Oh yes, before we get to our Italian ports on our Mediterranean Adventure we have a stop in Marseille, France.
Marseille was the first port we thought about shore excursions when we looked at all of the choices the cruise line offered.
How about an all day trip from Marseille to Provence? Sounds lovely but it is a long day. Aix-en-Provence is not far from Marseille and is quintessential French countryside and more…… My original plan was for us to go on the all day excursion and skip Marseille. Marseille is a old seafaring port, what could be interesting there?
But wait, how many days in a row would we be up and out of the stateroom early and back late? What did we really want to make sure we saw on our first trip to the Mediterranean? Is there something to see in Marseille? It is a very old city. There must be some history there.
TripAdvisor lead me to the Free Walking Tour of Marseille. According to the information, it really is a free walking tour of Marseille for a few hours around the city. Let me write to them and see if they do private tours of the city and the cost of a private tour.
The two guys that started Free Walking Tours of Marseille were very knowledgeable about the options in Marseille and were happy to arrange either the option to join a free walking tour in the morning and a private walking tour in the afternoon, or a full day private walking tour. We decided on the full day private tour, that way we could see Marseille at our own pace.
During the course of several emails we decided on a tour that would start at the highest point of Marseille, Notre Dame de la Garde, and end at the old part of the city at the waterfront. The guys at Marseille Free Walking Tours were helpful and flexible with the schedule, the order of the things we would see and walk by, and even had suggestions on where we should plan on having lunch, and most importantly being mindful of when we needed to leave the city to get back on our ship before it sailed.
We were all set for our day in Marseille, if I could only speak French……
To contact the Free Walking Tour of Marseille, here is their website: https://marseillefreewalkingtour.com/english/