Marseille

Unni Mohanadas December 13, 2019 Destinations, Uncategorized 0

Marseille -Oldest city in France and melting pot of Greek and European art and history

Marseille is a mixture of North African culture meeting colonial French grandeur, Marseille is home to much of France’s maritime culture and it has a healthy tourist industry. A few kilometers from Marseille, on the rocky island is the castle of If, in which Alexander Dumas concluded the character of his novel “The Count of Monte Cristo”.

History

By 27000 BC First human presence was there at Marseille along the coast of Provence (the Calanques)
Marseille city was originally founded circa approximately 600 BC as the Greek colony of Massalia
Its citizens send 500 volunteers to defend Paris in 1792. Heading north, they sang a rousing march recently composed in Strasbourg and ever after dubbed La Marseillaise – now France’s national anthem
After the world war 2, much of the city was rebuilt during the 1950s.From that time onward, the city served as an entrance port for over a million immigrants to France
Marseille has been designated as European Capital of Culture for 2013

Activities for tourists

Marseille tour on colour bus Hop on hop off
Try flyboard session
Explore province
Visit Basilique Notre Dame de La Garde
Visit to the Haut-Fort (Entrecasteaux) and Bas-Fort (Ganteaume)

How to reach there

Air

64 Airlines operate from Marseille airport connecting to 92 cities

Train

Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles is Marseille’s main railway station. It operates direct regional services to Aix-en-Provence, Briançon, Toulon, Avignon, Nice, Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, etc. Gare Saint-Charles is also one of the main terminal stations for the TGV in the south of France making Marseille reachable in three hours from Paris (a distance of over 750 km) and just over one and a half hours from Lyon. There are also direct TGV lines to Lille, Brussels, Nantes, Geneva, Strasbourg and Frankfurt as well as Eurostar services to London.