Marseille
Apr 17, 2012 | 8:04 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,438
Marseille
I'm going to be spending the better part of a week in the Vieux Port area at the Holiday Inn Express Marseille-Saint Charles. What I'm reading online makes it seem like that area is notoriously sketchy, even in daylight. Any thoughts as to whether it's really any worse than any other inner city center/ train station area? Any areas nearby that I must absolutely avoid?
Apr 17, 2012 | 1:41 pm
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: PARIS (France)
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I'm going to be spending the better part of a week in the Vieux Port area at the Holiday Inn Express Marseille-Saint Charles. What I'm reading online makes it seem like that area is notoriously sketchy, even in daylight. Any thoughts as to whether it's really any worse than any other inner city center/ train station area? Any areas nearby that I must absolutely avoid?
The district is quite cosmopolitan, but I would not say that it is not safe.
Basic rules should be applied as in any other large cities.
Concerning Marseille:
Marseille is a beautiful city that does not amount to Canebire, la Bonne mre and the Vieux Port.
The city offers to lovers of architecture, many monuments of great interest, and districts with multiple colors and moods:
- Le Panier, popular historic district of the city, close to the Vieux Port, with the beautiful Vieille Charit, Hospice of the XVIIth century old hosting the Museum of Mediterranean Archaeology, the Museum of African Arts, temporary exhibitions and a cinema theater
- The Palais de Longchamp, majestic building of the Second Empire with a fountain of Neptune which leaves the waters that feed Marseille via an aqueduct
- The Cours Julien district dedicated to the arts since the early nineteenth century (many restaurants and concert halls)
- Docks de la Joliette, full and beautiful industrial architecture of the nineteenth century,
- The housing unit by Le Corbusier, a master work of architecture of the 20th century. Built in the '50s, the building incorporates the theories of the "Radiant City" made by Le Corbusier (pile structure, duplex apartments, interior street with shops, a magnificent terrace at the top which offers a breathtaking view over the city, and welcoming nursery school and playground)
- Cantini Museum, in a beautiful mansion on the fashionable rue Grignan, houses one of the richest public collections devoted to French art of the twentieth century (Derain, Matisse, Dufy, Picasso, Miro, Ernst, Tapies, Alechinsky , Dubuffet, Bacon)
- The Museum of Contemporary Art: a museum which has opted for sobriety of the building to better showcase the works exhibited. Close to the Borly park, pleasant garden in the residential area of the Prado, lined with the elegant white facades of nineteenth-century mansions.
- A secret beach: following the chemin du Gnie, a small creek hanging on the Corniche, to have a sunbath in privacy.
Have a dinner at Petit Nice Passdat, stay at Sofitel (superb view over the Vieux Port) or Pullman, have a brunch at Caf Populaire
The city offers to lovers of architecture, many monuments of great interest, and districts with multiple colors and moods:
- Le Panier, popular historic district of the city, close to the Vieux Port, with the beautiful Vieille Charit, Hospice of the XVIIth century old hosting the Museum of Mediterranean Archaeology, the Museum of African Arts, temporary exhibitions and a cinema theater
- The Palais de Longchamp, majestic building of the Second Empire with a fountain of Neptune which leaves the waters that feed Marseille via an aqueduct
- The Cours Julien district dedicated to the arts since the early nineteenth century (many restaurants and concert halls)
- Docks de la Joliette, full and beautiful industrial architecture of the nineteenth century,
- The housing unit by Le Corbusier, a master work of architecture of the 20th century. Built in the '50s, the building incorporates the theories of the "Radiant City" made by Le Corbusier (pile structure, duplex apartments, interior street with shops, a magnificent terrace at the top which offers a breathtaking view over the city, and welcoming nursery school and playground)
- Cantini Museum, in a beautiful mansion on the fashionable rue Grignan, houses one of the richest public collections devoted to French art of the twentieth century (Derain, Matisse, Dufy, Picasso, Miro, Ernst, Tapies, Alechinsky , Dubuffet, Bacon)
- The Museum of Contemporary Art: a museum which has opted for sobriety of the building to better showcase the works exhibited. Close to the Borly park, pleasant garden in the residential area of the Prado, lined with the elegant white facades of nineteenth-century mansions.
- A secret beach: following the chemin du Gnie, a small creek hanging on the Corniche, to have a sunbath in privacy.
Have a dinner at Petit Nice Passdat, stay at Sofitel (superb view over the Vieux Port) or Pullman, have a brunch at Caf Populaire
Apr 18, 2012 | 5:29 am
#5
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: London, UK and Southern France
Posts: 18,874
As Nicolas75 says, it not a really dangerous area as such, although it is hardly an attractive one either. Certainly, there are no issues during the day. Nighttime might be sketchier but you need to apply usual common-sense large city prudent behaviour: be aware of your surroundings; avoid walking down unlit side-streets; appear clear and purposeful about where you are going, don't look like an obvious lost tourist, etc...
There is no area in the immediate vicinity of where you are which would be a no-go area as such. Again, use common sense to determine whether you feel comfortable or not walking a particular street at a particular time. The more difficult areas of Marseille are further North, in some "cits" (="projects" in US english; "estates" in UK English) of the "quartiers nord".
In my days, the Belle-de-Mai district, just North of Gare St Charles, was a kind of transition area between Central Marseille and the "quartiers nord" beyond which no middle-class mother would have liked her sons, still less her daughters, to walk unaccompanied. These days, I understand that Belle-de-Mai is in the process of gentrification, so the 'border' might have moved further North.
None of these areas would be of any interest to a tourist anyway so you would have no reason to venture North.
There is no area in the immediate vicinity of where you are which would be a no-go area as such. Again, use common sense to determine whether you feel comfortable or not walking a particular street at a particular time. The more difficult areas of Marseille are further North, in some "cits" (="projects" in US english; "estates" in UK English) of the "quartiers nord".
In my days, the Belle-de-Mai district, just North of Gare St Charles, was a kind of transition area between Central Marseille and the "quartiers nord" beyond which no middle-class mother would have liked her sons, still less her daughters, to walk unaccompanied. These days, I understand that Belle-de-Mai is in the process of gentrification, so the 'border' might have moved further North.
None of these areas would be of any interest to a tourist anyway so you would have no reason to venture North.
Apr 23, 2012 | 7:01 am
#6
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,438
As Nicolas75 says, it not a really dangerous area as such, although it is hardly an attractive one either. Certainly, there are no issues during the day. Nighttime might be sketchier but you need to apply usual common-sense large city prudent behaviour: be aware of your surroundings; avoid walking down unlit side-streets; appear clear and purposeful about where you are going, don't look like an obvious lost tourist, etc...
There is no area in the immediate vicinity of where you are which would be a no-go area as such. Again, use common sense to determine whether you feel comfortable or not walking a particular street at a particular time. The more difficult areas of Marseille are further North, in some "cits" (="projects" in US english; "estates" in UK English) of the "quartiers nord".
In my days, the Belle-de-Mai district, just North of Gare St Charles, was a kind of transition area between Central Marseille and the "quartiers nord" beyond which no middle-class mother would have liked her sons, still less her daughters, to walk unaccompanied. These days, I understand that Belle-de-Mai is in the process of gentrification, so the 'border' might have moved further North.
None of these areas would be of any interest to a tourist anyway so you would have no reason to venture North.
There is no area in the immediate vicinity of where you are which would be a no-go area as such. Again, use common sense to determine whether you feel comfortable or not walking a particular street at a particular time. The more difficult areas of Marseille are further North, in some "cits" (="projects" in US english; "estates" in UK English) of the "quartiers nord".
In my days, the Belle-de-Mai district, just North of Gare St Charles, was a kind of transition area between Central Marseille and the "quartiers nord" beyond which no middle-class mother would have liked her sons, still less her daughters, to walk unaccompanied. These days, I understand that Belle-de-Mai is in the process of gentrification, so the 'border' might have moved further North.
None of these areas would be of any interest to a tourist anyway so you would have no reason to venture North.