Marseilles, Here We Come!

After a spaced-out, yes-no deliberations for much of 2015, me and my wife decided that we should visit son-in-law Dhaval and Gargee in November 2015, while he still continued his India office project at Marseilles (pronounced with 's' silent) in southern France.

We have seen much of Europe but never stayed at one city – and that too for 21 days, sufficient to absorb its culture, geography and overall ethos. Needless to say, we enjoyed and learnt a lot.

Marseilles is on the Mediterranean ocean and is surrounded by hills on three sides. The beaches are beautiful with a small port, some quaint old forts, and a winding marina ending with chalk cliffs.

Staying and watching out of the fifth-floor apartment window was a daily, new experience as one could see the old port right below and beyond the opposite bank, stood the Notre Dam church on a hill in all its majesty even as the sunlight, shadows, rain clouds and rain itself played their own visuals over the entire scene.

We always went out walking, and then taking a tram or a bus route or underground – all with a multi-mode monthly pass. We shopped foe vegetables and fruits in the afro-arabic quarter, daily rations in a convenience store, and for bread, cheese and chocolates at various shops. The French pizzas are delicious thin crust, with three kinds of cheese together as topping.

A free ferry service operates between the two opposite quays of the Old Port, where we actually stayed. There are also ferry services and boat trips available from the Old Port to Frioul, the Calanques and Cassis.

At Grenoble, in the French Alps which we visited for two nights, the hot wine and bread with nothing but molten raqquet cheese was heavenly!

Following are some interesting features as a fact file of Marseilles. All photographs have been copyrighted.

A city of southeast France on the Gulf of Lyon, Marseilles is the oldest city of France. It was founded in 600 bc by Greeks from Asia Minor and overrun by Germanic tribes in the 5th and 6th centuries ad. Marseilles became independent in the 1200s and joined France in 1481. 
Today it is an industrial center and a major seaport

The city's main thoroughfare (the wide boulevard called the Canebière) stretches eastward from the Old Port (Vieux Port) to the Réformésv quarter.

Two large forts flank the entrance to the Old Port—Fort Saint-Nicolas on the south side and Fort Saint-Jean on the north. Further out in the Bay of Marseille is the Frioul archipelago which comprises four islands, one of which, If, is the location of Château d'If, made famous by the Dumas novel The Count of Monte Cristo.

The main commercial centre of the city intersects with the Canebière at rue St Ferréol and the Centre Bourse (the main shopping mall). The centre of Marseilles has several pedestrianised zones. To the south east of central Marseilles in the 6th arrondissement are the Prefecture and the monumental fountain of Place Castellane, an important bus and metro interchange.

Marseilles has a Mediterranean climate with mild, humid winters and warm to hot, mostly dry summers. December, January, and February are the coldest months.

In 1720, the last Great Plague of Marseille, a form of the Black Death, killed 100,000 people in the city and the surrounding provinces. The local population enthusiastically embraced the French Revolution and sent 500 volunteers to Paris in 1792 to defend the revolutionary government; their rallying call to revolution, sung on their march from Marseille to Paris, became known as La Marseillaise, now the national anthem of France.

During the Second World War, Marseille was bombed by German and Italian forces in 1940. The city was occupied by the Germans from November 1942 to August 1944. The Old Port was bombed in 1944 by the Alliesto prepare for liberation of France. The city was liberated by the Allies on 29 August 1944.

After the war, much of the city was rebuilt during the 1950s. The governments of East Germany, West Germany and Italy paid massive reparations, plus compound interest, to compensate civilians killed, injured, left homeless or destitute as a result of the war.

From the 1950s onward, the city served as an entrance port for over a million immigrants to France. In 1962, there was a large influx from the newly independent Algeria, including around 150,000 returned Algerian settlers. Many immigrants have stayed and given the city a French-African quarter with a large market.

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Marseille served as the European Capital of Culture for 2013. Marseille-Provence 2013 (MP2013) featured more than 900 cultural events held throughout Marseille and the surrounding communities. These cultural events generated more than 11 million visits. The European Capital of Culture was also the occasion to unveil more than 600 million euros in new cultural infrastructure in Marseille and it environs, including the iconic MuCEM designed by Rudy Ricciotti.

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Apart from Marseille Provence Airport, the fifth busiest in France, Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles is Marseille's main railway station. Gare Saint-Charles is also one of the main terminal stations for the TGV (bullet train that we used to &from Paris as well as to Grenoble for a beautiful weekend visit) in the south of France making Marseilles reachable in three hours from Paris (a distance of over 750 km).

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Metro and tramway network, underground metro and bus services are so well integrated that one is left in a state of wonderment! As in many other French cities, a bike-sharing service nicknamed "Le vélo", free for trips of less than half an hour, was introduced by the city council in 2007.