Turn to Wonder: Marseille Meanderings

Wow! What a place - heaving, boiling, darting, weaving, tooting. From the moment we stepped off the train the city came at us. It is vibrantly alive, cosmopolitan, and sometimes confronting.

Groups of women from Africa gather on the sidewalk with their daughters, braiding each other’s hair and anyone else’s who’s up for it (Neil wondered how they’d go with his!!). Scooters and motorcycles weave in and out of traffic and the masses of pedestrians at breakneck speed.

Smells from soap and spice shops, and bags of garbage awaiting collection, waft around; there are luxury and designer shops and numerous cafes filled with people smoking, talking, reading, alongside signs of abject poverty, including parents begging with young children in tow.

The domes and towers of churches and forts catch the eye in the immediate skyline.

The Cathédral la Major

Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde

The horizon is bound by the blue hues of sea and sky in the south and the arid hills of Provence in the north, east and west.

We made our way to our one star hotel in the Old Port, near the harbour. We knew it was likely to be minimal when its chief attraction on Booking was pictured as the view from the window onto the Opera building! Voila!

The view is indeed pretty good but the hotel has a distinct Fawlty Towers vibe - the floor slopes so badly we’ve had to wedge different sized books under two of the bed legs to make it vaguely level. The taps in the bathroom work the opposite way (ie. turn to cold for hot water and vice versa), and to flush the loo you have to reach in and pull the plug out of the cistern (as for the plug in the sink ...!). There are a couple of random electrical wires hanging out of the wall, the air conditioning tubing appears to have been punched straight through the external wall and the bathroom barely fits a person!! Nevertheless, our hosts seem friendly enough and it’s a fabulous location from which to explore.

And explore we have, up stairs and down the narrow alley ways of the Panier district, the domain of artisans, including graffiti artists.

Along the harbour foreshore...

The monument above celebrates the many people who have arrived in this place with just a few belongings and having left behind a significant part of their lives and history.

And back through quietening city streets.

Here's the Opera House lit up in the evening - not bad!

On the second morning we walked up to the Abbaye of Saint Victor which was built in the third century on the tombs of Christian martyrs to Roman persecution. In the fifth century, John Cassian founded a monastery on the site when he came to Europe after his time with the desert monks in Egypt.

The Abbaye contains the supposed relics and sarcophagus of John Cassian and other early saints, and was a large but simple stone building with a fort-like exterior.

John Cassian’s Conferences on Prayer were foundational for St Benedict and also John Main’s understanding of the place of mantra based meditation in the early Christian tradition, so it felt lovely to visit his abbey and meditate there in the cool quiet space.

On the third morning, we walked further up to Basilique de Notre-Dame de la Garde - known by locals as la Bonne Mère (the Good Mother).

The church is dedicated to Mary whose protection is invoked and recognised in the iconography and symbolism of the church, including very recent plaques expressing gratitude from the local firefighters who fought terrible fires threatening the city in 1997.

The interior is stunning and the nautical theme is striking. Pictures of ships that have been wrecked through the centuries line the walls and models of ships and WW2 planes, presumably lost at sea, hang from the ceilings.

Our own nautical theme persisted as we walked down to the coast, stopping for a beautiful lunch in a little Panamanian cafe. Food here, like Marseille's inhabitants, comes from all over the world.

Shops selling soap are everywhere, indeed the city is recognised for Savon de Marseille, a handmade soap produced using olive oil and prized for its purity and versatility.

We've thoroughly enjoyed our time here. Amidst all the energy of the city, we've walked our legs off and found some lovely quiet spaces to sit - in churches and narrow side streets, in little cafes and spots along the foreshore. Our visit concluded with one last le petit dejeuner in an old-style cafe close to the station.