LongChamp Marseille

Recently I've been lucky to spend (again) a few days in Marseille. I find this city mesmerizing, in spite of its massive problems: Le Grand Remplacement (it's not a theory, it's a painful reality in at least 1/2 of the city, where non-muslims have become a clear minority), the huge presence of far-left scum and the islamization and criminality that comes along with both previous issues... Marseille is placed in a privileged natural setting, encircled by mountains and the sea, and with a 150 meters high hill right at its center, from where the magical Notre-Dame de la Garde dominates the whole city. Additionally, I absolutely love its urban landscape, a dense city where the old and the new embrace each other and where high-rise constructions spring up unorderly here and there.

I thought I had already written about Marseille after my initial discovery of this impressive city, but I've just realised that unfortunately I never finished a rather long article that I was writing in August 2014!. All I've published about Marseille is this short post. It's strange that I did not mention in it the incredible place that I'm going to describe now, LongChamps.

LongChamp is a park, a garden and gorgeous palace Palais Longchamp, with a beautiful, imposing and delicate fountain (Chateau d'eau). It's the kind of classic French refinement that maybe you would not expect to find in Marseille, though the city has some other excellent examples of magnificent "so French" architecture, e.g. the Prefecture, the Banque de France and the Caisse d'Epargne buildings (the 3 of them really close). Indeed, my first time there, in 2014, I was almost shocked. After that, it was under renovation for like almost 2 years, and now it looks even better. This renovation included improvements to the lightning of the monument, which reminds me that I have pending to go there one day at night. The main sculpture and the cascade are one of those exquisite pieces of art that make you think about what their creators could feel the day it was complete, to what extend they were aware of the beauty they were gifting us with.

From the wikipedia article I've learnt that the achievement that it celebrates, the construction of the Canal de Marseille is still relevant these days, as it still provides 2/3's of its drinking water to Marseille. This is in contrast with another of the great French construction works of all times, the Canal du Midi, that remains an essential source of visual joy for most Toulousains, but no longer has much practical use.

I've come to profoundly hate French rap, save for some Patriotic acts like Tepa (Repose en Paix, combatant) or Millesime K. but well, there is a clip by Soprano with some nice views of LongChamp (you can just mute the sound).