SudoscienceSudoscienceLast week, I arrived in Marseille, France, in advance of starting grad school next month. Marseille is the second-largest city in the country. Because I was coming from the United States, I took a plane by way of Paris; the Marseille-Provence airport is a few kilometers outside of the city. As soon as I walked out of the terminal, I could smell the ocean, and the temperature of the air seemed perfect.
A cabbie took me downtown, casually texting a girlfriend on Snapchat while driving. (I am told the French love Snapchat.) Maybe he felt guilty for engaging in this reckless behavior: when my debit card didn't work, I tried to pay him in cash—and he, a cabbie(!) didn't have proper change! So I got a €5 discount.
I am staying with a host in the quartier Longchamp, named for the spectacular Palais Longchamp, a Second Empire palace that houses two museums these days, and fronts on a beautiful park. It seems to me the French have mastered hilltop parks. Buttes-Chaumont in Paris, similarly positioned on a promontory in the northeast, is the best in that city.
What first struck me about Marseille: it's completely filthy. I think of a "clean city" as something of a contradiction in terms, or else the sort of thing that ends up being pretty frivolous, when you take all the other characteristics of a place into account. The grime, and the ubiquitous graffiti, adds an interesting character to the city. Buildings new and old are tagged irrespective of their historical significance: and there's a lot of the latter.
In this respect, too, I have met with a pleasant surprise. After spending several months in Paris last year, I came away with a feeling of serious contempt for the Parisian habit of leaving dog turds everywhere. Fortunately, this is far less common in Marseille, despite the sheer number of dogs—here, too, the French like to let them walk around freely, off-lead. And if it's bad luck to kill a seabird, then I wonder: what does it mean to be shat upon by one? Luckily, the numerous pigeons, gulls, and other (to me) unidentifiable species have so far spared me this indignity, one I have suffered elsewhere on at least two occasions.
August is the month of the year traditionally devoted to vacation in France. Unlike the USA, where time off from work is a luxury, here it is closer to a sacrosanct tradition. This respect for leisure is visible everywhere, at all times, but especially now. People seem to think Marseille gets too hot this time of year—I don't agree—and overrun with tourists. Maybe that second charge has more of the truth about it.
But if you stay out of the center of the city, an easy enough thing to do, I find that avoiding crowds is simplicity itself. There aren't any, really. True, walking down the sidewalk can be a bit of a hazard; young people doubled up on rentable electric scooters whizzing around don't pay much attention to where they are going. But you aren't forced to walk at "blob speed," the pace of the slowest person in a crowd.
Marseille is, in brief, a very walkable city. Along its winding and hilly streets you will find all manner of restaurants, boutiques, chains, and eminently French businesses like les tabacs and bars snack. In the Noailles neighborhood, narrow alleys are filled with food of primarily African origin. I found an excellent Senegalese restaurant almost immediately. I noted it down for a future trip, and a few minutes later, was eating some delicious couscous at a counter-serve Moroccan place.
Perhaps what is most attractive about Marseille, for many people, is its coastal location, hence its beaches. These are indeed wonderful, and the Mediterranean is picturesque. The coast is mostly rocky, but this doesn't stop intrepid youths from sun-bathing on the outcrops. Kids jump from the higher points into the freezing water. And the sun creates these crystalline fragments in the waves, one of those sights you see in movies but never think you'll actually experience first hand.
I went to Anse de Malmousque, a cramped outpost for the city's bobos: students and young professionals who bask on the cramped shelf of jagged rock while reading Camus and playing at cards. Off to the right you can see L'Île de Frioul, where more beaches are accessible by way of a ferry. Out there somewhere, too, is Le Château d'If, the forbidding dungeon that once held the abbé Faria and his student, Edmond Dantes.