The most renowned and
populated city in France
after Paris,
MARSEILLE has - like
the capital - prospered
and been ransacked over
the centuries. It has
lost its privileges to
sundry French kings and
foreign armies,
recovered its fortunes,
suffered plagues,
religious bigotry,
republican and royalist
Terror and had its own
Commune and Bastille-storming.
It was the presence of
so many Marseillaise
Revolutionaries marching
from the Rhine to Paris
in 1792 which gave the
Hymn of the Army of
the Rhine its name
of La Marseillaise
, later to become the
national anthem.
The City
Marseille is divided
into sixteen
arrondissements
which spiral out from
the focal point of the
city, the Vieux Port
. Due north lies the old
town, Le Panier ,
site of the original
Greek settlement of
Massalia. The wide
boulevard leading from
the head of the Vieux
Port, La Canebière
is the central east-west
axis of the town. The
Centre Bourse and
the little streets of
quartier Belsunce
border it to the north,
while the main shopping
streets lie to the south.
The main north-south
axis is rue d'Aix
, becoming cours
Belsunce then rue
de Rome, av du Prado
and finally boulevard
Michelet . The
lively, youngish quarter
around place Jean-Jaurès
and the trendy cours
Julien lie to the
east of rue de Rome.
From the headland west
of the Vieux Port, the
Corniche heads
south past the city's
most favoured
residential districts
towards the beaches
and promenade nightlife
of the Plage du Prado
.
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