Marseilles & Aix-En-Provence

[StanO]

Will be in Marseilles in August on Insignia. Are taxis readily available at the dock? What is the best way to tour Marseilles on your own. I've heard is can be dangerous walking around the city.

[ClaudiaF]

We hired a driver and shared with 2 other couples. She used new Mercedes van.. took us on tour to Aix, St. Paul de Vence etc.

http://www.taxidurand.com/index.htm

[caclays]

We were in Marseilles on a Radisson cruise about two years ago, and found that we could walk to the train station and took the train to Aux. It was not a long ride, I'm remembering around 45 mins. Fare was very reasonable. When we got there, we found a wonderful walking tour is available from downtown. The town itself is lovely and we ended up ordering some sandwiches from a local shop (they didn't understand "to go" and we found out that the word for "takeout" is actually "takeaway". We almost missed the last train back that got us there in time before the ship left. So plan your day to leave in the morning so you get back in time.

 

We love riding the train because we got to see so much of the countryside and my husband didn't have to spend all his time driving.

[Juju45]

Will be in Marseilles in August on Insignia. Are taxis readily available at the dock? What is the best way to tour Marseilles on your own. I've heard is can be dangerous walking around the city.

 

Are you taking the 8/25 cruise from Lisbon to Venice? If so, we will be on that cruise. I think it might be prudent to get a few people together to do some of the tours. :p

[BND]

It's been almost 20 years, but I went to Marseilles to meet my husband's ship when he was in the Navy and he went back a couple of times after that with the ship. Just like any city, there are dangerous areas. The city was well known as a smuggling port and has a notorious red light district, but if you stay out of that area, you'll be fine. We actually stayed in a hotel down on the water and I have pictures of cruise ships docked there. We walked almost everywhere in the city and took a public bus to the beach and never had any problems. I haven't heard that it's any worse than it was then and I know the French government was working on cleaning it up at the time. We also took the TGV (fast train) round trip to Paris and that was nice, not crowded at all and easy to use. Just be careful like you would going anywhere. There are taxis, but we didnt' use them, just walked everywhere.

[englishlee]

Just a word of warning. We too were on a Rdisson ship a couple of years ago and our ship docked at the commercial docks a few miles outside of the Marseilles which was about a 20 minute drive to the city centre.

 

A shuttle bus was made available for us to be transferred to the city centre and it dropped us close to the tourist office and the harbour front. That was about a 10 minute walk to the railway station. Unfortunately the staff of SNCF (French Railways) chose that day to go on a lightning strike (not uncommon) so we didn't get to Aix. We will be back in Marseille on a cruise in May and hope to do the journey then.