A Provençal Melting Pot in Marseille

The smell of fish was surprisingly powerful inside the central metro station of the Vieux Port, or Old Port. Once I was at street level and among the crowd, I understood why: The morning fish market was in progress.

FOR THE RECORD--Marseille port name--A photo caption on a Travel section story Sunday about Marseille, France, incorrectly implied that the city’s main harbor was pictured. The harbor shown is a different Marseille port, Vallon des Auffes.

Running along the end of the oblong port were makeshift trays stacked with squid, eel, purple sea urchins, even red and orange starfish. At one table an ugly monkfish was being weighed; at another, a squirming octopus was held up for a customer’s inspection. Boats that had brought in the catch were being swabbed out nearby.

The daily market is not a prettified folk tradition carried out for tourists’ sake. Crowds gather not to gawk but to buy. Few things here are done with outsiders in mind, as I found out during a week I spent visiting friends in Marseille this winter. Perhaps that is why most travelers seeking an idyllic Provençal experience--flowering fields of lavender and medieval villages perched on green, rolling hills--steer clear of this city, fearing a dirty industrial eyesore.

But behind its urban grittiness and working-class demeanor, Marseille proved to be a fascinating city lush with ancient history, bustling with activity and peopled with diverse and passionate residents. There was much to do--and even more to experience. Marseille is a rich mix of immigrants from Greece, Italy, Spain, Armenia, West Africa, Indochina and, making up a quarter of the city’s 800,000 residents by some estimates, North Africa. It’s France’s second-largest city, home to the biggest port in the Mediterranean and the second biggest in Europe behind Rotterdam (in the Netherlands).

The city is sprawled across 16 arrondissements, but its heart remains the Vieux Port, where a fat finger of water pokes into the undulating landscape. Along wide quays, fishermen mend nets and seamen lounge on benches reading newspapers in Greek and Arabic, while busy channel traffic moves between rows and rows of moored boats.

I began each morning here browsing through the fish market on the way to cafes lining the north side of the port. I tried half a dozen of them, most with deep terraces arrayed with plenty of tables to receive the first rays of sunlight.

Once fortified with breakfast, I was ready to wander through Marseille’s long and convoluted historical landscape. The Vieux Port was merely a creek when Greek sailors from the city of Phocaea (in present-day Turkey) landed here in 600 BC, as legend has it, just in time for the wedding of the Ligurian king’s daughter. The bride, Gyptis, was to choose her groom from among the guests by handing him a ceremonial cup of wine. She gave it to Protis, leader of the Greek party. The couple was given the hill on the north side of the creek, at what became the settlement of Massalia.

Massalia flourished from the shipping trade and became a rival of Carthage and ally to Rome. But when it backed the Roman general Pompey instead of Caesar during the civil wars after the conquest of Gaul (roughly France and Belgium today), Caesar took the city in 49 BC, confiscating the fleet and destroying trade. Massalia withered and soon was surpassed in importance by other Provençal towns.

In the 1940s, remnants of the original Roman docks were uncovered, as well as warehouses for dolia, the storage jars for grain, oil and wine. Some are displayed at the Musée des Docks Romains, built on the original site.

Even more fascinating is the 3rd century Roman merchant boat in the Musée d’Histoire de Marseille. The wooden boat, discovered in 1974, has been preserved through freeze-drying. Among the museum’s other relics are Greek ramparts and vestiges of Roman buildings found during the construction of Centre Bourse, the shopping center where the museum is housed. A fairly new exhibition details recent excavations that include a necropolis, a medieval potters’ quarter and Greek wrecks abandoned in the mud near the docks.

Marseille has always spun on cycles of prosperity and destruction, regaining its stature as an important Mediterranean port in the 11th century only to be pillaged by the Aragonese in 1423. By the 19th century the city was thriving again as France’s gateway to North African and Asian colonies. New docks, Avant-Port de la Joliette, were built north of the existing port in time for the opening of the Suez Canal. Today La Joliette is an impressive array of cargo ships, cranes and containers. I was in awe of the magnitude and complexity of the operation.

Towering above La Joliette is the Cathédrale de la Major. With its polychrome dark green and white patterned brickwork, it’s one of the city’s most striking buildings. And with a length of 450 feet and a main dome rising almost 210 feet high, it was one of the largest cathedrals built in Europe in the 19th century. The Roman-Byzantine design is dominated by a single nave, an airy space with three vaulted galleries. The rest is equally striking: a façade with twin towers, and an apse with a cluster of octagonal- and square-turreted cupolas.

Where the original hilltop settlement of Massalia once stood is Le Panier, a warren of narrow streets settled by immigrants. Under German occupation during World War II, this dense urban fabric hid Resistance fighters, Communists and Jews. In August 1944 the Nazis gave the quarter’s 20,000 residents 24 hours to leave, then razed nearly everything in the lower part of the Panier, between the waterfront, Rue Caisserie and Grand Rue, by my measurement a swath about a third of a mile long.

Yet a sizable tangle of streets remains. I spent hours absorbing sensory delights--sudden views of the mast-filled port, colorful clothes drying on lines, the scents of exotic spices--and wandering through a number of small, recently opened shops selling paintings, pottery and handcrafted soaps, a local tradition.

The single greatest attraction within the Panier maze is the Centre de la Vieille Charité, a cultural institution in a palatial 17th century building, a former hospice for vagabonds and orphans. The Vieille Charité houses two museums as well as its own rotating expositions. When I visited, there was an exhibit of works by Giacometti, Dubuffet, Dufy, Picasso and Chagall, among others, all from the Musée Cantini, which specializes in post-World War II art.

The Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne here holds an important collection of Egyptian antiquities plus Greek and Roman pieces found in the Marseille area. I found the second museum, the Musée d’Arts Africains, Océaniens et Amérindiens, even more interesting. The collection of masks, statues and ceremonial objects is vast, with items from Benin, Vanuatu, even the Amazon. When I toured, the complex was empty except for a class of art students sketching masks from Ghana, Mali and Gabon.

Then I headed back toward the Vieux Port, where all roads seem to lead. The best known thoroughfare is the broad La Canebière, flanked by two areas especially worth exploring.

On the north side is Belsunce, the heart of North African Marseille. The streets reminded me of Morocco or Tunisia, not just for the people but also for the shops: eclectic displays of mint, olives, chandeliers, teapots and couscoussiers, the two-tiered pots used to cook one of North Africa’s signature dishes. Sweets shops were crammed with honey-soaked pastries filled with almonds and pistachios, and tall stacks of glistening, red and gold twists.

On the south side of Canebière is the hip Cours Julien area, full of designer clothing stores, restaurants, bars and cafes. Home to 22 bookshops, Cours Julien is also known as Le Quartier du Livre, the Book Quarter. Editions Parenthèses sells its own imprints of art and architecture books, a number on Marseille. I bought an excellent guide detailing the city’s architectural highlights since the 1940s.

The first building in my guide was architect Le Corbusier’s influential Unité d’Habitation. The concrete apartment complex is interesting for its supporting pedestal stilts, deep-set multicolored terraces and modular layout. A short bus or taxi ride from downtown, the building is easy to visit--or to stay in. A small section has been made into a moderately priced hotel, appropriately named Hôtel Le Corbusier, with a cafe on the third floor and a great view from the roof.

The panorama was even better at the Palais du Pharo, back near the southern mouth of the Vieux Port. Parisian architect Hector-Martin Lefuel, known for his 19th century additions to the Louvre, built the palace for Napoleon III. (Next to it is the Sofitel and its more moderately priced sister hotel, the Novotel.)

The city’s best view, however, is from its highest spot, the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde, a steep climb from the port. The basilica dates to 1214, when a hermit lived here on the hill called La Garde (the Guard) and built a chapel. The current Romanesque Byzantine building, built in the mid-1800s, is topped by a 30-foot gilded statue of the Virgin Mary.

The panorama from the basilica draws people from across Marseille. Standing there at sunset, I was struck as much by the diversity of the people around me as by the beauty of the Provençal light, falling softly on the city, the hills behind it and the islands offshore.

The most famous of these isles is Château d’If, the 16th century fort-turned-prison used as a setting for Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo.” (Château d’If is one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions; boats leave regularly from behind the fish market on Quai des Belges.)

After watching the sun slip into the Mediterranean, I headed downhill to Quai de Rive Neuve and Bar de la Marine. The celebrated haunt of writer and film producer-director Marcel Pagnol is the most atmospheric place to partake of that evening tradition, the apéritif. The tipple of choice here is the aniseed-flavored pastis.

And for dinner? The city’s most famous dish is bouillabaisse. With one Michelin star and a long roster of celebrity guests, Miramar on Quai du Port is the best-known choice downtown for this rich and complex stew--or any other seafood specialty, for that matter.

About 10 minutes south along the windy, coastal Corniche Président John F. Kennedy is the two-Michelin-starred Le Petit Nice Passédat. Also on the Corniche is the tiny, compact fishing port of Vallon des Auffes and more fine restaurants, L’Epuisette and Fonfon.

I found menus throughout the region infused not only with seafood but also with the city’s immigrant history: Tunisian, Lebanese, Laotian, Italian. After dinner, a similarly vibrant scene awaits: 25 theaters, 10 concert halls, an Art Deco opera house in the Vieux Port, a ballet troupe and music that ranges from Algerian rai to reggae to rap.

The city’s cultural buzz grew louder when Marseille helped host the 1998 soccer World Cup. New projects continue to spring up; construction has started on a restaurant-and-bar zone near the docks, and elegant 19th century apartment blocks are finally getting the refurbishment they deserve.

Paris is three hours away on the Train à Grande Vitesse, or TGV, which inaugurated a high-speed connection to Marseille last year. Not surprisingly, Parisians are snapping up real estate, my Marseillais friends say. More change is ahead, to be sure. But most locals don’t seem worried. From the look of things during my visit, Marseille has handled 21/2 millenniums of change pretty darn well.

Jeff Koehler is a freelance writer who splits his time between San Diego and Barcelona, Spain.