Marseille was the last city that Yvon visited in September of 2019. I very much enjoyed the city's combination of beautiful places, especially along the Mediterranean coast, with a gritty commercial fabric further inland. Marseille offers plenty of big vistas, wherever you are in the city, some other place, or the sea, shows itself in the distance. There is a lovely sense of light and space to the city.
Photo List (Total 359 Photos)
Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour
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Vieux Port (114 photos) - The Vieux Port is the heart of touristic Marseille, a waterway massively clogged with boats around which are some of the city's oldest buildings. This gallery starts at the Tour du Fanal, which is at the entrance to the port and surrounded by the Fort Saint-Jean. At the water's edge is the magnificent Mucem, a modern museum which we browsed through. The gallery diverts to the Cathèdrale de la Major, then a pit stop for lunch, and back to the waterside at the Vieux Port. We saw an acrobatics show under the lovely Ombrière de Vieux Port, and even saw something of a Gilets Jaunes protest.
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Notre-Dame de la Garde and the Corniche (89 photos) - The Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde sits on a large hill south of the Vieux Port and can be viewed from many vantage points around the city. Yvon and I walked up to it from the Castellane metro stop. It was smaller than one would imagine once you were up close, but I was very taken by the small replicas of boats (and an airplane) that were hanging there. This gallery also includes a visit to the Palais du Pharo and our walk along the Corniche, which is a street that runs alongside the Mediterranean south of the Vieux Port.
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Urban Grit (60 photos) - Marseille had a surprising amount of urban grit, and these walks we took from our hotel to the Vieux Port, and then up through Noailles and the Cours Julien capture some of that. I appreciated the liveliness of these streets and the market.
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Train Station and Tall Buildings (54 photos) - This group of photos captures the Gare Saint-Charles, and especially its monumental staircase. It also includes our hotel and a walk that we took in the evening alongside Marseille's new port, which is where the two tallest buildings in the city are located.
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Parc Longchamp (42 photos) - This large park to the north east of the central city commemorates the arrival of a reliable water supply to the city in the form of an aqueduct. It contains the splendid Palais Longchamp, one half of which is the Musee de Beaux-Arts. It also has the "Funny Zoo", with bright plastic dusty animals, after they released the real animals to a presumably nicer location.
