Marseille & Provence 3 Day Itinerary
Three days from a Marseille base builds on our 2-day plan with a third day for Avignon’s Palais des Papes, the single best full-day trip on this list. Cassis and the Calanques still open the trip, Aix still fills day two. Read the full Marseille day trips guide for context on any stop below, or keep adding days with our 4-day through 7-day versions.
Book these before you go:
- A Vieux-Port or Le Panier hotel : keeps you close to Gare Saint-Charles for early departures
- A Cassis calanques boat tour : summer weekend sailings fill up, book ahead
- A skip-the-line Palais des Papes tour : worth it in summer, when the walk-up queue runs 40-60 minutes deep
| Day | Focus | Travel time from Marseille |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cassis and the Calanques | ~30-45 min (train plus a transfer) |
| 2 | Aix-en-Provence | ~30 min (train) |
| 3 | Avignon and the Palais des Papes | ~1h (TGV plus a shuttle into the walled city) |
Day 1: Cassis and the Calanques
Take the train from Gare Saint-Charles to Cassis, about 25 minutes, then budget another 15-20 minutes for the bus, taxi, or a steep walk down to the port; the station itself sits roughly 3km inland, so call it 40-45 minutes door to door, longer coming back up. The Calanques National Park , created by decree in 2012 and France’s tenth, is the reason to make the trip; a boat tour from the Cassis port runs roughly EUR21-40 depending on length and whether it includes a swimming stop.
Is a Cassis boat tour or the Port-Miou hike better for the Calanques?
Take the boat to see several calanques in one sitting; walk if you want to actually stand inside one. Port-Miou, the closest calanque to Cassis, is a flat, permit-free trail from the port, unlike Sugiton, which needs a summer reservation and is reached from the Marseille side, not from Cassis. Combining a short boat ride with the Port-Miou walk covers both in a single day.
Day 2: Aix-en-Provence
Aix is a 30-minute train ride with more than 20 direct departures a day, the easiest logistics on this whole plan. Walk the Cours Mirabeau, a tree-lined 17th and 18th century boulevard of fountains and cafes, then follow the Cezanne trail to his studio and the Musee Granet; check current hours on Aix’s tourist office site before you go.
Is Aix-en-Provence worth a guided tour, or is it a walk-alone town?
Walk it alone. Aix is compact and well-signed, and the Cours Mirabeau to Musee Granet loop takes half a day on foot without a guide, no operator needed for a town this size. Save the guided-tour money for the trips where local knowledge actually changes the day, like the Camargue or the Luberon.
Day 3: Avignon and the Palais des Papes
The TGV from Marseille to Avignon takes about 35-40 minutes, but it lands at Avignon TGV station, roughly 5km outside the walled city; a connecting shuttle train into Avignon Centre plus a short walk brings the real door-to-door trip closer to an hour each way, a transfer that catches people who only checked the train time. Inside, the Palais des Papes runs EUR14.50 for the palace alone or EUR17 combined with the Pont d’Avignon bridge (verified July 2026), and the palace alone takes 1.5-2 hours to see properly as Europe’s largest Gothic palace by floor area.
Is the Palais des Papes worth the combined bridge ticket?
Yes. The bridge add-on costs EUR2.50 over the palace-only ticket and includes the Pont d’Avignon itself, the half-collapsed medieval bridge behind the nursery rhyme; skipping it to save that much on a trip made once is a bad trade. Book online rather than at the counter; summer weekend queues run 40-60 minutes deep for walk-up tickets.
Before you go
Book the Avignon combined ticket online before you board the TGV, not after arriving; the shuttle into the walled city eats into whatever buffer you built in. Confirm the Cassis train and boat times the night before rather than assuming the earliest sailing works with the station transfer.