Few people are indifferent to Marseille. It's the big, cranky, noisy port that sits next to, but entirely aloof from, the Cote D'Azur. It is full of unique characters, unusual architecture and life-affirmingly beautiful natural features .... and that's what you'll find documented here; the people and places that make up Marseille.
Given Marseille's reputation for being a city where criminality is, and always has been, a part of the social fabric, you could quite reasonably expect that this would be reflected in at least some...
In the giddy heights of Bagatelle, where many of the city's old-money families live in splendid isolation, the houses often have a somewhat fortress-like beauty. This poem in white stucco is already...
I don't know about you, but I know how I'd feel heading in to that stuccoed bunker in order to stretch my muscles to breaking point every day...I'd be filled with angst and trepidation. Built in 1992...
These days as you pass down the far end of the Rue Paradis, number 425 appears to be just another typical bakery with a facade that leans towards the provençale style, but between November 1942 and...
The Isle de Maïre and Cap Croisette, just to the left of the palm tree, pictured from the balcony of the Villa Valmer. The scene is swathed in tendrils of mist, a regularly occuring phenomenon in the...
The fight to save Chez Dédé, the cabanon restaurant on Plage de la Verrerie, has ended in the way that most spats involving something local and something national - in this case the French Maritime...
Tucked away in the sleepy 4eme arrondissement on the Avenue Chartreux, close to Blancarde and the bohemian neighbourhood of Chutes-Lavie, Chez Vincent was founded back in 1936 and has been one of the...
Somewhat surreally this Fiat 500 and its drab, paramillitary paint-job are supposed to be a mobile advert for the Le Duke nightclub in the 7eme arrondissement. But with the best will in the world, who...
Civil wars traditionally bring out the worst in people, and the French Revolution was no exception. Even for someone well known to be charitable, socially responsible and an all round pillar of the...
One of the questions that I presume most tourists ask themselves when arriving in Marseille is 'how do I find the definitive Bouillabaisse/Soupe de Poisson?' ... to which there are several answers...
Perched with perfect, grandiose poise above the Corniche, the Villa Valmer was built with olive oil money in 1860s by Charles Gounelle as a summer house. This renaissance-style house apparently also...
Within the modest, sturdy, and rather bunker-like neo-classical building that sits on the seaward side of the the Corniche, opposite the entrance to the divine Villa Valmer, is the maritime equivalent...
It is, according to many, quite the most beautiful of the many creeks between Marseille and Cassis, with the glistening, multi-hued, crystal clear waters that are so typical of the calanques, but also...
Due to the several winds that thrash the guts out of the local coastline so very regularly, there are an awful lot of man-made sea walls to stop the wind-whipped waves from dragging great swathes of...
The Chateau D'If - widely known as the island-based prison/fortress where writer Alexandre Dumas based his novel The Count of Monte-Cristo - was initially built in the 1520s on the orders of François...
The cigale and its mating song are so utterly associated with Provence that the insects have taken on a kind of mythical status. In the minds of many people, Provence would not be Provence without the...
Continuing down Boulevard Michelet in the direction of L'Obélisque/Luminy, Villa Lucia, one of the five great, 17th century bastides that dominated the quartier now known as Ste. Anne, these days sits...
Marseille is very good at hiding its best bits, and one such hard-to-spot gem is the Parc de la Magalone which sits shrouded by trees directly opposite the crumbling concrete conceit that is the Cité...
As you arrive in the car park close to the end of Cap Croisette, staring back from a position of splendid isolation a mere 80 metres from the coast is the Isle Maïre, which, thanks to its abundence...
Hidden away near the seaward end of the Prado, roughly 100 metres before the statue of David, is a tiny park where one of the city's most hotly contested ruins sits, surrounded by a security fence in...
A mere 12 years after its last refurbishment, when the Vélodrome's capacity was increased from 42 to 60,000 seats, the local authorities have decided once again to nice-up the mythic stadium in preparation...
By the time this beach buggy was rolling off the production line, I suspect that car production in France had moved into high parody....why else would anyone have taken the very worst over-sprung elements...
Whether or not Marseille has been a poor city for all of its 2600 years is not recorded, but in recent times, and due in no small part to the demise of its once huge docks, the city most definitely...
It is by some distance the cutest building on the Prado, and, despite being both tiny and hemmed-in by much taller buildings on all sides, it shines brighter and harder than its neighbours. Perhaps...
Marseille-based writer specialised in music, technology, TV programming & production, translator (Spanish/French), cycling addict, voracious consumer of historical docs, keen hiker and lover of wild places. Blogs at mymarseille and mymétier. Check out my about.me profile! 
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