Once the site of the town's medieval gate, place Foch lies at the heart of old Ajaccio. A delightfully shady square sloping down to the sea and lined with cafés and restaurants, it gets its local name - place des Palmiers - from the row of palms bordering the central strip. Dominating the top end, a fountain of four marble lions provides a mount for the inevitable statue of Napoléon , this one by Ajaccien sculptor Maglioli. A humbler effigy occupies a niche high on the nearest wall - a figurine of Ajaccio's patron saint, La Madonnuccia , dating from 1656, a year in which Ajaccio's local council, fearful of infection from plague-struck Genoa, placed the town under the guardianship of the Madonna in a ceremony which took place on this spot.
At the northern end of place Foch is the Hôtel de Ville of 1826, with its prison-like wooden doors. The first-floor Salon Napoléonien (mid-June to mid-Sept Mon-Sat 9-11am & 2-5.45pm; rest of year Mon-Fri 9-11am & 2-4.45pm; €1.52) contains a replica of the ex-emperor's death mask in pride of place, along with a solemn array of Bonaparte family portraits and busts. A smaller medal room has a fragment from Napoléon's coffin and part of his dressing case, plus a model of the ship that brought his body back from St Helena, and a picture of the house where he
died.
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