An emblematic market in Marseille
Formerly called la Criée, Marseille’s Vieux-Port fish market is a small market located on the Quai de la Fraternité – formerly the Quai des Belges – which hosts around ten stalls every morning from 8am to 1pm. Fishermen sell their freshly caught fish overnight. Depending on the season and weather, you can buy whiting, red mullet, scorpion fish, sardines, sea bream, sole, mackerel or monkfish here. Visitors often like to immortalize their stay in the city by taking some shots of the seafood stalls.
From 1909 to 1976, Marseille’s fish market was initially installed on the Quai de Rive Neuve in the halles now transformed into a theater, Le Théâtre National de la Criée, referring to the primary market. It was subsequently relocated to the port de Saumaty, near l’Estaque, north of Marseille. The Vieux-Port market as we know it today is therefore the only fish market that subsists still from the Marseille piscicultural activity of yesteryear.
Since 2013, the year Marseille was the European Capital of Culture, the fish market has adjoined the ombrière imagined by British architect Norman Foster. This is a immense ceiling-mirror that reflects the activity on the quay and intrigues tourists on vacation in the city.