Marseille & Provence 6 Day Itinerary

Six days from a Marseille base builds on our 5-day plan with a car-only day in the Luberon villages, the trip on this list with the most logistics and the reason it comes last. Cassis, Aix, Avignon, Arles, and the Camargue still fill the first five days in that order. Read the full Marseille day trips guide for context on any stop below, or add the last day with our 7-day version .

Book these before you go:

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)
4 Arles: Roman arena and Van Gogh ~1h (train)
5 The Camargue ~1.5-2h (train to Arles plus a tour or car)
6 The Luberon villages ~1-1.5h (car or tour only, no direct train)

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.

Day 4: Arles: Roman arena and Van Gogh

Arles is about an hour by train from Marseille, and it doesn’t need a guided tour: buy a train ticket and an arena entry and go. The Roman amphitheater and ancient theater are UNESCO-listed and still substantially intact almost 2,000 years on. The honest caveat: Van Gogh painted more than 300 works during his 15 months in Arles (February 1888 to May 1889), but almost none of the actual canvases stay in the city; they’re in museums abroad. Come for the light and the streets that inspired the paintings, not expecting a Van Gogh museum, and the day still delivers.

Day 5: The Camargue

The Camargue is reached via Arles, and the honest total is 1.5-2 hours each way once a local tour or car covers the ground past Arles station, since public transport thins out fast beyond it. Flamingos, wild white Camargue horses, and the pilgrimage town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer are the draw, plus the Pont de Gau ornithological park nearby. A guided Camargue day tour is the easier way to do this properly, typically about 8 hours door to door; don’t try to DIY this one on a tight timeline, since a rental car is the only real alternative to a tour.

Day 6: The Luberon villages

There’s no practical direct train to the Luberon, only a car or an organized tour, roughly 1-1.5 hours’ drive each way. Gordes, one of France’s officially recognized “most beautiful villages,” and Roussillon, sitting above vivid ochre cliffs with a marked Ochre Trail walk, are the two villages worth the drive. A full-day guided tour typically visits both and returns to Marseille by mid or late afternoon.

Do you need a car for the Luberon villages?

Yes, or a seat on an organized tour; there’s no practical direct train. Renting a car for this one day alone is the more flexible option if you’re comfortable driving French rural roads, but a group tour is simpler if the Luberon is the only day on this trip that needs one.

Before you go

Book the Luberon and Camargue tours before you leave home in high season; both run as small-group vans with limited seats that sell out days ahead in July and August, unlike the walk-up rail trips earlier in this plan. Avignon tickets don’t need the same lead time outside peak summer, so leave that one for closer to your trip.