Frioul archipelago
Wind-scoured island group off the coast, once a quarantine outpost that stopped a plague ship too late.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Frioul archipelago off Marseille centers on the old quarantine station where arriving ships once had to sit for at least eighteen days before anyone could come ashore. It follows the Grand Saint Antoine, a merchant ship that anchored here in May 1720 carrying silk and cotton from the Levant, with several sailors, including the ship's own surgeon, already dead from the voyage. A century later the city built the Caroline Hospital across the water on Ratonneau, its open pavilions designed to let sea wind carry sickness away.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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Hôpital Caroline
Neoclassical quarantine hospital of wind-swept pavilions, built for an epidemic that never arrived.
Fort Saint-Jean
Seventeenth-century harbor fortress whose quarantine checkpoint once inspected every incoming ship's papers.
Old Port of Marseille
Historic yacht harbor ringed by cafes, where a plague-carrying merchant ship once anchored.
Rue Saint-Ferréol
Pedestrian shopping street once lined with mansions, marked nearby by a maritime plague memorial.
Musée Regards de Provence
Former maritime health station of steam rooms and disinfection chambers, turned art museum with original nineteen forties ironwork.
Plage de Saint-Estève
Quarried cove of sand and pebbles between a hospital and a fort, once the site of a nineteenth-century stone quarry.