Marseille is situated on the southeast coast of France. It is the second largest city and the center of the second largest metropolitan area in the Hexagon after Paris. Marseille is the capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône department as well as Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. The whole urban and metropolitan area extends beyond city limits. Marseille is France’s largest commercial port and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast.
Palais de la Glisse opened its doors to the public in 2009. It is a huge sports center of 20700 m²/ 222812 ft² together in a place where both ice skaters and urban sliders can show off their tricks. The building consists of 5 floors where on the second floor, a huge indoor skate park is hosted for BMX enthusiasts.
The park spreads at over 3000 m²/32292 ft² area. Palais de la Glisse is also equipped with 110 m² /1184 ft² of photovoltaic panels in order to generate the special lighting and features of the different areas. The skate park is the biggest indoor park in Europe and it is a BMX heaven.
The park is at a height of 4 m/13.1 ft and 20 m/65.7 ft width. It consists of a bowl, a street-park type zone and a big ramp. The bowl has a first shallow zone which leads to a deeper area that ends with a cradle. The ramp is amazing and is the only one thing missing in Marseille.
The street-park has an almost exclusively inclined plane with some edges left at raw wood. The rest consists of curbs enhanced with metal brackets. The entire space can host up to 1500 spectators and 300 practitioners. The park ends with a half bowl, providing also with some inevitable extensions. You can observe that the development of the area is really perplexing. Generally it is a wonderful area, ideal for BMX riding.