Marseilles, the gateway to the Med

Marseille was not what we expected from a French city.   We'd been told it was an 'exotic' city and were expecting it to be less traditional than the small villages that we'd spent most our time in, but we definitely weren't expecting the large Arabic influence reflected in many of the buildings and in the people we saw. We realised however that Marseille is the main port for ferries to/from Algeria and Corsica and, as the gateway to the Med, sees many other nationals settling there too.


Looking over the city is Notre Dame de la Garde. It is an impressive cathedral built in green and white limestone with a gold plated statue of the Madonna and child blessing the city.  The inside is decorated with incredible mosaic murals, many covered in gold leaf too, depicting safe passages for sailing vessels.

la Bonne Mere (the good mother) as the locals know it.

As the cathedral sits on the top of a hill overlooking the city, the view is amazing.  The islands are part of the Frioul group and include Chateau d'If famed in Alexandre Dumas' novel "The Count of Monte Cristo". 

Annie played tour guide for us in Marseille.

The banded green and white limestone facade is really interesting.

The interior of the church is banded red and white marble with (mostly) gold mosaic.

Back down in Marseille we wandered around the historic suburbs of Vieux Port (the harbour area) and Le Panier (the old greek part of the city).  

We weren't quite sure what this sign meant, but it was definitely indicating something to the right!

In Le Panier we came across La Vieille Charite, an old almshouse.  It is an unadorned set of buildings built around a courtyard with a beautiful, simple chapel in the centre with an ovoid dome.  It is now used as a museum and as exhibition space.

The only real adornment was the front of the chapel.

Geoff singing a capella under the dome.

The large domes of the very Byzantine Cathedrale de la Major caught our attention as we wandered the little streets.  Built in a similar style to La Bonne Mere, this cathedral is less opulent, but in no way less impressive.  We enjoyed wandering around it much more as there were very few tourists around and you could really get up close see the amazing attention to detail in every aspect of the building.

This Cathedral is also built in green and white limestone.

The beautiful main door.

While not gold leafed, the mosaics were incredible.

Some of the detail from the floor.

Inside there is lots of marble panelling in different colours, all fitted together so neatly that you often can't even feel the joints.  There were also a number of carved marble statues and some of them were so finely carved that they looked real.  Quite eery.  There was one of Mary Magdelene and Jesus and his feet are so well carved that you could see the fine lines and creases on the edges of his feet and you could see wet tear streaks on the woman's face.  And all carved in marble!


The city softened as the sun sank and the walk back to the car was lovely.

Marseille marina with Notre Dame looking down on the city from the hill.

Sunset in Marseille