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La Canebiere
Before La Canebiere itself was laid out in Louis XIV's expansion schemeof 1666, this area was the ropemakers'quarter.The hemp they used has given its name to Marseiile's most famous boulevard -chanvre in French, but in Provencal more like the Latin cannabis. It's a not entirely inappropriate allusion, for this was the high Street of French dolce far niente, an essential ingredient of music-hall Marseille, which could swaggerand boast that'the Champs-Elysees is the Canebiere of Paris'. In its day, the thoroughfare sported grand cafes,fancy shops and hotels where travellers of yore hadtheir first thrills before sailing off toexotic lands, but thesedays La Canebiere - or'Can o'beer'as English sailors knowit - has suffered the same fate as the Champs-Elysees: banks, airline offices and heavy traffic.Trees would do it some good.<br />
Some of La Canebiere's old pizzazz lingers in the lively streets to thesouth around 'Marseiile's stomach',the Marchedes Capucins,a grazer's heaven, where the air is filled with tempting, exotic smells and most ofthe shops are North African. Here.too, is Noailles station, the last resting placefor the city's retired omnibuses and tramways, the Galene desTransports; Marseiile's last working tram stili has its terminus here. Behind this hurly-burly stretches the Cours Julien, a favourite promenade and petanque court, lined with antiques shops, galleries and trendy resta urants, which gets distinctly more rough and ready towards Place Notre-Dame-du-Mont, with its spectacular displays of graffiti. Funky cafes and galleries are also to befound on the nearby RuedesTrois Rois.<br />
North, and perpendicular to La Canebiere, extends another tarnished grand boulevard, Cours Belsunce. Until 1964, was the site ofthe famous neo-Moorish Art Nouveau music hall where Maurice Chevalier and Fernandel once starred, and where Tino Rossi and Yves Montand had their stage debuts. Now the cours leads only to the Porte d'Aix, a fuzzy-minded Roman triumphal arch, vintage 1823, erected to Louis XVI or Liberty or both, and adorned with statues of virtues such as Resignation and Prudence.<br />";