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Favorite thing: The old part of the city is noted for its narrrow, winding streets. This old part was destroyed during World War ll. The modern city of Marseilles is built around the old district. It is surrounded by gills covered with vineyards.
The city of Marseilles was founded by Greeks more than two thousand years ago.

Favorite thing: The ancient paved road of the Greek city is between two towers. It passed under the "Porte d'Italie", the main entrance into the city. The wheels of carts have for so long run on these pavements that they have carved their way and that two ruts are clearly visible.

Favorite thing: The window of a Restaurant, close to the "Jardin des Vestiges" (garden of vestiges) and called with the same name bears a joke. They have written "à l'étage, salle de restauration", which means that at the first level, there is a restaurant room. But it can also refer to "restoration" (of antiques), written "restauration" in French !

Favorite thing: Though Marseille was founded by sailors coming from the antique Phocea, it was also strongly linked with more renown Ephese, dedicated to Artemis. The Temple of Artemis polymast (with several breasts) was in Ephese one of the seven marvels of the world. The Greek Marseille too had a temple to Artemis, the goddess for fertility.

Favorite thing: In the museum, this map shows in green all the places that were under control or influence of the Greeks in the VIth century BC. In pale brown places under the control of the Phoenicians and in red what was under control of the Etrusques. The Greeks were by far the main rulers of the Mediterranean area.

Favorite thing: Xth century - King Conrad the Peaceful granted Arlulfe sovereign rights over the region of Trets. Arlulfe was to be the ancestor of a line of Marseilles Viscounts who governed until the 12th century.
XIIth century the Republic of Marseilles - Marseilles was governed according to its own legislation which was gathered in five volumes to form a code of statutes for the city. Power was in the hands of a Council of twelve rectors. In 1221, the population appointed a Podesta, a magistrate specialised in municipal administration. Marseilles issued its own money. 1246 –1343 Marseilles united to the Kingdom of Anjou
Charles d'Anjou, who became the Count of Marseilles through his marriage to Beatrice, pursued a policy of annexations. After surviving many intrigues Marseilles finally had to submit. The city lost its commercial independence but retained certain legal and economic privileges.

Favorite thing: HENRI IV of FRANCE - Marseilles was declared a free port. It prospered and grew in spite of many political disputes.
1720 - The city was stricken by the worst plague in its history during which 38,000 of its population died.
1789 The French Revolution and Marseilles. - A battalion of voluntary patriots was sent to Paris. They sang Roget de 1'Isle's hymn written for the Rhine Army. This was to retain their name, the Marseillaise, and be adopted as the national anthem. It was during the Second Empire that Marseilles took on its present day form with the building of the rue Imperiale, now called the rue de la Republique and the erection of splendid monuments, Longchamps Palace, the Stock Exchange, Pharo Palace, etc., which until then had been absent from the city. The Second Empire was the period during which the city took on a more "bourgeois" appearance. Nevertheless, the visitor to Marsilles will doubtless be struck by the absence of splendid middle-class town houses or monuments dating from the prosperous periods in the city's history. This can be partly explained by the fact that the middle-classes were primarily business people, mainly involved in trade. Tacitus, a historian and moralist living during the Roman era, had already mentioned the lack of monuments and observed that this was also the case in Phocaea, Marseilles' founding city.

Favorite thing: This small scale model, on display in the Musée d'Histoire de Marseille, represents the harbor of Marseille as it was 2,000 years ago. It has been built following what remains today and that was unearthed after 1967, when diggings were performed behind the "Bourse" in order to build a subterranean parking.