Marseille has both captured and repelled the hearts of travellers for centuries.

A port near the south-eastern corner of L’Hexagone, France’s second-most populous city has embraced visitors throughout its 2500-year history, but not all have been charmed by its welcome.

One English travel writer of the eighteenth century, Henry Swinburne, noted the following in 1783:

“No place abounds more with dissolute persons of both sexes than Marseilles, and in the abundance of prostitutes, that appears on the streets, it is almost on a par with London.”

Like many port towns, Marseille’s DNA is a collage of global influences that have permeated the city’s identity through trade, travel and tourism.

Its diversity is its asset — the inspiration for much of its unique culture — but it has also created tensions and damaged the city’s traditional tourist appeal.

The dichotomy of perceptions surrounding Marseille is perhaps best highlighted by two of its most recent claims to fame. Named European Capital of Culture in 2013 with the aim of engendering a cultural regeneration, by 2016 Marseille had become the location for an eponymous Netflix drama that focused on the port’s reputation for corruption, excess … and football.

The latter is a source of great pride for the city’s population — and likely a source of great anxiety for the local authorities.

In the summer of 2018, I watched the Europa League final in a bar some thirty minutes from Marseille.

Even in bourgeois Aix-en-Provence, the resonance of Marseille’s 3–0 drubbing at the hands of Atlético Madrid shook the streets.

The epicentre was located in Marseille’s Old Port (Vieux-Port), the heart of the city both geographically and symbolically, where riot police clashed with supporters who had turned to violence and arson in the wake of defeat.

Marseille is a city passionate about football.

The Stade Orange Vélodrome, home of Olympique de Marseille, is therefore one of the city’s most revered monuments, and stands proudly in the quartier of Sainte-Marguerite to the south.

Although many buildings cut an imposing figure on the city’s skyline, nothing masks the undulating canopy of Marseille’s main arena, which hosts both football and Rugby Union matches at club and international level.

It looks particularly impressive from the hill on which stands the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde — an architectural and religious beacon set atop one of Marseille’s highest points.

From here, the whole city is on show, with views inland over the Mont Sainte-Victoire mountain, made famous by one of Aix’s celebrated sons, the painter Paul Cézanne.

The Vieux-Port is also visible, at the end of a long boulevard leading out of Marseille and away from the sea.

La Canebière, as the road is called, receives its name from the cannabis plant.

That title has a more legitimate past than one might expect, however, as Marseille supported a large rope-making industry that relied on hemp to supply ships moored in the port.