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.
50 years ago this month a human tidal wave was moving across the Mediterranean from Algeria to France, in what was the largest enforced migration since WWII by some distance. Politicians of the time...
Living as we do nowadays, cosseted inside a 21st Century medical cocoon, it is pretty much impossible to imagine what living through an outbreak of Bubonic Plague would have been like. It wasn't only...
Courage comes in many forms and is most usually defined and validated by its context. And there aren't many contexts in living memory more intense, demanding and downright terrifying than living in...
It is very probably not unfair to say that when we talk of things ancient, we generally tend to think mainly of Greece, Egypt and Rome, but Marseille, with its more than 2,600 years of history, really...
1700 years ago, being a christian suddenly became a very dangerous thing, due to a wave of vicious persecution which started in February 303 AD with the massacre of the entirely christian Theban legion...
It is probably a fair assumption that approximately 100% of the tourists who pass through Marseille, whether they disembark from the growing number of cruise ships that now include the city on their...
Bastide (Bastidon in Provençale) translates as 'small country house' and much like English words such as ha'penny or ruffle, has long passed from everyday use to become a mere reminder of a world that...
In case you ever wondered why most of Marseille's beaches are so very rocky, especially compared to the golden sands a few kilometres further down the coast in Cassis and La Ciotat, the answer is very...
The dictionary definition of a bagatelle is 'something of little importance', very probably derived from the Italian word 'bagatella', but how one of the city's lushest bits of real estate got that...
Much like the artist he famously inspired, Adolphe Monticelli was born in humble circumstances, and his work was profoundly misunderstood during his lifetime. Only later, when late 19th century figures such as Oscar Wilde started collecting his work, was he accorded the respect that some think he deserves. Monticelli's U.S.P. was his bold use of paint in a textural way, in other words he slapped it on in clumps as if he were plastering a wall very clumsily, rather than tracing delicate patterns with his brush. And...
Much like Barcelona's Quadro D'Oro, or London's Knightsbridge, the area bordered by Rue Paradis at its top end, then by Rue du Commandant Rolland on one side, and Boulevard Périer on the other, represents...
Every big city has at least one green space referred to as its lungs, and in the case of Marseille it's Parc Borély, which is splendidly ironic on at least two levels; because although at 17 hectares...
The first official mention of Folquet de Marseille comes in 1187 when he was one of the crowd of nobles, notables and hangers-on who gathered in the port of Marseille to wave off Richard the Lionheart...
The cross perched on the top of Marseilleveyre (which means 'see Marseille' in Provençale) was originally dragged up the back of the imposing 432 metre massif in the late 19th century by evangelical...
Stretching from the Pointe Rouge all the way up to the foot of the 432 metre-high Massif de Marseilleveyre, the enormous, 120 hectare Parc Pastré was bought by the city authorities piece by piece between...
Marking the beginning of Endoume - one of Marseille's most charming and genuinely picturesque quartiers - are the Theatre Silvain and the Anse de la Fausse Monnaie. And really, it's hard to imagine...
Given that it has a capacity of close to 3,000 people, the open-air Theatre Silvain is ridiculously easy to miss, partly due to its being tucked away in the beautifully named Vallon du Silence - the...
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...
Marseille-based writer specialised in music, technology, TV programming & production, translator (Spanish/French), copywriter, moderator, live event specialist, cycling addict, voracious consumer of historical docs, keen hiker and lover of wild places. Blogs at mymarseille and cycling at http://app.strava.com/athletes/361842 Check out my about.me profile! 
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