Greek Massalia
The city was founded by sailors from Phocaea around 600 BC.
Carl Ha — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Carl Ha — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Onceinawhile — CC BY-SA 4.0
A seventeenth-century building erected as a shelter for the poor and for beggars — a charity house — with a wide courtyard, three storeys of arcades and an oval chapel at the centre. It was saved from demolition in the twentieth century and restored, and is now a cultural centre holding two museums. The courtyard alone is worth entering.
The Le Panier quarter around it: Marseille's oldest, with narrow climbing streets and coloured facades, then down to the La Major cathedral and the old port. A comfortable half day starting at the Vieille Charité.
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An archaeology museum inside the Vieille Charité building in the Le Panier quarter, holding the second most important ancient Egyptian collection in France after the Louvre. The Egyptian collection is the surprise: coffins, mummies, statues, funerary vessels and papyri, assembled in the nineteenth century when Marseille was France's principal port towards the East. A collection of this scale being in Marseille rather than Paris follows directly from the city's position as a maritime gateway. The second section covers the ancient Mediterranean: Greek, Roman, Cypriot and Near Eastern material, with parts devoted to Massalia itself, the Greek colony founded by sailors from Phocaea around 600 BC that became Marseille. The city is among the oldest continuously inhabited in France. Practical points: the building itself — the Vieille Charité — is among the most important seventeenth-century architecture in Marseille, with its courtyard, arcades and oval chapel, and it holds a second museum of African art. A combined ticket is usual. The courtyard can be entered without a ticket.
The city was founded by sailors from Phocaea around 600 BC.
The port was France's gateway east, and the collection followed.
The Vieille Charité is major seventeenth-century architecture, with an oval chapel.
Vieille Charité, Le Panier quarter, Marseille