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Marseille or Marseilles (French: Marseille; Provençal: Marselha; see below) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the Provence region of southern France , it is located on the coast of the Gulf of Lion , part of the Mediterranean Sea , near the mouth of the Rhône river.
From north to south, Marseille will surprise you with its many facets. Seaside, flower-filled streets and natural areas, there's something for everyone. Plan your stay in Marseille : weekends, family holidays, congress and seminars. Find hotels in Marseille, monuments, and all the practical information.
- Find the best spots to watch the setting sun. End sultry summer days with locals on the chase for le plus beau (most beautiful) sunset. It’s a stiff hike up to the city’s highest point, crowned by the opulent Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde, but the bird’s-eye views of the golden city at sunset are hard to beat.
- Savor Marseille flavors at an open-air market. There’s far more than fish and seafood in Marseille’s stockpot of culinary flavors. Eyeing up trays of ice and plastic crates displaying the catch of the day at the morning fish market on Quay des Belges is an intrinsic part of the Vieux Port experience.
- Sail to Château d’If. No exploration of the seething Vieux Port – Marseille’s hectic heart and soul – is complete without a short boat trip to the photogenic island fortress of Château d’If, immortalized in Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo.
- Dive into ancient Mediterranean civilization at MuCEM. Marseille’s ancient Mediterranean heritage comes to life inside its sharpest contemporary museum.
- Old Port. Marseille’s massive rectangular port has been trading for 2,600 years, and is more of a whole district than a single sight. On three sides are quays with broad promenades enclosed mostly 18th-century former warehouses.
- Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde. It’s hard to miss this monument rising above the skyline to the south of the Old Port. It’s a 19th-century neo-Byzantine church 150 metres above the water, with a large golden statue of the Virgin and Child at the top of its tower to watch over Marseille’s maritime communities.
- Calanques National Park. Marseille’s southern and eastern suburbs brush up against an area of exceptional natural beauty. The Calanques are craggy white limestone cliffs and creeks reaching gargantuan heights and descending sharply to the sea.
- Musée d’Histoire de Marseille. It can be difficult to get your head around Marseille’s 26 centuries of history, but this first-rate museum near the Old Port will help.
France, Europe. Grit and grandeur coexist seamlessly in Marseille, an exuberantly multicultural port city with a pedigree stretching back to classical Greece. Best Time to Visit. Best Things to Do.
Travelers visit the port city of Marseille, the third largest city in France, for the meeting of style and history. The bay, flanked by Fort Saint-Nicolas, and Fort Saint-Jean shelters the Castle of If, from Count of Monte Cristo fame. Watched over by the basilica Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, the city's pedestrian zones and shopping areas (including ...
May 23, 2024 · Located west of the French Riviera, Marseille is one of the major ports of the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated on the Mediterranean’s Gulf of Lion within a semicircle of limestone hills and lies 536 miles (863 kilometers) south-southeast of Paris by rail and 218 miles southeast of Lyon. Area city proper, 93 square miles (241 square ...
