Alter Hafen (Marseille)

The Old Port of Marseille is at the end of the Canebière, the major street of Marseille. It has been the natural harbour of the city since Antiquity and is now the main popular place in Marseille. It became mainly pedestrian in 2013.HistoryIn 600, Greek settlers from Phocaea landed in the Lacydon, a rocky Mediterranean cove, now the site of the Old Port of Marseille. They set up a trading post or emporion in the hills on the northern shore. Until the nineteenth century the Old Port remained the centre of maritime activity in Marseille. In the Middle Ages the land at the far end of the port was used to cultivate hemp for the local manufacture of rope for mariners, which is the origin of the name of the main thoroughfare of Marseille, the Canebière.The great St. Victor's Abbey was gradually built between the third and ninth centuries on the hills to the south of the Old Port, on the site of an Hellenic burial ground.Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, quays were constructed under Louis XII and Louis XIII and an important shipyard for galleons put in place. Following a revolt against their governor by the citizens of Marseille, Louis XIV ordered the erection of the forts of St Jean and St Nicolas at the entrance to the harbour and established an arsenal and fleet in the Old Port itself. The notorious "arsenal des galères" was situated on the left side of the Old Port between the Cours Jean-Balard and the Cours Estienne-d'Orves: those condemned to be galley slaves in the royal war fleet were branded with the letters GAL.