Marseille · FR
Marseille Highlights
From a fortified abbey to the sea-swept MuCEM — the soul of the Vieux-Port in twelve walkable stops.
What's the walk about?
Welcome to Marseille, France's oldest city and its most gloriously untamed. This walk begins high on the south hill at the fortress-like Abbaye Saint-Victor, then winds down to the Vieux-Port, the ancient harbour that has been the city's beating heart for twenty-six centuries. You will follow the water past the old fish theatre and lively café squares, cross beneath Norman Foster's mirrored canopy, and climb into the sun-baked lanes of Le Panier old town. From the boldly striped cathedral of La Major you will step out onto a breezy sea-terrace, cross the footbridges of Fort Saint-Jean, and finish at the sea's edge before the lace-concrete MuCEM, where old Marseille meets the open Mediterranean.
What you'll see
-
1
Abbaye Saint-Victor
Abbey
A fortress-like abbey on the harbour's south hill, founded around the year 415 and crowned with crenellated towers, it is the oldest place of Christian worship in Marseille.
Read the full story → -
2
Théâtre de la Criée
Theatre
A graceful former fish-auction hall on the Quai de Rive Neuve, where the morning catch was once cried out to buyers and where one of France's national theatres now performs.
Read the full story → -
3
Place aux Huiles
Square
An elegant square in the lively Carré Thiars quarter, built over a filled-in canal where barrels of oil were once rolled ashore to feed the famous soap works of Marseille.
Read the full story → -
4
Cours d'Estienne d'Orves
Street
A vast paved square ringed with cafés and bookshops, laid out over a former royal arsenal where the king's war galleys were once built and armed.
Read the full story → -
5
Ombrière du Vieux-Port
Landmark
Norman Foster's mirror-polished steel canopy at the head of the Vieux-Port. Its underside reflects the fish market, the crowds and the forest of masts upside down against the sky.
Read the full story → -
6
Hôtel de Ville de Marseille
City Hall
Marseille's warm pink-and-ochre baroque town hall on the Quai du Port, built in the 1650s to 1670s. Its two floors were deliberately kept apart, and it was one of only three buildings on the north quay spared when the quarter was dynamited in 1943.
Read the full story → -
7
Hôtel-Dieu
Landmark
A monumental 18th-century hospital of honey-coloured stone, lifted on a terrace above the port and ringed with open arcaded galleries. After caring for the sick of Marseille for eight centuries, it reopened in 2013 as a luxury hotel with a sweeping harbour terrace.
Read the full story → -
8
Centre de la Vieille Charité
Museum
Pierre Puget's serene baroque almshouse hidden in the Panier old town, three storeys of pale arcades wrapped around a domed pink-stone chapel. Built to confine the city's poor, it is now a museum complex and the architectural jewel of old Marseille.
Read the full story → -
9
Cathédrale La Major
Cathedral
Marseille's colossal 19th century cathedral, banded in green and white stone and crowned by a vast dome, standing between the old town and the regenerated docks.
Read the full story → -
10
Esplanade de la Tourette
Square
A breezy sea terrace beside La Major, perched on the Saint-Laurent hill with sweeping views over the harbour mouth, Fort Saint-Jean and the open Mediterranean.
Read the full story → -
11
Fort Saint-Jean
Fortress
The fortress guarding the harbour mouth, wrapping a medieval royal tower and a lighthouse inside 17th century ramparts whose guns once pointed inward at the city.
Read the full story → -
12
MuCEM
Landmark
The journey's end at the sea's edge: Rudy Ricciotti's cube of black concrete lace on the J4 pier, France's first national museum of Mediterranean civilisations.
Read the full story →