Basilica Notre Dame de la Garde

As promised, you will read my first article. At first, I decided to speak about the basilica Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, nicknamed “Bonne mère”. In my opinion, it’s an iconic figure of the city of Marseille.

The basilica is situated in Marseille, between districts of “Roucas Blanc”, “Endoume” and “Vauban”. (Don’t worry; I will talk about these districts a next time in my blog). The basilica is located on “la colline de la Garde” which peaks in 154m. We say that the basilica stays up all the inhabitants of Marseille. This monument  was built on foundations of a former fort. The basilica is composed of two parts: First of all, a low church of Romanic type and above this part, there is a high church of Romano-Byzantine style decorated with mosaics.  At the top of a bell tower of 41 meters (135ft), overcome by a tour of 12.5 meters (42ft) which serves as base, a monumental statue of 11.2m (27ft) which represent “la vierge à l’enfant”. This statue was built with copper and covered with golden sheets.

The basilica Notre Dame de la Garde proposes to visitors a wonderful and unique point of view of the city. From this point of view, you can see the “Vieux Port”, “Le Panier” one of Marseille’s districts, two famous islands called “Frioul” and “IF”, the north of Marseille, the district of the beach and the hills which turn around the city.

For the followers of speaking of Marseille: Two expressions are employed with “Bonne mère”.

• For all uses like: « Oh Bonne Mère, j’ai gagné au loto ! »
• To see the « bonne mère » through something (or somebody), means that this thing (or person) is particularly fine: “Cette tranche de jambon, té, on y voit la Bonne Mère à travers”