I realise, as I start writing this, that “French person tells British audience that France is nice” doesn’t have the makings of a great column. As we’re taught in journalism school, a dog biting a man is rarely worth holding the front page for. Still, I will go on, bravely, and tell you: isn’t Marseille just lovely?
In my defence, there is something you must understand: I was away last week and it was the first time I’d been to the south of France, ever. Well, I did technically spend a few days in Périgord – round foie gras country – with my aunt and uncle back when I was a kid.
I’m just not convinced it counts, though. I don’t really remember anything from that trip, aside from the smell of the pine trees, and there are many people out there who would argue that the area around Bordeaux isn’t the real south anyway. It’d be like arguing that Leicester’s proper northern. People just wouldn’t take you seriously.
I went to Marseille with a friend I met in high school, but who has a lot of family in the south, and I had a great and odd time, for two reasons. The first one is that, as hinted just now, I don’t really know the country I’m from. If I have time off and want to go on holiday in France, I will usually go to Nantes, where my parents and my grandmother live, because it’s nice to catch up with them.
If I feel I’ve seen them recently enough that I won’t feel guilty going elsewhere, I’ll hop to Paris instead. My brother and several of my oldest friends are there, as is my goddaughter, who was born eight months ago. If I somehow still have time after all this, I’ll just go to a different country, on a proper trip.
What this means in practice is that I haven’t been to Lyon or Strasbourg; Grenoble or Nice; Bordeaux or Toulouse. I could, on the other hand, give you tips on what to do in Leeds or Brighton; where to stay in Manchester or Birmingham; where to eat in Belfast or Edinburgh; where to drink in Glasgow or Bristol and where to walk and swim in Scarborough or Southampton.
I’ve done a lot of travelling in the UK and enjoyed every bit of it. Wait, that’s a lie: I’ve done a lot of travelling in the UK and enjoyed every bit of it, except for the day I decided to spend doing “tourism” in Crewe, and there was very little to see, and everyone stared at me because I had blue hair at the time, and in the end I just sat at the railway station for an hour and a half because I’d run out of things to do. Everything else, I enjoyed.
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How odd it was, then, to walk around a French city and get that feeling I’m now used to having but only on this side of the Channel, of palpably being in a country I know and understand, but in a place where the specifics escape me. What a joy it was, especially given my expectations!
This was the other reason why my southern trip was simultaneously lovely but slightly uncomfortable: I’d expected it to be stressful. I’d grown up believing that Marseille was filthy, and noisy, and dangerous, and generally unpleasant. I’d never been attracted to it, and my friend had to convince me to pick it as a destination.
In the end, it was… none of those things. Marseille is quite obscenely beautiful, and the people are as warm as the weather. The food is wonderful, the atmosphere excellent and, when I managed to leave my phone on the street and walk off, like an idiot, someone took it with them and eagerly waited for someone to call it, keeping it safe in the meantime.
It was an ideal holiday destination, and I now understand why several of my French friends have been considering moving there and never looking back. Where had that reputation come from, though? It hit me on our second day there, walking through the market. Marseille, as a city, has very obviously been shaped by its North African population.
There were stalls everywhere selling fresh msemen, the Moroccan breakfast staple, and countless restaurants offering “brick a l’oeuf” for lunch: a Tunisian classic. It’s a place that has been profoundly changed and moulded by immigration, due to its location and role as a major port city. That’s why the rest of France was so snotty about it when I was growing up.
Isn’t it all quite amazingly ironic? Half my family’s Arab, I love my heritage, yet avoided this one place for years because I’d fallen victim to racist propaganda. It’s over now, though, I can tell you that. Marseille’s terrific, and I’m letting you know about it here, and I’ll tell anyone willing to listen.
It’s like the best of France and the Maghreb squashed together. It’s ideal. Go now! Go!
What are you waiting for?
