Provence, around Marseilles

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Marseille is an unusual location upon the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France.  In the first regard, it has a spectacular deep-water port, enabling the largest of ocean-going ships to park where they're well-protected from storms.  This port was known to the Greeks 2700 years ago, and has been in constant operation since then.

The low plateau surrounding the city is densely populated, but it consists of macchia, a rocky, dry, porous scrubland, impractical for ploughing but excellent for growing olives, dates, grapes and various shrub-based nuts.  These are grown and traded south and north for cereals grains from Italy, Spain and the Loire valley of France — especially the latter.  Because of its port, Marseille also imports from all over the world, so that the city is a tremendous transshipment point for unloading goods from Asia, Africa and the New World into the European market.

Unusually, however, Marseille doesn't do so from ship to wagon, as there are no easy routes inland from the city.  Instead, goods are transferred from huge merchant ships into smaller vessels that take the Rhone deep into the heart of France — making Lyons, Burgundy and Geneva rich.  It was this route, the last extension of the Silk Road from China, that created the Fairs that changed the economy of Europe in the Middle Ages.  While this route withered for Italy with the discovery of the New World, Marseille was strengthened by the ships that came from the west through the Straits of Gibraltar.  It remains today one of the busiest ports in the world.

For players visiting, the key word is bustle.  As a DM, I'd stress that there was no safe place to stand, no quiet place to go.  Instead, the constant movement of loaded animals and vehicles would force the party to move and move and move out of the way or get run down.  As newcomers, they wouldn't understand what was going on, but they'd be able to see there was a LOT going on.  Literally the world's produce and handicrafts pouring through its streets, outwards into the world and inwards from it.  By D&D standards, Marseille is a gigantic place, with 226,000 people — three times the size of yesterday's Munich.

Back to Bithynia tomorrow.