Toulon — Marseille & Calanques: private taxi tour

This is one of the routes I prefer: two very different port cities in a single day. We leave Toulon and reach Cassis in a little over an hour by motorway. The little harbour ringed by ochre houses, the fishing boats, the Cap Canaille cliff crushing the village with its red shadow. I leave you a coffee on a terrace. Then the Sormiou calanque viewpoint. The narrow road climbs between pines, the white rock breaks through, and at the end the calanque is revealed: turquoise water, fishermen's cabins, dazzling rocks. We go up to the Old Port of Marseille, then up to Notre-Dame de la Garde. The Bonne Mère has watched over the city since 1864 and from its terrace you take in the whole bay: Frioul, the islands, the Calanques, Cap Canaille. I leave you time for the basilica and its maritime ex-votos. Back towards Toulon along the Marseille corniche then the motorway, with the evening light gilding the hills. Book on +33 6 98 46 63 34.