According to ancient legend, the city was founded when Greek sailors from Phocaia explored the Mediterranean coast. They landed on the coast of what is now Marseille on the day when a Celtic king named Nann was looking for a husband for his daughter Gyptis. Gyptis was to give a cup to the one she wished to marry from among all the young men gathered. Surprisingly, it was Protis, the leader of the newcomers, to whom she gave the vessel. The two married, and Greeks and Celts founded the settlement of Massalia together.
South of the city center is the Notre-Dame de la Garde, designed by Henri-Jacques Espérandieu in the neo-Byzantine style and built between 1853 and 1864 on the site of a medieval pilgrimage chapel. It is located on a 147 m high limestone cliff and, along with the Château d'If in front of the harbor, is the landmark of Marseille. “La Bonne Mère”, as it is popularly known, contains a monumental collection of votive images. The viewing platforms offer a spectacular view of the city.
In the center of the city lies the old harbor Vieux Port. There is a fish market at the Quai des Belges. Approximately halfway along the route to the Cours Saint-Louis is the Stock Exchange (Palais de la Bourse), where the Musée de la Marine et de l'Économie de Marseille is housed. The Musée des Docks Romains housed the harbor facilities from the first century of our era. The Musée d’Histoire de Marseille was built around some of the remains of the ancient port. From the Old Port, small transport ships and tourist boats sail to the Frioul Islands, consisting of the islands of Ratonneau, Pomègues and If with the Château d'If. Some ships sail past the Calanques to Cassis, about 15 kilometers away, with Europe's highest cliff.
In our article on "Vieille Charité - poorhouse turns into a museum" we had already touched on the topics of poverty, crime and homelessness, which are still an obvious problem for the city of Marseille today, even if you don't really notice it as a tourist. Because: Marseille has a bad reputation.
The pure curiosity of discovery led us to explore the narrow side streets at the Vieuw Port, some of which lead quite steeply and narrowly up into the old town of Marseille.
Our interest in the Roman period in Marseille had led to initial findings, particularly through the museum in the Centre de la Vieille Charité, although the research was not that easy.
Around 2600 years ago, around 600 BC, the Greeks founded a small settlement on the south coast of what is now France as part of their colonization and gave it the name "Massalia". We have already written an article about this.
In our article about the former poorhouse Centre de la Vieille Charité in the center of Marseille, we reported extensively that today the Egyptian collection of the Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne also contains it.
Similar to the Fuggerei in Augsburg, we came across the Vieille Charité in Marseille, a building complex of social housing or poor housing, which are now real attractions in the old town due to their conversion into museums and the impressive building structure.
We used to travel quite often in the south of France, but we never really saw the region around Marseilles as an attractive holiday destination, especially for a beach holiday.
If you travel around Provence and especially in the Marseille region and pay at least a little attention to the architecture of the buildings, you will first notice some memorable constructions, which of course have their reasons.
Right at the beginning of our stay in Marseille, we set off from our accommodation for an initial exploration tour towards the Vieux Port and passed the Marseille Cathedral, which was hard to miss.
After our exploration of the Saint-Jean fortress, it was obvious to cross the second bridge over to Mucem, because the facade design alone was too attractive for us.
After the somewhat disappointing attempt to visit the Marseille Cathedral due to the high number of tourist visitors, we turned to the harbour, or rather the imposing fortress at the harbour.
Today began with a decision that, in retrospect, turned out to be quite the right one: taking the tourist train up to the La Garde hill, which is only 161 meters high, where there is said to be such a perfect view of Marseilles and of course the St. Mary's pilgrimage church Notre Dame de la Garde is worth visiting.
As already mentioned in our article “Short visit to the Tara”, we came to Marseille in Provence for a few days as part of our project work along the Roman roads in order to get to know the city in detail but also primarily to explore whether and which one ancient heritage is still visibly present in the city.
On the way to the port of Marseille via the fortress, we saw the church of St. Laurent and right at the entrance two gentlemen dressed like Templars (although without a sword like the Knights of the Templar Order) received the seemingly few visitors.
We were guests in Marseille for a few days and came across the Tara more or less by chance as we were heading towards the old port.
In France, more precisely in Marseille, there is a so-called purity law that does not apply to beer like in Germany, but also to a very important product: soap made from olive oil.