Vieille Charité

This handsome seventeenth-century almshouse in the Panier quarter is arranged around a central baroque chapel with an oval dome, ringed by three storeys of arcaded galleries. Designed by a leading regional architect, it once sheltered the city's poor and later fell into disrepair before careful restoration. Today it houses museums of Mediterranean archaeology and African and Oceanic arts. The serene stone courtyard, with its pink-tinged limestone and rhythmic arches, is considered a masterpiece of Marseille's classical architecture.