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Marseille is a complicated city! Founded by the Phoenicians
in 600 B.C. it is one of the oldest cities in Europe. The town
is a far cry from the Cézanne paintings and Provençal
clichés of sleepy villages, "pétanque"
players and Marcel Pagnol novels. With around one million inhabitants,
Marseille is the third largest city in France in terms of population
and the largest in terms of area. Its population is a real melting
pot of different cultures. A famous saying states that Marseille
is the first Arabic city in the Paris-Dakar race, because it
has a very large population of North African immigrants. It
is also said that there are more Comorian people in Marseille
than in Comoros! Indeed, the people of Marseille have varying
ethnic backgrounds, with a lot of Italians and Spanish having
immigrated to the area after the second world war.
Marseille is perhaps not the kind of city you will fall in
love with your first day there. It is not Paris; there are few
obvious "things to do" along the lines of the Louvre
museum or the Champs-Elysees. However, for people not afraid
to discover a real place with real people (and not a tourist
park like Paris), Marseille is the place. From colourful markets
(like Noailles market) that will make you feel like you are
in Africa, to the Calanques (a natural area of big cliffs falling
into the sea - Calanque means fjord), from the Panier area (the
oldest place of the town and historically the place where newcomers
installed) to the Vieux-Port (old harbor) and the Corniche (a
road along the sea) Marseille has definitley a lot to offer.
Derived from Wikitravel.org
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