Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde

Lonely Planet review

Everywhere you go in Marseille, you'll see the golden statue of the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde, the Romano-Byzantine basilica rising up from the city's highest hill, La Garde (162m). Built between 1853 and 1864, the domed basilica is ornamented with coloured marble, murals, and intricate mosaics, which were superbly restored in 2006; and gives you a 360-degree panorama of the city's sea of terracotta roofs below.

Its bell tower is crowned by a 9.7m-tall gilded statue of the Virgin Mary on a 12m-high pedestal. Bullet marks and vivid shrapnel scars on the cathedral's northern façade mark the fierce fighting that took place during Marseille's Battle of Liberation in August 1944. Bus 60 links the Vieux Port (from cours Jean Ballard) with the basilica. Otherwise, there's a little train, which departs from the Vieux Port for the 20-minute trip up the steep hill. This gives you around 20 minutes to look around before catching the next one back down. By foot, it's 1km south of the Vieux Port.