World Travelling

Marseille (English alternate spelling Marseilles)(Provençal: Marsiho or Marsilha) is the second largest city in France and the third metropolitan area, with 1,516,340 inhabitants at the 1999 census. Located in the former province of Provence and on the Mediterranean Sea, it is France's largest commercial port and the largest in the Mediterranean.

Marseille is the capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur région, as well as the préfecture (capital) of the Bouches-du-Rhône département.

Marseille was founded in 600 BC by Phocaean Greeks as a trading port under the name Μασσαλία (Massalia; see also List of traditional Greek place names). It was overrun by Celts and then conquered by the Romans. During the Roman times, it was called Massilia. In 1934 Alexander I of Yugoslavia arrived at the port to meet with the French foreign minister Louis Barthou. He was assassinated there by Vlada Georgieff who hated Alexander's refusal to recognise Croatia as a separate state.

Culture
The French national anthem "La Marseillaise" is named for the Revolutionary troops from Marseille.

The most widely circulated tarot deck comes from Marseille; it is called the Tarot de Marseille, and was used to play the local variant of tarocchi before it came to the notice of people who used it in cartomancy.

Sights
The old harbor
Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde
Château d'If, an ancient prison island, where The Count of Monte Cristo was jailed, in Alexandre Dumas' novel
Unité d'Habitation de Marseille, by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier
The calanques

Births
Marseille was the birthplace of:

Antonin Artaud (1897-1948), author
Maurice Béjart (born 1927), ballet choreographer
Jean-Henry Gourgaud, aka. "Dugazon" (1746-1809), actor
Désirée Clary (1777-1860), wife of King Carl XIV Johann of Sweden, and therefore Queen Desirée or Queen Desideria of Sweden
Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877), first president of the Third Republic
Etienne Joseph Louis Garnier-Pages (1801-1841), politician
Honoré Daumier (1808-1879), caricaturist and painter
Joseph Autran (1813-1877), poet
Olivier Émile Ollivier (1825-1913), statesman
Joseph Pujol, aka. "Le Pétomane" (1857-1945), entertainer
Edmond Rostand (1868-1918), poet and dramatist
Vincent Scotto (1876-1952), guitarist, songwriter
Fernandel (1903-1971), actor
Eliane Browne-Bartroli (1917-1944), French Resistance, Croix de Guerre
Louis Jourdan (born 1919), actor
Jean Pierre Rampal (1922-2000), flutist
Jean-Claude Izzo (1945-2000), author
Zinedine Zidane (born 1972), soccer player
Clara Morgane (born 1981), porn star
French poet Arthur Rimbaud died in Marseille in November 10, 1891.

Movies set in Marseille
37°2 le matin (1986)
À bout de souffle (1960)
Baise-moi (2000)
Comme un aimant (2000)
The French Connection (1971) and its sequel (1975)
Gomez & Tavarès (2003)
La Lune dans le caniveau (1983)
Marius (1931)
Marius et Jeannette (1997)
Pépé le Moko (1937)
Roselyne et les lions (1989)
Taxi (1998)
Taxi 2 (2000)
Taxi 3 (2003)
Trois places pour le 26 (1988)
Un, deux, trois, soleil (1993)