Village of “La Treille”

A country village in the city

We meet at the terminus of bus no. 12S. Brigitte, the guide, was waiting for us on the spot, indicating her presence with a small sign in the colours of the Marseille Tourist Office. Great, I’m in the right place. We waited a few minutes for all the participants to arrive, and then my group set off on the trail of memories of “Petit Marcel” and the film locations.

During the presentation of the route, I discovered some surprising neighbourhoods, far from the image of Marseille as a sprawling city. La Treille really is the countryside in the city. A stop in front of a branch of the Canal de Marseille shows just how important the arrival of water from the Durance was in irrigating the whole of Marseille.

It was a good idea to wear comfortable flat shoes, as advised on the booking confirmation. The route Brigitte took us on was all uphill!

The tour began with the first in a long line, before entering the cemetery, where I discovered Marcel Pagnol’s beautifully decorated and flower-decked tomb. As I left the cemetery, I admired the landscape. A panoramic view covers the St Cyr range and La Barasse, a village where the tramway used to stop. It was from here that little Marcel and his family used to set off on foot to climb up to La Treille. I’m following in his footsteps.

In the footsteps of Marcel Pagnol

We have now reached the heart of the village. A commemorative plaque on the front of the church bears the name of David Magnan, nicknamed “Little Brother of the Hills” by Marcel Pagnol. He is none other than “Lili des Bellons” in “La Gloire de mon père”. I was completely immersed in the poetry of the place and Pagnol’s world. The fountain in the square, the Cigalons restaurant, the ruins of the Cercle and its tree-lined square, the Villa Pascaline… Brigitte ingeniously alternates between narrating and reading extracts from the works to immerse us in the past. It’s a journey into the atmosphere of yesteryear. Admittedly, I had images of Pagnol’s films in my head, but the magic of this guided tour enabled me to rediscover them and situate them here, in situ.

The walk ends at the end of a long, rather rough climb, in front of little Marcel’s holiday home, Bastide Neuve. We’re “at the gateway to the desert”, the start of the Garlaban massif. There were two options open to me: continue the walk, but I would have needed to take more water with me to quench my thirst and, above all, a picnic, or sit down somewhere in the garrigue, under a pine or olive tree to soak up the scenery a little more. But that’s for another time. I head back down towards the heart of La Treille to sit under the big plane tree on the terrace of the Cigalons restaurant, where I can enjoy some headless larks (that’s beef paupiettes) and prolong the experience in this authentic Marseille neighbourhood.