The tour will explore this rich multilayered history of the Panier and the adjacent area of Noailles. The tour will end at the Mucem (the Museum of Mediterranean Civilisations) on the edge of the Euromediterranean development project, beginning in the heart of the old Marseille and ending in the new, stopping along the way to explore the galleries and local arts and crafts, in a tour that links Marseille's past and future.
Le Panier is the oldest area in Marseille and was the site of the Greek agora when the Phoenicians founded the city 600 years before Christ. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, le Panier was home to successive waves of immigration, forming a rich multi-ethnic fabric. During World War II, half the area was decimated under the Vichy regime to smoke out a hotbed of working-class resistance. Since the 1980s the area has become home to a tapestry of colourful street art, and more recently galleries and artisans, from ceramics to fashion.
Our tour will wind our way from the Greek colonisation, to resistance fighters and jazzmen to the artists and poets that flock to the area now.
