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6 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES MARCH 9/MARCH 10 2013 Travel Shortcuts Paris The Hôtel de Crillon, the grand Parisian hotel that opened in 1909 and occupies a palace commissioned by Louis XV in 1758, is to close at the end of the month for a two­year refurbishment. As a result, some 3,500 lots of furniture, memorabilia and fine wines are to be sold at auction. Items being offered include art deco bar stools (guide price €200­€300), the mahogany and silver dessert trolley (€3,000­ €4,000), as well as numerous items of Louis XV­style furniture, wines from the remarkable cellar that supplied its Michelin­starred restaurant, porcelain, silverware, light fittings and tapestries. The sale, being handled by auctioneers Artcurial, will be held at the hotel over five days from April 18 to 22 (viewing from April 12 to 16). www.artcurial.com Kashmir At the start of the 20th century, the houseboats on Srinagar’s Dal Lake offered the height of luxury to visitors seeking an escape from the plains’ summer heat. But the region’s political struggles led to dwindling tourist numbers, and an air of faded grandeur settled over many of the boats. Now though, with visitor numbers rising once more, a luxurious new houseboat is to open. Mary­Ann Denison­Pender, of the independent Indian hotel directory Mahout, says it “promises to raise the level of comfort and design on the lakes to an all­new high”. Marseille’s year in the sun Sukoon, due to open on March 20, is a traditional vessel built in the 1970s but entirely refurbished, with five spacious cabins, each with bathroom, wifi and purified water on tap. Dinner is included (the cooks are Kashmiri Can ‘capital of culture’ status and a €7bn regeneration project transform the city’s earthy image? By Andrew Eames and Keralan), as is use of a solar­ powered motorboat to get to and from shore. From Rs7,500 (£95). www.sukoonkashmir.com own on the quayside of N all its big-city grit, that has been along with the Pharo, once Napoleon’s Cerem, bent like a seagull’s wing, is www.mahoutuk.com Marseille’s Vieux-Port, dragged to the water’s edge, where its palatial residence. The latter is now a going to be hosting Mediterranean- workmen are putting the population has been mixed with immi- conference centre, while the ramparts themed conferences and exhibitions, California Orient­Express continues finishing touches to Nor- gration transfusions from French- of the upper part of Fort Saint Nicho- and represents a play for the position its expansion into the Americas with man Foster’s Ombrière. A Ombrière speaking north Africa. las, originally built in the 17th century of the Med’s most important city – the its reinvention of El Encanto in Santa Dsunshade for the scorching summer As a tourist destination, it has been to oppress the unruly townsfolk, is other key contender being Barcelona. Barbara, which opens on March 18. and a refuge from rain for winter, it Old Notre Dame an acquired taste. But the city fathers now where courting couples come for Marseille’s oldest quarter, Le Panier, Port Established in 1913, the 92­room looks a bit like a slender-legged bus De La Garde are hoping to change all that, now summer sunsets. once the biggest red-light district in hotel has played host to Hollywood shelter marooned in a pedestrian zone. LE that Marseille is one of the two Euro- Wedged between them is the Sofitel the Mediterranean, rises up behind the PANIER legends such as Clark Gable, Carole It is only when you draw closer that Fort pean Capital of Culture for 2013 (the Vieux-Port, a five-star hotel that has new museums. Rather like Barcelona’s Lombard, Barbra Streisand and you begin to appreciate that it has an Saint other is Kosice, Slovakia). And why long presided over the port as Mar- Barri Gòtic, La Panier is a labyrinth of Sharon Stone. President Franklin D extra dimension: its high ceiling of Jean not? This is, after all, the city whose seille’s best address. It is a stylish tiny streets, with staircases that top Roosevelt was such a regular it polished steel reflects a backdrop of MARSEILLE light inspired impressionists such as place with a top-floor restaurant – Les out in a couple of little squares, filled became known, during his time in upside-down ferries and inverted fish- Paul Cézanne, and whose offshore Trois Forts – that feels like the bridge with café tables and chairs. office, as the White House of the ing boats, in front of which a line of MuCEM Fort island prison (Château d’If) provided of a ship. But its status is about to be Here, too, is one of Marseille’s most West. From $525 plus taxes. wrong-way-up fisherman sell their Saint the impetus for Alexandre Dumas to challenged by the opening, next interesting accommodation options, www.orient­express.com catch direct from trestle tables. The Mediterranean Nicholas write The Count of Monte Cristo. month, of the Intercontinental Hotel Au Vieux Panier, a B&B-cum-art Sea Ombrière is a shelter-providing kalei- Lord Foster’s Ombrière is but a Dieu, another five-star venue, but in a installation run by the very personable London James Jayasundera, founder doscope of port life. 500 m small part of a far bigger picture – far grander and more charismatic his- (and half-English) Jessica Venediger. of Ampersand Travel, which Up close (and the right way up), the Euromediterranée, the biggest urban toric building on the port’s north side, Every year she holds a competition for specialises in bespoke trips to India fishermen are a craggy-looking lot renewal project in southern Europe, with a spa, fine dining and 194 rooms contemporary artists to give each and south Asia, is diversifying into and, from what I can gather by eaves- From top: the Norman with a budget of €7bn. The lion’s to fill. A price war between the two room a completely new look, with UK tourism. Targeted at the affluent dropping, there’s an earthy argot Foster­designed events share of that money is being spent could produce some top-end bargains. results such as the Panic Room, half- end of the Indian and South going on. Their catch is craggy-looking pavillion, known as the along the shoreline, in arts centres, Cheaper hotels are found at the white and half-fluorescent graffiti. American markets, its suggested too – rockfish, monkfish and conger – Ombrière, which was apartment blocks, offices and shop- inland end, which is also the location Its roof terrace, with a spectacular itineraries focus on British art, but it’s certainly tasty. Which is why inaugurated by the Mayor of ping centres – some of which have of the fish market, the Ombrière and view over clay tiles down to the sea, architecture, fashion, literature (taking chef Christian Buffa is weaving his Marseille last weekend; the barely been started, let alone finished. the tourist office. This is the starting shows why Impressionists such as in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath way through, haggling and wise-crack- new Musée des Civilisations But the focus of this year of culture is point for the passenger ferries that go Cézanne got so excited about Mar- and Stratford) and sport (Wimbledon, ing with the fishermen’s wives. de l’Europe et de la the Vieux-Port, which is where Mar- to the islands a 20-minute ride away seille. But the most dramatic overview Ascot). There’s also a six­day course Marseille-born and bred, Buffa is a Méditerranée (Mucem), with seille was first founded in 600BC, and and to the Calanques, a series of of everything – sea, sky, city, islands, (from £1,868pp) entitled “Learn to be streetwise kid turned restaurateur, the city’s 19th­century which has been reborn as the city’s extraordinary limestone inlets. mountains and new developments – is an English Gentleman or Lady”, the and his restaurant Miramar, a short cathedral in the background front room. Cheap bouillabaisse is readily availa- from Marseille’s equivalent of the necessary attributes for which turn scoot along the quay, is the velvet- Paul Ladouce; Nigel Young Previously, the port was a parking ble in a dense maze of pedestrian Sacré Coeur, perched on a hilltop out to be an ability to ride, to shoot upholstered flag-carrier for bouilla- lot for yachts, throttled by a multi- streets off the corner of the port near- across the other side of the Vieux-Port. clay pigeons, to play tennis, croquet baisse, the lip-smacking fish stew that lane highway. Under the redevelop- est the Ombrière, where tourist menus This is the basilica of Notre Dame de and polo, and to develop a taste for was invented in these parts. It is ment plan, the nerve-shredding traffic are as little as €15 for three courses. la Garde, better known as the “la afternoon tea at Claridge’s. priced on his menu at a whopping €118 was diverted, fences were taken down, While, the northern side of the port is bonne mère”, because it is to this www.ampersandtravel.com for two, and he scoffs when I mention pedestrianism was encouraged and lined with more sophisticated restau- church that locals come with all their that I’ve seen it advertised at €20 a old forts were given new leases of life. rants, including Buffa’s Miramar, and hopes and fears. Its interior of deli- Claire Wrathall head elsewhere. “That is not a real One of those forts protects the har- the bijou Hotel de Ville, with a spank- cately crafted mosaics is hung with ex bouillabaisse.

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