Marseille is excess of azure waters and endless sunshine – it’s also a vibrant cultural hub with a wealthy historical past, a lot of it represented within the metropolis’s museums. Listed here are my 5 favourite Marseille museums.
Marseille has about two dozen museums that cater to each doable style below the solar. I can’t assume you’ll be capable to go to all of them (and a few of them are certain to be closed) so I’ve chosen my prime 10 that will help you slender down your selections.
Museums are sometimes closed, particularly in winter, for refurbishing or for altering exhibitions, so ensure you test earlier than you make the trek!
If you happen to landed on this museum record by mistake, you possibly can wander over to Le Panier, the outdated a part of city, or try these different issues to do in Marseille.
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My prime 5 Marseille museums
Right here is my record of the highest 5 museums I’d be comfortable to go to once more. I’ve added hyperlinks to their official web sites, in English the place these exist, or in French in any other case.
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1. Marseille Historical past Museum
That is the museum for historical past lovers and could also be my favourite of all Marseille museums. It could additionally take the longest to go to due to the variety of reveals and time span it covers. It’s proper downtown, across the nook from the Vacationer Workplace, so you possibly can wander down simply.
Marseille’s historical past is 2600 years outdated so that you’re going to must take your time wandering throughout the centuries. Your go to begins earlier than you even enter, with a number of Greek archeological remnants proper within the museum’s entrance courtyard.
When you’re inside, the centuries start to unfurl, 13 distinct chronological eras that take us from the Greeks by way of to right now. There are many interactive reveals, some in English, however you’ll most likely perceive most of what you’re seeing even when the English is lacking.
From Antiquity by way of the Renaissance, the plague, the Revolution – it’s all right here.
What to look at for:
Seven Greek and Roman wrecks had been uncovered throughout roadworks in Marseille – 5 of those are on show within the museum and reveal constructing strategies used for these fishing vessels so way back.
Discover out extra right here.
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2. Mucem – Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean
The MUCEM is one thing fully completely different, and it’s credited with having modified the face of Marseille when it opened in 2013, the 12 months Marseille was chosen as European Metropolis of Tradition. It focuses on the Mediterranean as a complete, an interesting area with as many similarities as variations.
The museum is formally divided into three sections: the J4 Esplanade constructing, constructed on the harbor by two famend native architects, Rudy Ricciotti and Rolland Carta, and which homes the everlasting and non permanent exhibitions; the Twelfth-century Fort Saint-Jean, which acts as a gateway to the outdated harbor and is linked to J4 by a shocking aerial footbridge; and a conservation space and useful resource middle in one other a part of city. Take the time to wander alongside the maze of pathways and thru the gardens for some excellent views.
The rotating reveals are all the time fascinating, and take care of some aspect of life across the Mediterranean. Throughout my go to, non permanent reveals checked out communications and meals, fascinating subjects each.
Visually, its most placing function is the outside, a large dice of concrete filigree harking back to a mashrabiya, an Arabian display screen. Inside, the design is wavy, a rejection in a approach of the strong, geometric exterior.
What to look at for:
The views from the surface. At one finish of the esplanade sits La Main, guarding the doorway to the Panier neighborhood, by no means a part of the museum however shut sufficient to drop by.
On the different is the aerial walkway, the place you’ll get one in every of Marseille’s most extraordinary views.
Discover out extra right here.
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3. Musée des Beaux-Arts
I visited this museum on a mission: to see the monumental work of the plague of Marseille, by Michel Serré. If you happen to recall, Marseille and the remainder of Provence had been hit by the plague in 1720, and essentially the most placing artwork depicting an occasion that killed at the very least 100,000 individuals is correct right here, on this museum.
There’s loads extra to see, after all, European Renaissance artwork, together with a group by Pierre Puget, the domestically born Seventeenth-century baroque artist and structure.
This museum, just like the Mucem, is at the very least as spectacular exterior as it’s inside. The “gateway”, with its fountains and statues, was designed by architect Henri-Jacques Esperandieu, who additionally designed the Notre-Dame de la Garde Basilica on the hill.
Longchamp was constructed to have a good time the arrival of unpolluted water in Marseille. A plan to construct a canal from the Durance river to Marseille had been round for a number of centuries however it took a cholera epidemic in 1835 to lastly make the mission a actuality. It was inaugurated in 1869, when Napoleon III was nonetheless emperor.
Proper subsequent door, additionally a part of the Palais Longchamp, is the Pure Historical past Museum, the oldest museum in Marseille.
What to look at for:
Behind the palais is a pleasant park that when housed the now-defunct Marseille Zoo. It’s crammed with joggers and walkers and within the morning, earlier than the warmth units in, you possibly can see teams practising Tai-chi within the shade.
My favourite backyard second was once I noticed a spectacular Wallace fountain behind the Palais – one of many eight in Marseille. Designed within the Nineteenth century to offer needy Parisians with clear water, they’re manufactured from forged iron, often painted bottle inexperienced, and embellished with 4 caryatids representing the virtues of kindness, simplicity, charity and sobriety. The fountain in Longchamp Park comes with a distinction: the caryatids are painted gold.
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4. Centre de la Vieille Charité
This constructing homes two distinct museums.
On the bottom flooring is the Musée d’Archéologie Mediterranéenne, which homes an important assortment of Egyptian antiquities after the Louvre. Initially specialised in Egypt, the museum has expanded and now contains objects from the Center East and the remainder of North Africa.
Above it’s the Musée d’Arts Africains, Océaniens, Amérindiens (MAAOA), the one museum in France aside from the Quai Branly in Paris devoted to non-European artwork from around the globe.
The Salle Afrique, or Africa Room, has a placing assortment of masks, whose each rictus jumps out from the darkness like so many faces frozen in time. The Salle Océanie-Amériques, or Oceania and Americas Rooom, incorporates a group of painted or in any other case embellished human skulls, together with an distinctive choice of objects from Vanuatu and headdresses from North American native cultures. Lastly, the Salle Mexique, or Mexico Room, has practically 3000 objects together with masks and Huichol yarn work, which I really like.
What to look at for:
The constructing itself, the Vielle Charité, was as soon as a hospice for the poor or homeless. Designed by native architect Pierre Puget within the late Seventeenth century, it was finally deserted and fell into disrepair. Famed architect Le Corbusier, who created La Cité Radieuse throughout city, visited the Charité within the early 1900s and noting its state, referred to as on the town to do one thing about it. In the present day, it’s a nationwide monument.
Discover out extra right here (web site in French).
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5. Cosquer Méditerranée
This closing entry is a really completely different kind of museum: reasonably than an exhibit of objects, it’s a duplicate of painted artwork from the paleolithic, a super go to for all the household.
In 1985, grasp diver Henri Cosquer was having fun with the Calanques close to Cassis when he found the doorway to an underwater tunnel that might finally result in a superb embellished cave. Armed with a roll of twine, he unfurled it as he swam alongside, his solely lifeline to the world above. Lose the rope and he may lose his life, and three divers would finally lose theirs of their effort to discover the tunnel.
Lastly, Cosquer started to swim upward till he broke freed from the water right into a grotto the likes of which he had by no means seen earlier than – undoubtedly the primary man to enter the grotto in 20,000 years.
He confronted a world of surprise, swimming previous pillars and columns, gazing along with his headlamp at coal drawings of horses, and even penguins, greater than 230 animal drawings in all, together with handprints scattered all through.
With water ranges rising, the drawings would quickly be endangered and a call was made to construct a reproduction, holding this superb artwork for posterity, a bit just like the caves at Lascaux. The oldest photographs date again 33,000 years!
You trip by way of the duplicate in pods on rails, six individuals in every, and witness precisely what Cosquer first noticed within the cave, the paleolithic evolving like a film earlier than his eyes. As these long-ago drawings seize your creativeness, you’ll overlook this can be a facsimile and consider that is the actual factor.
What to look at for:
The doorway and hallways by way of which you entry the elevator are all constructed on a mattress of water, so don’t be stunned if the earth strikes. It does.
After the tour, you possibly can head upstairs to see how skilful taxidermists have preserved paleolithic species now extinct.
Discover out extra right here.
Different in style Marseille museums
I’ve chosen the highest 5 above as a result of they communicate essentially the most to me, however relying in your tastes you could nicely like these beneath even higher. All I can say is that I haven’t been dissatisfied by any museum in Marseille － my solely disappointment is with closures, which occur periodically when reveals are being switched, which is why you have to ensure the museum is open earlier than you intend to go.
If you’d like extra Marseille museums to get pleasure from…
- Musée Cantini: Eary twentieth century artwork.
- Musée des Docks Romains: Archaeological stays of historic Roman docks.
- Château Borely: Grand Nineteenth-century mansion with ornamental arts & vogue reveals.
- Mémorial de la Marseillaise: Devoted to the French nationwide anthem and the French Revolution.
- Friche la Belle de Mai: Former tobacco manufacturing unit turned cultural and group complicated.
- Musée Grobet-Labadie: Seventeenth-Nineteenth century ornamental arts.
- Musée du Savon de Marseille: Tiny museum devoted to Marseille cleaning soap.
- Musée Notre Dame de la Garde: The Basilica’s museum, tracing her historical past.
- Deportation monument: Private tales of deportees throughout World Struggle II.
- Chateau d’If: Monte Cristo jail, off the coast of Marseille.
The Vacationer Workplace web site has a full itemizing of Marseille museums.
Earlier than you go…
Visiting museums in Marseille is a superb method to perceive the town, its historical past and its tradition, however there are many different issues to do in Marseille!
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