WALKING TOURS

 

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​​On foot to the edge(s): discover Marseille and its surroundings

 

Umgehbungen ...

• urban hiking on the metropolitan trail GR 2013

• an invitation into the diverse landscapes​ of Provence

• half-day discoveries into the outskirts of Marseille

• incorporate a new way of traveling, between city and nature

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Click here for our tour program!

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PROJECT DESCRIPTION

 

The project title Umgehbungen is an amalgam of the German words "Umgebung" and "Umgehung".

 

Umgebung (surroundings; people around one) describes what is in our environment: the landscape, the city, the constructions, etc. It also refers to a living space, a group of friends, what is familiar to us in everyday life. We often say "I know the neighbourhood". Umgebung appeals to the feeling of familiarity and thus the feeling of "home".

 

Umgehung (avoidance; circumvention) is above all a way of avoiding an obstacle. It involves the challenge to leave behind the familiar and the ordinary. To enter an unknown area. With the aim to return after all to the ordinary path.

 

Gehen (walking), that's the most natural and human way of moving. Walking means confronting oneself with man-made obstacles, to face them. Besides, walking allows to deviate, stroll, run, hop, jump. It enables us to follow our desires, to change direction, to go back, to be on the wrong track.

 

So to say, the amalgam Umgehbungen appeals for an alteration of our consideration for what seems to be familiar to us. It contains the proposition to approach it from a new perspective, to re-discover it. Because what is the closest to us often is the most unknown. Why dream of pre-fabricated images sold to us by the postcard-industry if the real experiences and amazements happen elsewhere?

 

Umgehbungen aims to change our perspective on the spaces of daily life. Furthermore, our aim is to comply with the title of the Europoean Capital of Culture (ECOC) 2013, Marseille-Provence 2013. Politicians and travellers often think it only happened in the city center of Marseille, whereas the ECOC-region embraced the whole region. But it is only outside the town and far away from the Old Harbour that you will find the real and wild identity of this city. Where highrises are planted into the wilderness and yet right into the city, where shopping malls fill valleys and canals carress hills. Where highways and rails and footpaths cross, deserted tunnels lead into nowhere, viewpoints alternate with neglected industrial areas and the urban jungle, where people live. It is only there that you can really get in touch with Marseille, the metropolis that seems to be an endless suburb without a real center ("Zwischenstadt"). A city that yet only lives because of it's emptiness. Because it is foremost a city of openness.

 

It is open under the blue sky, open in direction of the Mediterranean sea, but also open towards its rich and diverse hinterland. A hinterland that rather is a surrounding area which is vital to the city's development and existence.

 

Therefore a walking trip through those avoided areas is also a travel through time and into the mercilessness of our present.