Prophet's Beach

This guide to Prophet's Beach in Marseille opens with an unsettled dispute over where its name comes from, and lays out the two rival explanations locals still argue over. One traces back to a cargo steamer that moored in this cove in the 1850s, ferrying goods to Algeria and Morocco; the other follows a street singer turned opera baritone who took the stage name Ismael and became a fixture at Marseille's grand theatre nearby. It follows both threads through the 1850s waterfront before circling back to the narrow strip of sand itself, one of the few real beaches in this rocky stretch of coast.