Fun Facts About Marseille: 15 Surprising History Stories

Marseille is 2,600 years old, and it has made good use of that time to pile up stories. True ones, not barstool legends (well, almost all of them: we'll tell you when one is a legend). While writing our audio guide, we dug into the history of fifteen landmarks, and some of these fun facts about Marseille made us laugh, while others honestly surprised us. Here they are, to share over dinner, at the foot of the monument or on the train home.

Each one links to the landmark's card in the Marseille audio guide: one minute to listen to on the spot, with what to look for.

Marseille history facts: Greeks, a wedding and an inn

1. Marseille may have been born from a marriage proposal

Around 600 BC, Greek sailors from Phocaea, in Asia Minor (today's Turkey), land in a well-sheltered cove. Legend has it that their leader, Protis, arrives on the very day Gyptis, the local king's daughter, is to choose her husband at a banquet. She hands the cup to the stranger. The king gives the couple a piece of land by the water, and Massalia is born. It's a legend, of course, but people have been telling it since antiquity, and the cove itself is very real: it's the Vieux-Port, the Old Port.

2. Le Panier is named after an inn

The city's oldest neighborhood, built on the hill where the Greeks settled, probably doesn't take its name from a fisherman's basket ("panier" in French), but from a 17th-century inn, "Le Logis du Panier." On Place de Lenche, you're walking on the site of the old Greek agora. The Le Panier card tells you what to look for along the way, like the Maison Diamantée and its facade bristling with stone points.

3. One of the oldest places of worship in France looks like a castle

With its towers and battlements, the Abbaye Saint-Victor looks every bit like a fortress. Yet it was founded in the early 400s by a monk, John Cassian: it's one of the oldest places of worship in France. The real treasure is beneath your feet, in the crypts: sarcophagi from late antiquity and a Black Madonna. Every February 2, for Candlemas (la Chandeleur), a procession climbs up here before the blessing at the Four des Navettes bakery, just nearby.

Kings who didn't trust the people of Marseille

4. The cannons of Fort Saint-Nicolas were aimed at the city

At the entrance to the Old Port, two forts face each other. Fort Saint-Nicolas was built under Louis XIV, after the city rose up against royal power. Its cannons pointed… at Marseille. The Sun King wanted to keep an eye on subjects who were a little too independent for his taste. The people of Marseille never quite forgot.

5. The Château d'If exists because of a rhinoceros

In 1516, King Francis I made a detour to a tiny island off Marseille to see an extraordinary beast: a rhinoceros, a gift from the King of Portugal to the Pope, whose ship had stopped over here. The king admired the animal, but what really caught his eye was the location, perfect for defending the bay. Construction of the fortress began in 1529. The Château d'If was never attacked afterward, so it was turned into a prison.

6. You can visit the cell of a prisoner who never existed

The Château d'If's most famous inmate never set foot in it: Edmond Dantès, the future Count of Monte Cristo, is a character Alexandre Dumas invented in 1844, and so is his neighbor in the next cell, the Abbé Faria. That doesn't stop anyone from visiting "their" cells, and it's actually one of visitors' favorite moments. Here, fiction ended up writing the history of the place.

An emperor, a giant Virgin and a 24-year-old architect

7. Napoleon III supposedly never slept in his own palace

The emperor spotted a spectacular headland at the harbor entrance and had a residence built there starting in 1858: the Palais du Pharo. As the story goes, he never spent a single night in it. After the fall of the Second Empire, Empress Eugénie eventually handed it over to the city. The people of Marseille got the best garden in town for watching the sunset.

8. The architect of "la Bonne Mère" was 24

When construction of Notre-Dame de la Garde began in 1853, its architect, Henri-Jacques Espérandieu, was only 24. He went on to design the Palais Longchamp and to take over the La Major cathedral project. Not bad for a first job.

9. The "little" golden Virgin is 37 feet tall

Seen from below, the statue crowning the basilica's bell tower looks almost modest. In reality, she stands 37 feet (11.2 m) tall, made of copper covered in gold leaf. Locals simply call her "la Bonne Mère," the Good Mother. Inside, look for the ex-votos: paintings of shipwrecks and model boats left by sailors who made it home and by grateful families.

10. La Major dwarfs its little sister

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte laid the first stone of La Major cathedral in 1852, and construction lasted more than forty years. The result is one of the largest cathedrals in France. To make room for it, much of the old Romanesque cathedral was torn down. One piece survives, the "Vieille Major" (Old Major), tucked at its feet: the difference in size is striking.

Place names all tied up in rope

11. La Canebière is named after hemp

Marseille's most famous avenue takes its name from "canebe," Provençal for hemp. This is where rope makers worked, twisting the rigging for sailing ships. Locals have held on to a stubborn pride about it, summed up in a famous line: "If Paris had a Canebière, it would be a little Marseille." At the bottom of La Canebière, the Palais de la Bourse is home to the oldest chamber of commerce in France, founded in 1599.

12. So is the Vallon des Auffes

Same rope story a little farther along the Corniche, the coastal road: the Vallon des Auffes owes its name to "auffes," plants whose fibers were used to make ropes and fishing nets. This little fishermen's harbor tucked under an arched bridge is now one of the most photographed spots in the city, with its traditional boats, the "pointus."

13. The street art district used to be the wholesale market

Until the early 1970s, Cours Julien was home to the wholesale fruit and vegetable market: trucks, carts and crates all night long. When the market moved out to the edge of town, artists, booksellers, bars and small music venues moved in, and then the walls filled up with murals. They change all the time: come back in six months and nothing will look the same.

A thirsty city, and the crazy man's house

14. A whole palace to celebrate running water

In the 19th century, Marseille was desperately short of water, and cholera was taking a terrible toll. So the city dug a canal about 50 miles (80 km) long to bring in water from the Durance River. To celebrate its arrival, it treated itself to a palace, with a monumental cascade and four sculpted bulls: the Palais Longchamp, inaugurated in 1869. Few cities have dedicated such a grand monument to their tap water.

15. The Cité Radieuse was first called "the crazy man's house"

When Le Corbusier completed his "vertical city" in 1952, with 337 apartments, shopping streets inside and a school on the roof, plenty of locals thought the idea was nuts. They nicknamed the building "la maison du fada," fada being Provençal for crazy. Since 2016, the Cité Radieuse has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its residents got the last word.

Bonus: the city's most beautiful Baroque building was built to lock up the poor

In the 17th century, the king ordered beggars to be confined, and Marseille built them an almshouse from plans by Pierre Puget. The result: three tiers of arcaded galleries in ochre stone around a chapel with an oval dome, almost disconcertingly beautiful for such a purpose. La Vieille Charité now houses museums, and its courtyard is one of the calmest spots in Le Panier.

Hear these fun facts about Marseille on the spot

We tell each of these stories in one minute in our Marseille audio guide, right when you're standing in front of the landmark, with what to look for: your reflection under the Ombrière, the ex-votos of la Bonne Mère, the shadows cast by the MUCEM's concrete lattice. It's text and audio, in five languages, no app needed.

Four landmarks are free: the Old Port, Notre-Dame de la Garde, La Vieille Charité and the MUCEM. The other thirteen are in the full guide. And if you're a history buff, our article on the history of Marseille puts it all in order, from the Greeks to today.