Sunny, Spicy Marseille

Once Marseille was primarily a port city, a favorite of sailors looking for a good time. It’s grown up now, France’s third largest city, with 1.2 million souls, many of African and Arab descent. The streets teem with young families and children, and every sea of faces displays a range of human coloration. This young, multicultural population gives Marseille a unique flavor.

The Vieux Port, a narrow rectangle crammed with fishing boats and sailboats at anchor, marks the tourist’s heart of the city. Five lanes of dented, honking Renaults and Peugeots zoom down la Canabiere, the thoroughfare dubbed "the can o’ beer" by English-speaking sailors of yore, and careen to the left or the right onto the six whizzing lanes of the Quai des Belges at the Port. This intersection is a handy reference point. The tourist information office is here, and it’s centrally located and a bus and Metro hub for the city. Many buildings resemble those of historic Paris – six stories, tall narrow windows, shallow wrought-iron balconies – but rather than smog-stained brown, they’re pale tan or pink or pale blue.

Some must-sees for Marseille:

• At the fish market set up on the Quai des Belges from 9 to noon every morning, you can watch the local housewives pick out their fish still flapping in shallow wooden trays of water and check out the local varieties of shellfish.
  
• Vallon des Auffes is a tiny, lovely old harbor neighborhood tucked just off the road that runs along the Marseille’s coast southeast of the Vieux Port. The bus ride there is an attraction itself.
  
• Notre Dame de la Garde stands watch over the city from its hill perch and offers matchless views over the city. On the way back down to the Vieux Port, stop at the older, simpler, fortified Abbaye St. Victor.
  
• Dumas’ fictional Count of Monte Cristo was unjustly incarcerated in the infamous Chateau d’If prison on an island in Marseille’s harbor. Get information and tickets at the SNCM ferry kiosk at Quai des Belges.
  
• Santons are Provençal nativity figures. Marcel Carbonel Santons, a major santon producer, has a workshop and museum where you can learn a little about the santon tradition and maybe pick out some for yourself.
  

If you prefer big-city nightlife, Marseille makes a great home base with side excursions to nearby Aix-en-Provence and Cassis.

Quick Tips:

Marseille had a rough reputation in the past, but the city is now about as safe as most major cities. As in any other city, it’s wise to stay alert and pay attention to your pockets and your possessions, but even as a woman traveling solo, I never felt threatened. Nonetheless, the rather seedy Quartier Belsunce (between the train station and rue de la République) is better avoided after dark.

Marseille is both a business and a tourist destination, so hotels tend to book up any time of year, both weekdays and weekends. It’s a good idea to get a reservation at least for the night you arrive – the sooner the better. I had some difficulty finding an available hotel meeting my modest quality standards a month before my late May arrival.

Eating in Marseille is an adventure. Be bold! You will not be sorry. Marseille’s most famous dish is bouillabaisse, a spicy fish and shellfish stew ladled out at many restaurants. There are also a number of interesting ethnic restaurants. Look for an opportunity to try couscous, a North African dish.

Best Way To Get Around:

Much of what you’ll be interested in seeing in Marseille is do-able on foot, but there is a wonderful public transportation system; why not use it? The Metro is clean and efficient, and the bus system is great. Individual tickets good for bus, tram or Metro are €1.40. A day pass is €4.00, or you can buy a Carte Liberté for 6 or 12 rides (€6.50/€13.00). Stamp your card when entering a bus or tram; you can transfer for free for an hour. Splitting my sightseeing between walking, the metro, and buses, I got by with a 6-ride Carte plus two individual tickets for a three-day stay.

I’m very comfortable with big-city driving at home, but personally, I wouldn’t choose to get around Marseille by car. Parking is a major problem, not to mention maneuvering through the careening traffic and crazy streets with signs in French. If arriving by car, I’d beeline for a garage and stow the car for the duration of my stay. Marseille can, however, be a great place to pick up a rental car for your countryside adventures. It’s an easy drive from the train station to the autoroute out of town.

Hotel Mascotte is a pleasant but unexciting budget hotel with a matchless location at the Vieux Port, a few doors from where la Canebiere meets Quai des Belges. The Metro stop (Vieux-Port, two stops from the train station) is half a block from the hotel, buses connecting you with the main tourist sights run along both these main streets, the SNCM office – where you can get info about boats/tickets to Chateau d’If (of Count of Monte Cristo fame), Cassis, and Corsica – is just across Quai des Belges, banks and ATMs abound, and even the Tourist Information office is just across la Canebiere. The massive Centre Bourse shopping center is within two blocks. A nice little pedestrian area with lots of restaurants is located across the street from the south end of Quai des Belges, and this is a pleasant area to spend your evenings. I stayed here my first three nights in France, and it was a great location from which to get oriented and take care of setting-up-in-France business.

The lobby is narrow but nicely appointed, with shining floors, an attractive front desk counter sweeping back along one side, a couple of cozy chairs. There is a fairly modern elevator that was consistently in operation, although it’s rather slow so I often chose to take the stairs going down. The staff speak excellent English, are quite efficient, and were very helpful and pleasant to deal with.

My twin-bedded room was clean and tidy. The décor was basic and somewhat drab, although the bedspreads were made of an attractive brocade fabric. Fortunately, the room featured large windows looking out over a tiny square and up Rue de la République. If I leaned out, I could see a corner of the Vieux-Port. Despite the heavy street traffic below, the room was reasonably quiet at night. The bathroom was spacious and clean but dimly lit, with a narrow tub and shower with excellent water pressure. The TV had two English-language stations, which were good for keeping up with international news and checking out ads for vacations to Egypt. The little mini-fridge was well-stocked.

Breakfast costs €7 extra; there are also numerous cafés in the neighborhood where you can pick up a croissant and coffee if you prefer.

I was one of the first customers at Le Mérou Bleu after they opened for the evening meal. Located in a small pedestrian district just south of the Vieux Port, "The Blue Grouper" specializes in the typical seafood dishes of the south. The tourist menu posted outside looked promising – a number of appealing complete meals for €15-20. I went in and was seated in the narrow outside area of the restaurant where I could watch the passersby.

This was the only restaurant I ate in during my entire trip in southern France where the service was snooty and unpleasant. I'm fairly certain this was mostly due to the fact that I was dining "low" on the menu and didn't order wine, as the waiter didn't initially seem unhappy that I was American or dining alone. The menu that first arrived at my table did not include the tourist menu I had seen outside. The waiter came over and recommended a bouillabaisse. Bouillabaisse (pronounced "boo-ya-base"), the signature dish of Marseille, is a spicy seafood stew built on a tomato base, but I was not feeling up to a spicy meal and it was €28 a la carte, more than I wanted to spend. I asked for the tourist menu, and with a sneer, he finally retrieved it. I don’t drink wine, and when I asked for water instead, I got an exasperated exhalation in response, although he did bring it promptly.

I chose shrimp salad appetizer, aioli entree, and crème caramel for dessert, on the prix-fixe tourist menu for €18. The salad was essentially shrimp with lettuce and a lemon wedge, and the shrimp was unpeeled, making for rather messy and uninteresting eating. The aioli was excellent, however. Aioli ("eye-oh-lee") is a traditional Provençal dish consisting of poached fish (cod in this instance) and poached vegetables – potatoes, carrots, green beans – served with a garlic mayonnaise on the side. It isn't a terribly exciting meal on the plate, since there is rather a lot of white, especially when served, as in this case, on a white plate. Nonetheless, it was delicious and filling. The crème caramel, a very common French dessert, was well executed. All in all, it was a good meal at a very good price.

Because the aioli was so good, I might have eaten here again during this trip but for my bad experience with the service.

One wonderful advantage of Marseille’s polyethnic population is a wide array of authentic ethnic eateries. Roi de Couscous, "King of Couscous," specializes in the Moroccan dish couscous, offering a dozen or so varieties. The restaurant is a small, tiled, candlelit place, really a storefront, on a main thoroughfare a few blocks north of the Vieux Port. Ambiance is rather limited, but it’s still a reasonably pleasant place. Still recovering from jet-lag a day after my arrival, I presented myself for dinner as soon as they opened at 7:00pm and had the restaurant to myself, as the urban French mostly dine after 8:00.

Couscous (rhymes with "goose-goose") is a round semolina pasta so tiny it is smaller than rice. It is steamed and served with a brothy stew, which always contains vegetables and usually meat of one or more varieties such as beef, lamb, chicken, or sausage. The stews are aromatic and herby, usually with some heat. If you don’t like spicy-hot food, you can usually arrange for the harissa, the chili sauce which is a component of many couscous dishes, to be served on the side rather than mixed in so you can control how hot your dinner is. The pasta usually arrives in a mound on a soup plate, with a small pot of stew served alongside. You lay some furrows into the pasta with the big serving spoon, spoon some broth over the top, and then serve yourself some of the chunks of stew along one side of the plate.

My lamb and vegetable couscous was excellent, with tender chunks of lamb and big pieces of vegetables with a soft but not mushy texture. The broth was flavorful and just pleasantly spicy, not enough to cause discomfort. I had crème caramel for dessert, the perfect cooling finish to a spicy meal. Service was relatively brisk for a French restaurant, where meals properly take hours, but as I was dining alone and the restaurant was empty, this was understandable and not really unwelcome. The waiter was pleasant if rather quiet.

Should you find yourself with a gloriously sunny afternoon, and there are many of these in Marseille, catch bus #83 southbound from Quai des Belges and ride out to Vallon des Auffes, a charming, tiny harbor neighborhood tucked into a tiny rocky valley. The bus winds along the coast past ornate mansions adorned with pots of flowers, small balconied apartment buildings, and little neighborhood-style shops. To the right are dazzling views of the glittering blue Mediterranean and the barren tan rocks of the coastal islands. Sailboats tack back and forth in the stiff sea breeze, their sails nearly transparent in the brilliant sunlight. The bus ride is a worthwhile destination in itself.



Get off at the stop marked "Vallon des Auffes," and, rather counter-intuitively, cross the road to the inland side. You should find yourself standing on a bridge where Corniche John F. Kennedy crosses over the entrance to the harbor. You’ll look out and down into a tiny valley ("vallon") lined with little houses piled around an equally diminutive harbor. There are stairs down into Vallon des Auffes on either end of the bridge. Coming down to the harbor, you’ll find yourself virtually passing through people’s little courtyards, past their hanging laundry. It’s hard not to feel a little self-conscious as you pass within handshake distance of housewives chatting in their doorways.

"Auffiers" were craftsmen who made ropes and rigging. This little valley and harbor looks like it would be home to riggers; the boats moored shoulder to shoulder here are not pleasure craft but fishing boats and dinghies, and heaps of fishing nets and floats adorn the docks. Hard by the docks, there are little houses whose front doors are literally a half dozen steps from the water and a few shops dedicated to marine needs, plus a couple of seafood restaurants. This little harbor is a workingman’s shipyard, not a Sunday sailor’s marina, and the neighborhood is not the haunt of the well-to-do, but a miniature village of common folk. Only the somewhat upscale restaurants seem to be a concession to the appeal of this scenic little harbor to outsiders.

When you’re done enjoying Vallon des Auffes, climb back up to Corniche John F. Kennedy on the opposite end of the bridge from whichever one you came down from, just to get the benefit of the views from the other side. If you have time, consider strolling further south along the Corniche on the sea side of the road. About a quarter mile south of Vallon des Auffes, you will find some nice views of the sea and rocky shore, and if the weather is warm, there will likely be a number of folks out sunning and swimming. When you’ve had enough, just cross over the inland side of the road and find a stop for bus #63 back to Vieux Port.

Place Colonel Edon, Marseille
04-91-13-40-80

Beloved symbol of Marseille, perched on the highest hilltop overlooking the city and the harbor, Our Lady of the Guard has stood watch over Marseille for some 150 years. It is most easily reached by catching bus 60 from Quai des Belges, which will deposit you in the parking lot of the church. You will still need to hike up about three flights of stairs to reach the church. If you are the more energetic sort, it’s only about a mile from the Vieux Port, but it’s a lot of uphill, so don’t take it on unless you are in decent shape.

This Catholic church was designed in a blended Romanesque-Byzantine style by a Protestant architect. It is built of warm golden blocks with darker blocks picking out architectural details and marking a pattern along all the edges of the building. A gilded 30-foot-tall Virgin holding the infant Jesus enjoys a dizzying view from the top of the bell tower.

The interior of this church could only belong to Marseille. Sailors’ devotion is marked by the fascinating collection of votives, objects pledged to the church in gratitude for the protection of the Virgin. An entire wall is papered with paintings of ships and boats, many on stormy seas. There is also a very interesting mobile made entirely of aircraft of various sorts.

Be sure to take the time to check out the views from the front of the church. From here, you can see Chateau d’If plopped into the middle of the harbor, the ferries for Corsica moored at La Joliette, and the Vieux Port, chock-full of sailboats, as well as the entire city stretched up to the hills in the distance.

Avoid visiting at 10am, 4pm, or 6pm, when services are held. When you’re ready to leave, just catch bus 60 in the parking lot. It’s very convenient to hop off on Avenue de la Corse by Place St.-Victor. From there, it’s an easy walk down to visit Abbaye St. Victor and Marcel Carbonel Santons on your way back to the Vieux Port.

Rue Sainte, off of Quai de Rive Neuve, Marseille

This abbey located about three blocks above the Vieux Port is what remains of a monastery complex first founded in the fifth century that was the first pilgrimage site in France. The early abbeys built on this site were repeatedly ransacked and ruined between the fifth and tenth centuries when the city suffered under invasions by pirates and Saracens. It’s dedicated to St. Victor, who died during the rule of Diocletian. The current fortified abbey was begun in the 11th century, with the great nave and higher church being built in the 13th century.

The exterior of the abbey has a very Italianate look, similar to the old granary-style churches in Florence. It sprouts abruptly out of a city block, hemmed in by parked cars, quite incongruous with its battlements and rustic stones, looking like the love-child of a fortress and a church.

The interior is very plain, with scarcely any ornamentation beyond the simple table-style altar set before the arched niche in the bricks that holds the cross. What treasures the abbey once had were removed during the Revolution when the Catholic church in France came under attack; there are no paintings, frescoes, or relics remaining. After the Revolution, the abbey saw service as a depository for straw and even housing for convicts, but it was returned to religious use in 1804. Despite this turbulent history, the crypt still holds many sarcophagi of early Christians, some of which have been built right into the foundations of the current abbey.

There isn’t a lot to see here, but the abbey is an interesting oddity. Located just off the port and about a block from Marcel Carbonel Santons, it won’t take you far out of your way and is worth a quick visit.

47 rue Neuve Ste.-Catherine, Marseille
04-91-54-26-58
Open 10am-12:30pm and 2 to 6:30pm, Tuesday through Saturday
Free!

Marcel Carbonel has a shop and museum devoted entirely to santons, traditional Provençal crèche (nativity scene) figurines. The museum is free and is reached by walking through the shop to the back, where there is a row of glass cases against the back wall and a loft above with another row of glass cases, all holding a variety of santons collected by Marcel Carbonel. Free guided tours of the workshop (usually in French; call ahead to request English) are available Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2:30.

The people of Provence have set up outdoor crèches at Christmas time for centuries. The santon tradition is rooted in the post-Revolutionary period, when midnight masses and crèches were forbidden by law. Unwilling to abandon their tradition, people began to make "little saints" for display in their homes. They didn’t stop with the holy family, angels, shepherds, and Magi, however. They included ordinary people: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, merchants and musicians, farmers and fishermen, priests and nuns, hunters and housewives. Each figure bears an offering from their craft or trade.

There are two basic types of santons, santons d'argile made entirely of clay and santons habilles, dressed clay figures. Clay santons range from an inch or so tall to about six inches tall, while the larger dressed santons range from six to 12 inches tall. Both are characterized by great attention to detail. The traditional participants in the stable scene are portrayed in robes, while the village folk wear the typical dress of their occupation and place. A variety of stables and village buildings are also available.

Unfortunately, santons are not cheap. I selected several for a friend of mine, with the tallest figures being about 2.5 inches tall. The handpainted details were carefully rendered, down to the patches on the shepherd’s pants and the gold and silver spangles on the Magi’s robes. I bought Mary, Joseph, Jesus in the manager, an angel, the three Magi, a shepherd, two sheep, a cow, and a donkey for about €120, and they threw in a lamb for free. When I mentioned that my purchase for pour une amie, they carefully rolled each figure into bubble wrap, packed them in a sturdy cardboard box, and wrapped them up in maroon paper. Everything arrived home in perfect condition, even after bouncing around on my travels for two weeks.

People don’t really come to Marseille for its museums, an observation that will almost certainly be borne out by the lack of fellow museum-goers if you venture into a few yourself. Nonetheless, there are those few who feel that a museum or two is good for the soul and that maybe it’s a little shallow to visit somewhere without taking a glance at the local art and history. For those who won’t be content without passing through a museum or two, here are my reviews of a couple I visited.

Vieille Charité
2 rue de la Charité, Marseille (off rue de la République)
€1.80 permanent exhibits, €2.80 more for special exhibits

This is actually a group of museums housed in a historic building complex. "Old Charity" was the crowning achievement of royal architect Pierre Puget, completed in 1745 to house the poor. It consists of three stories of rooms lined with arcades set around a rectangular courtyard, in the center of which sits a Baroque-style chapel with a dome. Later it was used to shelter the elderly and orphans. On the verge of being demolished in the middle of the last century, it instead was designated as an historic site and the museums were moved in. Nowadays, the chapel is strangely barren and scarcely lit except for its dome.

The two permanent exhibits here are the Musee d’Archéologie Mediterranee and the Musee d’Arts Africains, Oceaniens et Amerindiens. Each is entered via a door from the courtyard, runs through several rooms, and spits you back out into a different section of the courtyard. Inside, you’ll find case after case of artifacts and art objects, many under-labeled. Of these two museums, I liked the archaeological museum better, perhaps due in part to the fantastic lion mosaic near the entrance. The special exhibit during my visit was Baroque-period paintings by women artists, involving an awful lot of flowers and ruffled ladies. I suggest evaluating before buying your ticket whether you’re interested enough in the special exhibit to spring for the extra cash.

My verdict: Not all that exciting.

Musee d’Histoire de Marseille and Jardin des Vestiges
Lower floor of Centre Bourse Shopping Center, Place Belsunce, Marseille
04-91-90-42-22
€1.80

This must be the only serious museum I’ve ever encountered located in a shopping mall. Marseille has been an important port and trading center for at least 2500 years, and the Centre Bourse is built on top of a portion of the old Greek port of Massilia, renamed Massalia when the Romans took over management. The stone remains of the ancient port can be found in the Jardin des Vestiges, entered from the Musee d’Histoire. The "garden of vestiges" can be seen from the west side of the Centre Bourse through the fence, if you’re too cheap or too busy to spring for the museum. If Greek and Roman artifacts interest you, the items excavated from the former floor of the port are displayed in the museum in dimly lit glass cases. Much of it is pretty basic – Greek and Roman coins, shards of pottery and suchlike, mostly not labeled well enough for you to really understand what you’re looking at.

The museum’s real claim to fame is the mostly intact remains of a sunken Roman merchant ship, complete with its clay jars of olive oil and preserved fish. Lucky for us the ancient Romans didn’t have dive recovery teams! I found the ship pretty impressive, although it was primarily labeled in French and therefore not adequately explained for a monoglot.

My verdict: Inexpensive, quick, and conveniently located about three blocks from the Vieux Port, this one is worthwhile if you’re interested in the ship. Otherwise, it’s "skippable".