The old Marseille

Marseille has behind it 2,600 years of history and it is quite possible to go back very far in the past of the city by visiting places like the shopping district, known as the Old Marseille. The district of the Basket, named after an inn settled there in the 18th century, is nevertheless not one of the 111 official districts of Marseille, but is attached to Marseille City Hall.It is here that the Greeks of Phocaea laid the first foundations of the ancient city of Massalia, which later became Marseilles. Until now, one still continues to follow the ancient way traced by the Phocaeans, a road now called the Grand'Rue. It leads from the port to the Place de Lenche which housed the Agora of the Greeks during the genesis of Marseilles.In this very old quarter, what one notices from the first approach, are the narrow streets and sometimes dark. It must be known that before the reign of Louis XIV, this area was surrounded by ramparts and it was forbidden to build beyond this border. As a result, the available space was used to the maximum, at the origin of the pile up of the houses, glued together, forming a kind of gigantic wall without any breach.Aside from Lenche’s, at the foot of the Butte du Panier, Old Marseille also has two other squares, located a little higher, accessible via a narrow passage with steep slope. Half way, you reach the Place de la Lorette and perched at the top, there is the Place des Moulins. In the past, there were many windmills, but nowadays there is only one, the last witness of a prosperous era.The Panier district was long pursued by a reputation as a "cut-throat". This is somehow the reason why a good part was demolished by the Germans during the Second World War. At that time the French resistance found refuge in the narrow streets of the Basket and orchestrated raids against the troops of the Third Reich.Until the 1990s, this bad image still sticks to the skin of the Basket, but today, the trend has reversed and the places are among the most acclaimed of Marseille. Tourists come en masse to stroll through the narrow streets, to frequent the bistros, restaurants and craft shops located in this historic place.