If you’re looking for the best French Riviera city to vacation to, you’ve come to the right page!
Cassis, France has amazing outdoor recreation, great food, and friendly locals. This old town has a very charming feel with narrow cobblestoned streets, beautiful plants, and breathtaking views of the mountain tops surrounded by the turquoise sea. These features set the tone for the best French Riviera city that you should have on your bucket list!
Why you should visit: beautiful water, Calanques National Park, local feel, great food/restaurants, amazing outdoor recreation and much more!
How to get there: If you’re flying into a major French city you should have access to the SNCF high speed trains. We travelled from Paris and although there weren’t any direct routes, the two high speed trains we jumped on made traveling easy!
You’ll want to catch a high speed train to Marseille then you will have to separately book another high speed train from Marseille to Cassis.
Train Stations and Travel Time:
Paris Gare de Lyon to Marseille St. Charles direct route ~ 3 hours 18 min (prices seem to change based on demand)
Marseille St. Charles to Cassis direct route ~ 24 minutes
To get from the Cassis train station to the Cassis city center, it’s about a 7 minute drive. Our airbnb host offered to pick us up, so you will need to plan for transportation or take a taxi.
*Please note there are different train stations in the bigger cities so make sure you’re selecting the ones closer to where you’re staying or where you’ll be.
What to do while visiting the best French Riviera city:
1. Hike through the Calanques National Forest. Calanque d’En Vau was my favorite calanque and taking the longer scenic route was 100% worth the views at the top. Be sure to pack your swimsuit to take a dip in the beautiful sea, snacks or food, and lots of water. Please be sure to pack up all trash as there are no trash bins on the trail. The hike is 4.1 miles roundtrip, 1,085 ft. elevation gain, and is dog-friendly (on leash). Calanque d’En Vau Hike – AllTrails
2. If hiking isn’t for you, you can still see the Calanques via boat tours but will not be able to access the beaches. In the city center there is a business with information for the boat tours, but looking ahead of time is always a better option.
3. Other outdoor recreation includes sport climbing, trail running, kayaking, and mountain biking. Basically a dream for any outdoor enthusiast!
4. Eat at the delicious restaurants Cassis has to offer. Most restaurants seemed to have a rotating menu and were always making their dishes using fresh ingredients! We also had two amazing pizzas while visiting Cassis. (My favorite restaurants were in between the small streets and not facing the water). Check out my foodie recommendations below!
5. If it’s warm you can have a nice relaxing beach day.
6. Check out some of the vineyards close by, as you are in the Provence region known for great white and rosé wines! We checked out Clos Sainte-Magdeleine because it was walking distance, they didn’t have wine tasting available but we were able to buy two (moderately priced) bottles of wine to enjoy while in Chamonix and back in Paris at the Luxembourg gardens.
7. If you happen to be in Cassis on a Wednesday or Friday morning check out their local market where they have fresh produce, cheese, meats, olives, and hand made products.
Foodie Recommendations
- La Tarte Tropézienne Bakery (favorite bakery out of our entire time in France) Faves: Croissant aux amande, chocolate filled beignets, chocolate croissant. We even got a mozzarella and tomato sandwich to go for our hike to Calanque d’En Vau
- Le Romarin – we enjoyed a vegetable pasta and their delicious romarin pizza which had rosemary (romarin), garlic, and cheese
- A table – we enjoyed a braised beef plate with mashed potatoes and vegetables (my husband was in heaven), and a vegetarian plate with many fresh steamed veggies, mashed potatoes and chickpeas
- Snack des calanques – we got an aubergine, courgette, red pepper pizza to go. It was delicious and we shared it on the balcony of our airbnb
Tips When Planning to Explore the Best French Riviera City:
- Please use the SNCF website to book all train travel https://www.sncf-connect.com/en-en/ any other websites that show “country passes” or “cross-country passes” won’t always have the exact dates/times you’re looking for even if their website shows availability. Trust me, I fell into this trap and purchased one of these passes only to find out that there weren’t available dates/times when I was trying to take trains to the next cities. Luckily I was able to get a partial refund, but it was still frustrating.
- Book your stay well in advance as Cassis is a popular place to vacation for French locals (you can even splurge and stay in the Château de Cassis) but being in the city center was very convenient and enjoyable to reach restaurants and hiking trails.
- Traveling off season anywhere to avoid big touristy crowds is my preference. We visited Cassis early May and it was still very busy, so I can’t imagine being there during the summer months. But if your trip is already booked for a summer month, don’t let this keep you from visiting Cassis, it’s totally worth it and will likely be just as busy as other French Riviera cities.
Travel & Grow Memorable Moment: Practicing counting to 10 in French with a lady working at La Tarte Tropezienne Bakery.
