PSSSST . . . life is good in Marseilles

French city's charms are a secret to many

Author: By Steve Bailey, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, October 5, 1997

Page: M11

Section: Travel

Our friend, Christine, had gotten home from work just before we had arrived, and Christophe wouldn't make it back from his software company until after 9.

This is Marseilles, after all, a city that works hard.

Settling into their little garden, we watched the full moon rise over the Italian working-class village inside the heart of ancient Marseilles as we nibbled foie gras and sipped their homemade orange wine. Cats made their way along the edges of their walled garden; the smell of lavender and rosemary was all around.

This is more than anything a seaport, the largest on the Mediterranean, and we started with sardines grilled in lemon and sardines rolled in spinach. There were grilled peppers in oil.

The main course was daurade, a grilled fish, with tomatoes provencal and tiny steamed white potatoes. A huge salad came next. Later there was cheese and a plate of pastries from the boulangerie on the corner. We finished, just before midnight, with hot tea made from herbs that Christine cut from the garden.

Life is good here in Marseilles -- but you would never know it from reading the travel guides. It is largely the secret of the Marseillais who live here.

France's second-largest city is big and grimy and seamy. It is the city of ``The French Connection,'' with a reputation for gangsters, drugs, and crime. People talk about ``The Trouble,'' the racial tension that has come with the Algerian immigration.

All this is true, even if the reputation exceeds the reality. Clearly, Marseilles isn't for everyone: Those in search of all that is trendy in the south of France are directed to Aix-en-Provence, just 30 minutes north of here; the Mediterranean's beautiful people can be found in Nice, just two hours to the east.

What you get in Marseilles is a melting pot of a city that for 2,600 years has served as a gateway of trade and immigration. It is a spontaneous hodge-podge of a city where diversity is not some '90s buzzword but a way of life that has grown up alongside the distinct villages that are Marseilles.

The problem for most Marseilles visitors is that they never get beyond Canebiere, the city's scruffy main drag, or Centre Bourse, the ugly modern downtown mall that you could find in Anytown, USA.

Our own Marseilles Connection, a tight little knot of friends and relatives, were determined we would not make the same mistake.

The place to start in Marseilles is Vieux Port, the gently gentrifying old port that is packed with fishing boats and pleasure craft. At the head of the port is a monument to just how independent Marseillais can be: Louis XIV built Fort St. Nicolas with the guns facing inward, not outward, to keep the citizens in order.

Make no mistake: Vieux Port has been discovered by the tourists who do make it to Marseilles. But it is a good place to get your bearings just the same.

Get there before noon and you can shop the fish market where local fishermen are hawking everything from sardines to tuna to octopus off their boats. Everything is negotiable here.

This is a good place, too, to listen for the sing-song Marseilles accents and get a taste of the kind of tall tales the locals are noted for. The fishermen here will tell the story, swearing up and down, about the time the port was closed by a sardine. What they might neglect to mention is that The Sardine was a fishing boat that sunk at the head of the harbor.

Vieux Port is also the place to get a boat out to Chateau d'If, the infamous 16th-century prison that legend has it once held ``The Man in the Iron Mask.'' (Never mind that Alexandre Dumas' characters were fictional and that The Man in the Iron Mask was held not here but in the Bastille in Paris.)

Vieux Port is also loaded with cafes and shops. The shaded squares are charming, but even in this hub of tourism you're reminded that this is a real city, not some facade erected for the day trippers.

There was, for instance, the homeless man washing his clothes in the fountain while we and the other tourists drank our grenadine or pastise. A block away, a procession of striking port workers wound their way through the district, blaring their horns and banging on steel drums, a reminder of the changing economics of the Mediterranean. Just across from the grand Art Deco Opera House, the Macadam Flowers, the aging prostitutes, stood poised on the sidewalk, key in the door, waiting for their next customers -- or the really big score, a US ship full of sailors, to pull into the harbor.

This is, in every sense, a working city; travelers who cannot appreciate its particular charms need not apply.

Marseilles is less a huge city than the sum of its villages, each with its own distinct character. A poor immigrant village crowded with North African markets can exist next to a square of hot clubs and restaurants. Quiet fishing villages are tucked in just behind the Marseilles' coast road -- corniche du J.F. Kennedy, which in turn leads to the newly created Prado beaches.

Le Panier, the place where this city was born, is a stop worth making. In Boston, this would be ritzy Beacon Hill, with its warren of narrow streets and graceful little buildings with their tile roofs and wrought iron balconies. Here it is what it has always been: home to one generation after another of immigrants, from the Italians to the Lebanese and now the Algerians.

The city used to run its tour busesthrough the neighborhood, but no more: The kids here didn't like being put on display, and pelted the gawkers with tomatoes. A better way to see Le Panier is to simply wander the narrow, little streets; it takes longer, but then it is a lot less messy than dealing with the tomatoes.

The centerpiece of Le Panier is La Hospice de la Vieille Charite, built as a sort of prison for orphans and the indigent in the late 17th century and renovated as a cultural center in 1986. The Charite's elegant, arched quadrangle encloses a Baroque domed chapel, which houses the city's archeological and museums. Inside, the collection spans everything from Egyptian statuary to Greek ceramics to Native American headdress.

Restaurant suggestion while in Le Panier: Chez Etienne on Rue Lorette. It's a tiny hole-in-the-wall known for its pizza and the local politicians and artists who frequent it. It's cheap but the owner has been known to price his pizza after he's looked you over.

Other worthwhile stops along the way:

- Cours Julien is a center for nightlife, though the tourists rarely make it there. A former vegetable market filled with cheap loft space for artists, clubs, and good restaurants, the square is the stomping ground of some of Marseilles' best-known rap bands like IAM and Massalia Sound System. Add in the bikers, the punks, the transsexuals and the grafitti and you get a lively mix after dark. Good bet for dinner: Le Julien, but then there are no shortage of good choices here.

- Notre-Dame-de-Garde looks over the entire city from its hilltop location south of Vieux Port. The Second Empire landmark gets mixed reviews for its monstrous neo-Byzantine look and great gilded statue of the Virgin that watches over the harbor, but it offers, hands down, the best view of Marseilles and is worth the hike up. Inside, the most interesting feature is the murals left by crews or families whose ships or loved ones have been spared.

- More off the beaten path of Marseilles' beaches, our favorite was La Pointe Rouge, a run-down little spot frequented by Marseillais families. Sandy not rocky, the beach is likely to be wall-to-wall with locals, from those who set up for the day in the rough-and-ready cabanos once used to house fishing boats, to topless moms just looking to escape the Marseilles heat. The kids can rent paddle boats for $10 for a half hour; the parents can eat pizza -- or better yet Marseilles fish soup -- at the joints that line the beach.

Day trips are easy from Marseilles.

A good bet is the chic little town of Cassis, 30 minutes away. The made-for-tourism resort has a picturesque harbor framed by white cliffs, but the real attraction is the Calanques -- long, narrow, deep fiordlike inlets that have been cut inside the limestone cliffs.

You can hike to a couple of the Calanques, but the best way in is to take the 30-minute boat ride from Cassis. (Adults are $10, children half that.)

Warning: The Calanques are not handicap accessible. Once you land, the 15-minute climb is steep and precarious. Our 9-year-old, Jordie, and 5-year-old, Ariel, made it just fine; older and loaded down with fishing poles and floats, we struggled more.

The Calanques are a special place. The cliffs rise 300 feet straight up; you can look straight down through the clear, green Mediterranean. Climbers cling impossibly to the sides of the cliffs; schools of fish inhabit the water below.

The area is now the subject of an intensifying debate over how to protect it. The boats that brought us in provide jobs and access; those who come want an easier, safer trail in. Environmentalists say just that access could be the undoing of this place.

Travel is a dangerous, sedious activity. Hiking alone on the rocky paths miles back into the Calanques, you are reminded by the huge, ancient cliffs just how small you are, just how finite is your life.

You walk, you wonder. Am I taking the right path? Straight ahead, or is there a better way?

Has my thinking, simply put, been all too conventional?

Le Richelieu, 52 Corniche Kennedy; phone 04-91-31-01-92. One of the more affordable of the Corniche hotels overlooking the plage des Catalans; mid-priced. Tonic Hotel, 42 quai des Belges; phone 04-91-55-67-46. The best of the Vieux Port hotels; Jacuzzis and steam bath in every room; mid-priced. Le Petit Nice, anse de Maldorme, Corniche JFK; phone 04-91-59-25-92. Hidden off the corniche, this place is known for its windows and views of the sea. The dining room specializes in regional seafood dishes. Expensive.

Where to eat

Chez Etienne, 43 rue Lorette, Le Panier. A Marseilles institution favored by local politicians and artists. The pizza is the thing here. Cheap.

Chez Fonfon. 140 rue du Vallon des Auffes on the Corniche JFK. Marseilles is known for the best bouillabaisse in the world, and this is where the locals come to get it. Expensive; reservations essential.

Le Julien, cours Julien. Good French food in the middle of Marseilles' best music district. Mid-priced.