Place des moulins
Village-like square hiding a vast nineteenth-century water cistern beneath its cobblestones.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Place des moulins in Marseille starts with a 1997 music video shot by the local rap group IAM inside a sealed nineteenth-century cistern beneath this quiet square, a chamber of 160 limestone pillars built between 1851 and 1852 to hold the city's drinking water. It also traces the windmills that once crowded this hilltop, grinding grain and doubling as a refuge in times of siege, before the city cleared them for the square you're standing in. Listen for how an ordinary village square hides two very different chapters of the city's water and grain supply.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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