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Commercial sea traffic might have moved round the corner to newer docks in the 19th century, but the old port remains the heart of city life. Bobbing with pleasure boats and fringed with restaurants, it’s where the Marseillais gather for festivities and to buy fish at the market. The occupying Germans attempted to subdue the city by blowing up the port’s north side in 1943, but Marseille’s indomitable nature won the day.

This Romanesque-Byzantine church is the symbol of Marseille. Perched on the city’s highest hill and topped by a great, gold statue of the Virgin, it can be seen from everywhere in the city and is itself all-seeing: the views from the church are spectacular. Built in the 1850s, the vaulted crypt is carved out of the rock while the sanctuary is rich with mosaics and marble.

Wriggling up the hill to the north of the Vieux Port, Le Panier is Marseille’s oldest sector. This is where the Greeks settled and, in subsequent centuries, where the city’s immigrants began their new lives. They still do – the tiny streets are alive with different accents and cultures. The main feature is La Vieille Charité, the 17th-century workhouse now transformed into a wonderful cultural centre. It houses the museums of Mediterranean Archaeology and of African, Oceanic and Amerindian Art. Especially noteworthy is the domed central chapel – Italian Baroque at its purest.

Longchamp is the greatest expression of Marseille’s 19thcentury “golden age”. What is essentially a water tower is embellished in palatial Second Empire style. Fountains, columns and animal sculptures evoke abundance and fertility. The central gallery is flanked by two ornate wings, home to the Fine Arts and Natural History museums. Lush gardens stretch behind.

Sited opposite the Palais Longchamp, this museum is set in the former private mansion of a 19th-century rich, art-loving Marseille family. Its original decor has been carefully retained, recreating bourgeois life at the peak of the city’s prosperity. If the house itself is elegant and sober, the art collection is wonderfully eclectic. Walls are decorated with a unique collection of Gobelin and Aubusson tapestries, while the 10 different salons boast an overwhelming abundance of sculpture, paintings, drawings and furniture from the 13th to 19th centuries, and much more besides. A discreetly sensual delight.

Within 15 minutes of Marseille’s centre, you are out of the city and into a different world. Here white rocks plunge into the blue sea and the road snakes into creeks (calanques ) of great beauty, and small settlements. This is where the Marseillais spend their weekends, eating, drinking and keeping rich developers out. After the “village” of Les Goudes, the road peters out and access to other, even more picturesque creeks (towards Cassis) is by foot or boat (see Calanque d’En-Vau, Cassis).

Around the corniche from the Vieux Port and past the tiny, picturesque fishing port of Vallon des Auffes stretch Marseille’s resolutely modern beaches. They were reclaimed from the sea with earth excavated during the construction of the city’s metro system. Now they run round to the start of the calanques . On summer days, they throb with every conceivable beach sporting activity; at night, the Escale Borély beach area offers some of the town’s trendiest nightspots (see Escale Borély).

On the south side of the Vieux Port is Marseille’s fort, built in 1680 by Louis XIV to impose authority on the truculent city – its cannons pointed inland. Star-shaped and built on two levels in pink-tinged limestone, it stares across at the much older St Jean fort. Now split in two by the 19th-century port-side boulevard, St Nicholas remains one of the city’s most imposing buildings.

This offshore island fortress was built in the 16th century to protect the city’s port and was turned into a prison in 1580. Among its inmates were the real Comte de Mirabeau, and the fictional Count of Monte Cristo, the antihero of Alexander Dumas’ novel of the same name (see Alexandre Dumas). The fortress is accessible by ferry from the Vieux Port.

The 19th-century Château Pastre is a marvel in itself – set in grounds between sea and hills, its lovely brick and stone façade expresses Marseille’s Second Empire stature. The interior decor is equally sumptuous and, since 1995, the chateau has contained a fabulous assembly of pottery, ceramics and earthenware from across Europe. There are nearly 1,500 pieces, from the Neolithic period to the present day. If you ever had any doubts, here’s proof that Marseille culture goes deeper than just football.