Like its signature dish – bouillabaisse – Marseille is a feisty mix. From the push and shove of the Vieux Port to the tapering streets of Le Panier, with a detour through the chaos of the souk-like Marché des Capucins and past the flashy mansions of the Corniche, it’s a big gritty city masquerading as a fishing village…in a French-Moroccan-Greek-Armenian-Mediterranean kind of way.
SEE: the Centre de la Vieille Charité, a 17thC former poorhouse turned repository of archeaological wealth with its amazing collection of Mediterranean artefacts (second only to the Louvre it’s said); plus museums of African, Oceanic and American Indian art. Notre Dame de la Garde for it’s remarkable Venetian mosaic floors and Moorish red and white alternating columns, and that view out over the city and the sea.
BUY: lemon-flavoured canestrellis biscuits or a decadent melon glacé (all-natural fruit sorbet covered with waves of vanilla-flavoured chantilly cream and topped with a marzipan leaf) from utterly old worldy Plauchut. Olive-oil rich soaps and hand creams from La Compagnie de Provence (1 rue Caisserie, Le Panier). One of the 138 sweet treats – fennel, onion and quince paste, lime and coriander, or lavender – from La Chocolatière du Panier, (49 rue du Petit Puits, Le Panier). No butter or cream, just pure life-enhancing chocolate.
STAY: La Residence du Vieux Port, an ode to its 50s roots reimagined by designer Franz Potisek – paintings inspired by Calder and Miro, Mondrian-ish coloured desks and shelves, black, white (and red) bathrooms, fruity red chairs and balconies nudging the port. May not be everyone’s cup of pastis but what’s not to like about nodding off with Notre Dame de la Garde in full view.
EAT: A squeaky fresh shellfish platter at Chez Toinou (3 cours St Louis, 1st); pizza at Chez Vincent (25 rue Glandeves, 1st); new look bouillabaisse at Une Table au Sud; a cool beer on Cours d’Estienne d’Orve; the early-morning fish market at Quai des Belges, providing shrieking and slippery seafood doesn’t put you off breakfast.