Marseille: Where Worlds Adjoin

I heard a woman call in Arabic as I disembarked from a taxi downtown. A well-dressed lady wearing a head-scarf was urging her two children on, probably to school. Across the street I spotted a Restaurant Oriental announcing Tunisian specialties-couscous, tajine, grillades, salades. On the opposite corner was the Syrian Air office. A tall black woman in a long African dress strode majestically across the street, ignoring cars. Rolling leisurely past between me and the airline office were three bicycle-mounted police officers, two men and a woman, unarmed.

Europe? Yes, sort of. This is Marseille, le Vieux Port ("the Old Port"), the pulsating heart of the oldest city in France and Europe's third largest port, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

A block away, a small crowd of tourists stands around a brass plaque set into the Old Port's quay. "Here in 600 BC Greek sailors came ashore from Phocea, a Greek city of Asia Minor. They founded Marseille, from which civilization spread throughout the western world."

The leader of the Greeks was a certain Protis, and the trend of Mediterranean immigration to Marseille that began with him has not stopped since. The Ligurian tribe that inhabited the area set a precedent for welcome, according to legend, by allowing the daughter of the Ligurian king to marry Protis. Soon a small town, Massalia, grew up here and traded in oil, wine, bronze objects, arms, salt, slaves and ceramics. In time, the power and influence of the Massalians reached north into the Rhone Valley and west to the Iberian Peninsula and, later, as far south as Senegal and farther north to Brittany. The Massalians even explored other northern coasts as far as Iceland.

Run as a republic, the city was reputed for wise laws, and it was known as a center of culture. Even when it was occupied by Rome in the first century BC, and later when it came under the sway of other powers, it never lost its independent, sometimes rebellious, spirit, and it usually enjoyed some degree of autonomy. In 1800 it formally aligned-reluctantly-with France.

Ever a place of merchants, traders and seamen, it was Marseille that established France's first chamber of commerce in 1599. Almost as important: The first sidewalk cafe opened in Marseille in the 17th century. (Parisian ones came later.)

But back to the bronze plaque: All around it there was the great buzz of the popular morning fish market. Although the Old Port now harbors mostly pleasure craft and ferries, small, tubby fishing boats still chug in every morning around nine to unload colorful catches. Chefs searching for the multiple ingredients of the world-famous, complex bouillabaisse marseillaise mingle with housewives and curious tourists.

Lining the other quays of the Old Port are well-kept five- or six-story modern buildings, every one with an outdoor cafe or restaurant putting the ground floor to commercial, social and esthetic use. They range from fancy seafood and bouillabaisse restaurants to pizzerias and ice-cream parlors.

As the day wears on to evening, the cafes' population gradually increases. Business is done here, papers are read, friends met; the nearby noise of traffic seems to bother no one, and the brilliant Mediterranean light reflects off the water, bathing the port in light from above and below.