Europe Travel Diary: Marseille

Our Europe Travel Diary is an informal rundown of our day-to-day activities while backpacking Europe, starting with Madrid. This diary entry is based on our 2 nights in Marseille. If you are after recommendations for Marseille instead, we have a Marseille Travel Guide coming soon!

Disclaimer: Some of the links included on our website may contain affiliate links. We may receive some commission from purchases made via these but it will NOT affect the price you pay. This is to allow this site to stay online and ensure that readers use, what we believe, is the best products possible whilst travelling.

Day 12: Barcelona to Marseille

_15/10/2021

We eventually made it to Marseille. Having read numerous top tips for Marseille, the one piece of advice constantly dished out was to not walk around at night. Despite this, Alex had already decided that a 15-minute walk to the hotel with our bags wasn’t a bad idea. However, he didn’t seem to take into account we’d be arriving at 8:15 pm on a Friday night. Nevertheless, we (and by we I mean Alex, the cheap arse) insisted stuck to our decision.

Our walk (which quickly turned into Olympic style speed walking) took us through the backstreets of Marseille which didn’t seem the safest. We eventually made it to the hotel and I can assure you it was an absolute relief to get there in one piece; especially with all of our stuff. The hotel was beautiful, really safe and had the nicest staff! We did make a mess of it pretty quickly, as you can see in the photo below. However, we still hadn’t eaten. Thankfully it was just a 5-minute walk to the old port harbour where we went in search of food. Eventually, we found a restaurant that didn’t cost an arm and a leg (Marseille is very expensive) and felt marginally better. It was then a quick walk back to the hotel to get to bed for a well-deserved rest.

N.B. It is probably not advisable to walk around Marseille at night but the main city centre was perfectly fine. It was merely the walk from the train station to the hotel, via backstreets, which was the issue.

Day 13: Marseille

_16/10/2021

We rose fairly early for our only day in the South of France. As ever, went out in search of coffee which we eventually found on the port front. That gave us the energy to go in search of further food supplies for a packed lunch. Alex grabbed a quick sandwich and I bought a box of macarons – it would have been rude not to when in France!

During the day Marseille was an absolutely stunning place. We managed to catch the end of the morning fish market where the locals brought their morning catch for sale. Then we began our first real strenuous activity of the day. This was to walk up the hill to the Basilique Notre Dame de la garde. Despite only being a 15-minute trek from the old port, the gradient was quite steep. Whilst I did complain the whole way up, the views at the top were definitely worth the hike. However, if I were to go again, I would take the little train that goes from the harbour straight up the mountain.

After eating our mountain snacks, we did the much easier walk down to the town again. Whilst walking around the harbour, we stumbled upon a large group of people watching a group of guys doing acrobatics and playing music that Alex kept embarrassingly dancing to. We had a nice walk around the harbour which was beautiful. As it had been a long day, we ventured home to organise our hostels in Italy and have a siesta.

Weary that we wouldn’t be caught out late in Marseille again, we headed out in search of food quite early. We found a reasonably priced Thai noodle bar – not very French but French food isn’t typically gluten-free, unfortunately. After a glass of wine on the harbour front, we headed back to our hotel ready for our 5am wake up the next morning.

Day 14: Marseille to Genoa

_17/10/2021

Having both gotten very little sleep, we jumped in our taxi for the 5 minutes drive to the train/bus station where we very quickly located a coffee.

All was going well until a very suspicious “security guard”, in plainclothes (with his own Tupac decorated phone) approached us asking us for our COVID pass. Given that he had spoken to a uniformed security guard before, we thought he was genuine. Alex’s QR code worked but mine, unfortunately, didn’t. In broken English, he suggested we go to a pharmacy (presumably to get a PCR test) but at 5:30am on a Sunday, I’d put money on the fact no one would be there. He seemed to get bored of listening to our awful attempt at speaking French and left us alone. We then made our way to the correct bus stop in preparation for the bus.

Despite our concerns about my COVID pass working, when we had our QR codes scanned by the bus driver, it presented him with a “non-valide ❌” on both occasions. Thankfully, he didn’t give two hoots about the warning and proceeded to direct us to the bus door. The crisis averted and we were on our way to Italia. Get us some pasta la pasta. – upon reflection, I think my apple wallet vaccine pass just needed to be updated!

Marseille Summary:

Alex: Wasn’t our most enjoyable destination. Walking from the train to the hotel made my heart skip many a beat and there wasn’t that much to do that didn’t involve spending money. Having said that, the view from Basilique Notre Dame was beautiful and would definitely recommend taking a picnic, or some snacks, with you.

Leah: Other than walking around after dark, I really enjoyed Marseille for the time that we were there but I’m now sure I would’ve liked to have stayed any longer, due to the lack of things to do. However, the port itself is beautiful and if you can afford to eat and drink there, it is worth visiting. The street performers were also very entertaining.