Marseille.

Marseille is France's oldest city, founded by Greek sailors more than two thousand years ago on a natural harbor still known as the Vieux-Port. Fishing boats dock beside cafés each morning, and the catch feeds straight into bouillabaisse, the saffron-scented stew that carries the city's name into kitchens far beyond it. Above the water, the basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde watches over red-tiled rooftops and the wide curve of the bay.

The city's edges are wild. Limestone cliffs of the Calanques fold into turquoise coves at the edge of the city, forming a national park where pine resin mixes with salt air. Inland, the steep lanes of Le Panier hold North African bakeries, small ceramic workshops, and walls carrying murals layered over generations of migration. At the water's edge, the MuCEM museum traces Mediterranean history inside a lattice of concrete that seems to float above the sea.

Markets fill the streets before noon, with olives and spices set out beside fish still wet from the morning boats. The mistral wind, when it blows, scrubs the sky to a hard blue and sharpens every view across the harbor.