Must see attractions in Marseille

  • Top Choice

    Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde

    Occupying Marseille’s highest point, La Garde (154m), this opulent 19th-century Romano-Byzantine basilica is Marseille's most-visited icon. Built on the…

  • Top Choice

    Vieux Port

    Ships have docked for millennia at Marseille’s birthplace, the vibrant Vieux Port. The main commercial docks were transferred to the Joliette area in the…

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    Top Choice

    La Vieille Charité

    In the heart of Marseille's Le Panier quarter is this grand and gorgeous almshouse, built by Pierre Puget (1620–94), an architect and sculptor born just a…

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    Musée d’Histoire de Marseille

    This intriguing 15,000-sq-metre museum traces the story of 'France's Oldest City' from prehistory (the paintings of the Cosquer Cave) to the present day,…

  • La Cité Radieuse

    Visionary modernist architect Le Corbusier redefined urban living in 1952 with the completion of this vertical 337-apartment tower, popularly known as La…

  • Château d’If

    Commanding access to Marseille's Vieux Port, this photogenic island-fortress was immortalised in Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 classic The Count of Monte Cristo…

  • Musée des Beaux Arts

    Set in the lavish, colonnaded Palais de Longchamp, Marseille’s oldest museum owes its existence to an 1801 decree of pre-Napoleonic France's short-lived…

  • Cours Julien

    Marseille's most vibrant bohemian quarter centres on Cours Julien, an elongated concrete square shaded by palm trees. It’s lined with great bars, cafes…

  • Jardin du Pharo

    Perched high above the southern side of the Vieux Port are the six immaculately grassed hectares of the Jardin du Pharo, the grounds of the Palais du…

  • Galerie Trajectoire

    This teeny tiny art gallery, located along a narrow sloping road in the historic neighbourhood of Le Panier, offers a platform to emerging artists and a…

  • Abbaye St-Victor

    To the west of the Vieux Port lies Abbaye St-Victor, the birthplace of Christianity in Marseille, built on a 3rd century BC necropolis. It's €2 to visit…

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    La Joliette

    The old maritime neighbourhood of La Joliette, moribund since the decline of the 19th-century docks, has been revitalised by bars, shops and restaurants…

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    Îles du Frioul

    Around nine kilometres west of Marseille lie the dyke-linked limestone islands of Ratonneau and Pomègues, known jointly as the the Îles du Frioul…

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    Musée Cantini

    Donated to the city by the sculptor Jules Cantini on his death in 1916, this 17th-century mansion-turned-museum conceals some superb art behind its…

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    Fort St-Jean

    Intended as much to control the citizens of Marseille as guard them from external threat, Fort St-Jean was built by Louis XIV in 1660 on the site of a…

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    Villa Méditerranée

    This eye-catching white structure next to MuCEM is no ordinary ‘villa’. Designed by architect Stefano Boeri in 2013, the sleek white edifice sports a…