Le Bazar

Le Bazar is, in my opinion, the best club in all of Marseille. It is located right by the Stade Velodrome football stadium at Rond Point du Prado so it is basically half way between Luminy and Vieux Port. This makes it a little easier for international students who live on campus in Luminy to get home at night (or a least it's cheaper for a taxi! ) and it is also not too far from Castellane area where a lot of students live as well.

What makes Bazar the best club in Marseille is the fact that it is actually kind of two separate clubs in one! There are two different sections that make up the club; an indoor section and an outdoor section. Le Bazar is really the name of the indoor section whilst La Palmeraie is the name of the outdoor section. La Palmeraie is not always open however, but I'll talk about that later.

Le Bazar

The indoor section of Bazar is actually the smaller of the two sections but it's the one that you will be in most of the time as it is open all year round unlike La Palmeraie. It is not huge, but there is more than enough space for everyone. There is a 360 degree bar in the centre so it's a little easier to get a drink as you can attack the bar from any angle rather than just one. There is a decent sized dance floor with one or two raised platforms with stripper poles. I don't recommend getting on these platforms if you are a guy as the bouncers don't take too kindly to it! (Speaking from experience! ). There are also seating areas scattered around the place if you want to have a sit down or share a bottle comfortably away from the dancefloor. Now I cannot say for sure if it is still there but one of the coolest things about Bazar was the Ice Club. This was a room that you could see from the dancefloor through a large window that was designed to look like everything was made out of ice. Everything from the seats and tables to the bar and floor looked like it was made from ice. I never got to go in there as I think it was only open for very special occasions but it looked amazing!

La Palmeraie

My favourite part of Bazar is La Palmeraie. This is the outdoor section of the club and it really is the better of the two areas for a number of reasons. First of all it is not always open as it is completely outdoors. There's no roof whatsoever so it is exposed to the elements but that doesn't tend to be a problem in sunny Marseille. That being said it is only open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from May until October. The outdoor area is much bigger than inside so there is loads of room and it's nice and cool compared to inside as well. There's a bar and lot's of places to sit down so you don't need to go inside unless you really want to. There's even toilets in this area too so no problems there.

The best party I attended at Bazar was one organised by the Student's Union at my university. It was a Cold War themed party where you had to choose between Russia and the USA. When we arrived they had split the club into two parts with a giant styrofoam "Berlin Wall" (Not really Cold War but hey! ). At 1:00am the national anthems of both countries played and we got to destroy the wall and join up with the other half of the students. We got covered in paint from the freshly painted all but it was worth it for what was a cool moment!

I recommend anyone to go and party at Le Bazar and I guarantee you will not be disappointed!