April 27, 2012
Marseille

I don't know what to expect of Marseille: I have heard that it is dirty, crime-rdden, full of hooligans, many of them Maghrebien. The Front National has done well here, but it is also an area with a storied working-class culture associated with the port, as anyone who knows Marcel Pagnol's Marseille Trilogy (Marius, Fanny, and Cesar) will tell you.

I arrive at the Saint Charles station, which is enclosed in glass and again, ivory marble. I exit the station and move to the Taxi stand before being picked up Monsieur Foulot, a friendly taxidriver, who gives me some advice right off the bat:

Stay away from the area to the left of the Opera late at night. It's full of thieves. That's why I only drive in the day.

My hotel is the New Hotel Vieux Port. Again, I don't know what to expect: will it be seedy, full of rusty ships, old soaks, snarling rummies, out-or-work longshoremen? I am dropped off at the curb of rue Reine Elisabeth because the taxi cannot go any further. Monsieur Foulot points out the hotel, gives me his card, and tells me to call him if I need a taxi --or advice. The sun is shining brightly --which is already an improvement on the cold spring of the last six weeks. It is supposed to be warm and sunny all day and for the next few days.

The hotel is clean and well-appointed. The staff is young, friendly and helpful. My room, with new furniture in a modern style in an agreeably dark wood, has two French windows and balconies and looks out on to the pedestrianized plaza. The desk is large, and features an espresso machine that makes Nespresso. Most important of all, I can hear the sounds of the street --the police sirens, the motorscooters, the dogs barking, the hum of people --this is a city, with a capital "C".

I drop my things, freshen up briefly and go outside: the Vieux Port is now a vast marina for pleasure boats. Several hundred sailing boats and teams of tour boats to the Calanques --the coves along the Mediterranean as far as Cassis-- fill the U-shaped harbor. Julia Child (the woman who brought French cooking to Americans through her television program, The French Chef) and her husband Paul, lived for in Marseille after the Second World War. The Childs had a small apartment in the Vieux Port, which she recollects in her memoir, My Life in France.

I know Marseille is not the same as it was after the War, but I hope that I won't be disappointed, I tell myself as I fall asleep, promising to get up early tomorrow to make the most of the day.


***

The first thing I do is to take the #21 bus to the highest point in Marseille to see the basilica of Notre Dame de la Garde. The church features a giant gilded statue of Mary that watches over the harbor. This incarnation of Mary is the object of great devotion and inside the church --which is more Byzantine than Roman-- paintings and models of ships testify to the prayers to her of those whose lives depend on the sea.

The enormous plaza below the church offers a view of the entire city from all directions, the harbor as well as the low-lying mountains behind to the interior. It is towards the mountains I go next, on the #61 bus to see La Cite Radieuse, Le Corbusier's housing development for those of moderate income. It was designed to provide everything a community might need --bakery, greegrocer, bookstore, beauty salon, take-out food-- all one floor.

On that floor is also a restaurant with a view over the mountains, Le Ventre de l'Architecte. It is there I have lunch with Helene Masson, a teacher of English to post-baccalaureate students preparing for the entrance examination for admission to one of the France's engineering schools. (English is required for admission now.) Helene and her daughter Juliette, are on their way to lunch at the restaurant when I ask them for directions, which leads Helene to ask me to join them.

After lunch we go for coffee in Helene's car to Bar David in the eighth district of Marseille, the most post in the city. It is by the beach, and full of fashionable people enjoying the sunshine. The district is also home to Marseille's foreign consulates, as well as to many government buildings. After, I take the #83 bus back to the Vieux Port and enjoy the ride along the Corniche in the sunshine.

***

Back at the hotel, I need to plan for dinner: the lunch, while a demonstration of the aesthetic heights achievable by a dedicated chef, has not been very filling, which is the irony of such restaurants: small plates, big check. Now I want a real meal, and I think it will be cous cous. Marseille is home to a large North African population, and I know the names of some fancy Maghrebien restaurants, but I want something inexpensive. i ask Gael, the young woman working the reception desk at the hotel, for a recommendation.

She suggests a Tunisian restaurant down the street from her apartment on rue Pavillion, off Saint Ferreol, which is off the Canebiere, the major shopping street a block away from the hotel. I find the restaurant easily --it is quite small and the few tables outside are taken. I sit inside and order a lamb cous-cous.

I am not disappointed. The cous cous is warm and savory, served in the traditional earthenware dish with a bowl of broth and vegetables for sauce on the side. I finish every bite. After, I have two pieces of a North African sweetcake made of sesame seeds and dates. I choose this dessert after seeing two young boys, relatives of the owners, twins about five years old, tuck behind the vitrine featuring the sweets on display and scarf two for themselves. The sweets are very good. My total bill comes to eight euros and fifty centimes, about one-eighth the cost of lunch. --I will be back.



For dessert I have a sweet made of sesame seeds and dates. I get the idea from two little boys, twins, relatives of the owner, who although seated with family outside, trot back into the restaurant behind the vitrine with sweets, and scarf two before their parents can stop them. They have very good taste, in my view: I like their choice of sweets.

My entire meal comes to eight euros fifty centimes, an eighth of what I spent at lunch. I will be back.