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Le Moulin de Lourmarin

France,Lourmarin

“A lovely old converted mill, the building still maintains a simple, rustic charm in the heart of the market village of Loumarin.”

From THB 100 Read review

L'Hotel Particulier

France,Arles

“It is rare to see hotels that form the identity of a place; the Hotel Particulier in Arles is a brilliant example of just that.”

From EUR 189.00 Read review

Bastide de Capelongue

France,Bonnieux

“Luxurious and enchanting, this stone farmhouse is set atop the perfect vantage point to enjoy views over the Luberon countryside.”

From EUR 150.00 Read review

Nothing has prepared me for the vastness of Marseille spread out far below as I burst like a cork from the final tunnel at the southern end of the aptly-named Auto route du Soleil. The Big Blue meets the Big City. For the full effect I’ve travelled down in the tyre tracks of generations of French families bent on spending les grandes vacances on the soothing shores of the Mediterranean. The token re-enactment is, however, short-lived. Rather than continuing on to the nearby Côte d’Azur, I instead swoop down towards the looming sprawl of Europe’s largest commercial port. The high-octane final approach, a surreal flight on soon-to-be-demolished elevated concrete passerelles, passes giant cargo vessels and cruise liners on the seaward side and a motion-blur of faded stone warehouses and office façades rooted firmly on dry land. Here and there a flourish of art-déco evokes the heady days before the strains of the jazz-age gave way to the anonymous hum of passing traffic. Suddenly the vieux port snaps into view ahead, looking exactly like its French Connection screen persona, complete with original soundtrack combining the urgent pan-pon echo of police sirens. Completing the effect is the dull, staccato clank of rigging against the masts of yachts shoe-horned into every available space around the huge basin.

It wasn’t always like this. The town has been around for at least 26 centuries, making it by a comfortable margin the oldest and most multi-cultural in France. The tradition of welcoming strangers began in 600BC when the Celto-Ligurian locals received Greek explorers from Phocea in Asia Minor. The result was the port of Massalia, born of a great love affair between Gyptis, the local chieftain’s daughter, and Protis, an influential Greek adventurer. By the 4th Century BC Massalian vessels were probing the coasts of Africa, the British Isles and the Arctic Circle, keen to expand their trading links. With the arrival of the Romans came new overland routes, which established Massilia (as they had subtly re-branded it) as the pre-eminent centre of trade in the Mediterranean.

Inevitably, of course, its prosperity attracted less welcome attention, so the port’s defences were strengthened and its military role increased. If the term ‘vieux port’ suggests a sleepy fishing inlet, think again; despite the photogenic Italianate architecture overlooking its broad quaysides, the sheer scale and rigid geometry of the harbour are a direct result of an order from Louis XIV in 1666 to create a new home port for the French military fleet. Defending it would be two fortresses: the fort Saint-Jean to the north (incorporating a 12th Century command post built by the Knights’ Templars) and the fort Saint-Nicolas, its counterpart on the newly-developed southern side. After installing seaward-facing artillery, the king’s military engineers then added an additional battery of cannon aimed ominously in the opposite direction, towards the town, lest the occasionally wayward Marseillais ever be tempted to waver in their loyalty to the monarchy.

As it turned out, the navy eventually outgrew its facilities and sailed off to a new home along the coast at Toulon, allowing Marseille to concentrate once more on what it did best. By the mid-19th Century, however, history was repeating itself as growth in overseas trade forced a relocation of commercial maritime activity to a purpose-built site offering almost limitless potential for expansion at nearby La Joliette. With the pressure off, the vieux port became the domain of local fishermen and, more recently, leisure sailors.

For everyone else, particularly motorists during rush-hour mayhem, getting from one side to the other has often proved challenging. Between 1905 and 1947 pedestrians and cars could travel across on a colossal ironwork transporter bridge like that which still survives at Rochefort, while today’s traffic has a discrete tunnel. After parking the car I opt for an aller-retour on the diminutive antique ferry which shuttles foot passengers between the Hôtel de Ville and the Place des Huiles, and see the vieux port at its best, from the water. The mid-point view takes in the bustle of la Canebière, one of Europe’s most famous boulevards, but I plan to do as countless new arrivals have done and start exploring elsewhere.

For those who arrived by sea during the 19th Century industrial boom, the search for a new life often began among the warren of narrow streets and alleyways hidden away behind the northern quayside, on the site of the original Phocean hilltop settlement. You’ll look in vain in the list of 111 official quarters for ‘le Panier’ but it’s real enough, and still resonates with the residual echo of those who passed through en route to greater things, and of others who simply stayed put. The colours of the painted shutters and ochre façades seem somehow more vibrant than elsewhere, even in Provence, creating an atmosphere more evocative of Naples, Corsica or Maghreb. There’s also plenty of evidence of the earlier period when the area was actually home to the local bourgeoisie, until they were seduced during the 17th Century by new, more spacious residential developments across town.

Those who replaced them inherited the steep climb up the Montée des Accoules (the rugged stone escalier later made world-famous by The French Connection) which inspired the local description of le Panier being a ‘village pour les chèvres’. Above lies the Place des Moulins, a small haven of calm which once accommodated no fewer than thirteen windmills on a site originally occupied by a Greek temple. Today there are few signs of its former frenetic activity, and the surviving modest artisans’ cottages have recently begun to be snapped up by visionary Parisians looking for a second home with a difference in vieux Marseille. Maybe in time the effect will filter down through le Panier, which remains faithful to its popular image despite the presence of a handful of new businesses among the faded façades of traders now long gone. In Rue du Petits Puits I chance upon a boutique inspired by the world-famous Savon de Marseille (72% olive oil) which boasted around seventy producers during the 19th Century. Nearby, in the Atelier Arterra, skilled artists produce miniature Provençal Santon figures by hand.

Le Panier’s real surprise, however, is la Vieille Charité, created as during the 17th and 18th Centuries to accommodate the sick and wretched under one giant Roman-tiled roof. For all the Classical elegance of its airy stone arcades, the sheer scale of the multiple storeys, running unbroken around four enormous wings, tells you a lot about Le Panier’s social problems at the time, as does the fact that every single window faces inwards. As part of the plan, Royal architect Pierre Puget (who had been born nearby) added an appropriately grandiose chapel to the central courtyard. It’s now hard to believe that during the late-1940s the whole site was scheduled for demolition, until Swiss modernist architect Le Corbusier campaigned for it to be listed as an historic monument. Maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised, considering his preoccupations elsewhere in Marseille at the time, including his Unité d’Habitation, a radical high-rise community in pre-stressed concrete and designed to replace in one giant structure much of the family housing lost during WWII, which had left quite an impression on the city.

So, over the years, has street-crime. After rounding a corner my relaxed mood evaporates as I’m spotted by three teenage boys, two of whom start to scuffle while the third makes the kind of eye-contact which can only mean one thing. Grasping my camera firmly to my chest sends a clear message that I’m not just another tourist. Switching his game-plan, he darts past me and instead wrenches my companion’s camera clean off its slender wrist strap. She hadn’t seen him coming. Minutes later, in wounded rage, we’re reporting the incident at the city’s Police HQ, enacting a scene which is uncomfortably close to cinéma vérité. The subsequent drive in an unmarked car through known trading points for stolen goods fails to turn up the camera or les voyeurs, but confirms that all you’ve heard about old Marseille is true.

Later, back at the Vieux Port, nightfall finds few strollers and a lot less traffic beside the northern Quai du Port, whose post-war arcades were designed to evoke something of the spirit, if not the romance, of what had been lost. The nearby quayside walk around the Fort Saint-Jean, on the other hand, is pure magic, as the lights of old Marseille twinkle in the warm waters, and in the eyes of those sitting hand-in-hand and gazing at it all in wide-eyed wonder. From time to time the stillness is broken by laughter and snatches of conversation from passers by, the words invariably spoken in an unfamiliar tongue. Welcome to Marseille.

Next morning, while the shoppers are eyeing the morning’s catch so fresh that much of it is still wriggling in the hands of the fish sellers (and while a large brown octopus flexes its tentacles and gazing inscrutably at nearby fishermen patiently mending their nets), I decide it’s going to require at least one more visit to get to grips with the complex enigma that is Marseille. But there’s one thing I already know: this is somewhere you won’t leave without having discovered a little more about yourself.