are popular in Marseille and one of the "must-do" foods to try. Navettes remind me of biscotti that my Sicilian grandmother used to serve. They are good for dunking in coffee or milk. Maybe that's what the locals do, too. 

I have fond memories of Le Panier district not only because of its history and redevelopment but because I took a two-hour tour in French--and understood 85-90% of the guide's explanations.



MUCEM

The MUCEM (Museum of the Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean) promotes the Mediterranean heritage, takes part in the creation of new exchanges in the region and, during this period of profound upheaval, helps to lay the foundations for the Mediterranean world of tomorrow, according to its website. The MUCEM is a place where people can come to gain a better understanding of the region on both a national and an international scale.

Its exhibitions and programs offer a multidisciplinary vision that combines anthropology, history, archaeology, art history and contemporary art to show the public the multiple facets of the Mediterranean world and its ongoing dialogue with Europe.    

The MUCEM opened in Marseille in June 2013. By the following year, it became one the 50 most visited museums in the world.

The building's black latticework of fibre-reinforced concrete makes for an awesome and striking sight, especially from the inside. Here is a sitting area that looks westward--a perfect place to watch sunsets and ships in the harbor. The hallways around the outside edges of the building are particularly stunning. 

Fort St. Nicolas

Footbridge

Along the sea, at the entrance to the Old Port, is Fort St. Nicholas and Fort Saint-Jean, a fully restored historical monument. They are connected by a footbridge to represent the connection between both shores of the Mediterranean.

Fort Saint-Jean with footbridge

The footbridge has neither arch nor cables, but instead forms a simple line of black concrete that is suspended 19 metres in the air. This is made possible by the exceptional properties of fibre-based concrete. 

Fort Saint-Jean

Color Bus Tour Around the City
Most major cities have a hop-on and hop-off bus that takes travelers around the city. I took the Color Bus tour and got an overview of Marseille. In fact, since I had a day-long pass, I took the tour twice. The tour of covers quite a bit of the city, and I've added some photos of the tour's highlights.

La Canebière is the main drag of the city. It runs north and south and ends at the Port Vieux. My apartment was on the right side of the street about 10 blocks from the Port Vieux.   



 This fort guards the entrance to Marseille. It's amazing to see such structures built right out of the limestone rock.

These are the hills that the Impressionist artists often featured in their paintings.

The beach -- Plages des Catalans. Many Spaniards from the Barcelona area came to Marseille. This beach is named after them.

Notre Dame de la Garde is at the highest point in Marseille.  Sailors pray to the Blessed Mother for protection on the sea. Her statue on top of the tower is 10 tons and was placed there in 1870.

 Hilltop mansions built in the 19th century provided residents with a good view of the sea.

Hilltop street

One of the many fountains in Marseille. It celebrates the 50-mile canal system that brought water to the city in 1849. It took 15 years to build the canal and it was the city's sole source of water until 1970.

Frioul Archipelago comprises 4 islands at the entrance to the port. The island with the castle towers (back) is Château d'If, an old island prison made legendary by Alexandre Dumas in his novel, The Count of Monte Cristo. 

 This structure measures sea level.

This Tunisian ferry brings passengers and their cars across the Mediterranean Sea to Tunis, about 500 miles due south. 

War memorial of the First World War.







 

 The Marseille Transporter Bridge once joined both sides of Port Vieux at this point. It was built in 1905 and destroyed by the Germans in 1944. A ferry now takes people across the harbor.


 

Apartment buildings built after the war handsomely line the western side of the Port Vieux next to the City Hall. This area was bombed by the Germans. Liberation Day was August 25, 1944.

The City Hall was built in 1666 during Louis XIV's reign. A bust of the King is in the top center of the building. Although it is in the area bombed during World War II, the City Hall was spared from destruction.

Cathédrale Sainte-Marie-Majeure was built from 1852 to 1896 on the site used for the cathedrals of Marseille since the fifth century. The Byzantine-Roman Revival style building covers the same square footage as the Vatican. Locals call it the "Pajamas" because of its horizontal stripes. 

Here is the view of the Cathedral from the back.



 Some dramatic seaside shots

Food
I ate as much seafood as I could, but did not get the city's famous fish stew called Bouillabaisse. It's just one more reason to return to the city!
 

This is Marseille Salad with shrimp and sardines.









 
 I had heard that Toinou's was one of the best places for oysters. So I indulged myself with a combo plate that included clams, mussels, and shrimp. Much to my surprise, everything but the shrimp was raw, but everything was super fresh and served with lemon. 

Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the fish market on the docks but was able to capture the seafood display  across from Toinou's, which was beautiful.

  

"My Little Algerian Souk"

My apartment was located in what appeared to be the "Little Algeria" neighborhood or as I called it, "the Souk" (marketplace). You might say that I was in the thick of humanity where there were merchants, beggars, regular shoppers, families, and tourists all using the street for their own purposes. They made the street bustle amid the smells of various cooked meats, fish, bread, and incense.

Life in "the Souk" starts about 7 a.m. when several shopkeepers set up their stores for the day. Most of them have a table right on the street and their store behind them. They stand there all day and usually finish 13 hours later. In the bakery across the street from my apartment, a woman made flat bread, pizzas, and variations of the same theme all day. She'd start with a big ball of dough and separate it into portions. Then she'd roll out the dough and put it in the oven. After it was baked, she'd take out and place it on the streetside stand. She never seemed to stop with this routine. A man (her husband?) took care of customers.

The butcher shop started its routine at 6 a.m. He had to take the meat out of the refrigerator and put it in his streetside display case. The high-pitched sounds of him cutting meat with an electric saw reminded me of the grocery store in my hometown. He was constantly on his feet preparing meats and waiting on customers. His store was the last one to close at night.

After the merchants closed their shops and rolled down a protective steel barrier, the night shift moved in with a huge and noisy commotion. The "night shift" was a host of young men who layed out their wares on a blanket along the sidewalks. Mostly, they sold shoes, but they also had jewelry, CDs, and other small items. God knows how they were able to sell these things with such competition all around them. It seemed that this "night market" was more of a social gathering and a way for young men to get out of the house. The sellers had friends on motorcycles stop by to visit them.

Around 4 a.m. a truck came through the neighborhood to pick up the trash on the street. A bit later, another truck went through to wash the street and ready it for a new day.

Marseille is a wonderful city. It is vibrant, bustling, and colorful. I highly recommend it as a place to visit.