Phap Hoa Pagoda

This guide to the Phap Hoa Pagoda in Marseille begins in 1978, when a Vietnamese monk named Thich Thien Dinh laid its first stone at the foot of the Savine housing estate, right beside a motorway that never quiets down. It traces why he chose that unlikely corner during the peak of the boat people crisis, as thousands of Vietnamese refugees who had fled by sea after the fall of Saigon settled into estates like this one. Best visited on a quiet weekday morning, when the gilded roofline is easiest to pick out above the traffic noise.