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Rental car: bring it to Cassis or drop it beforehand?

Hello fellow and sister travelers,

We are a family of four who will be in France from mid-June to early July, mostly in Provence and the Alps, so we are renting a car. We are also dipping down for a couple of nights in Cassis so we can paddle around les Calanques (wow!) before picking up the train in Marseille back to Paris.

We're seeing that it's hard to have a car in Cassis, that parking is expensive and sometimes small for rental cars. We've been trying to figure out if we could drop it off before hand somewhere that would be pretty easy to then get to Cassis via transit. We've looked at Aubagne (very few places to drop a car, hard to tell how easy it is to get to the train station from there, or the bus for that matter) and Aix (too far, too long afterwards). We are not huge fans of the big cities so have hesitated to drop it in Marseille - also don't want to lose nice beach time or stopping-in-small-towns time to navigating the bigger city.

Those of you who have been to Cassis - is it a hindrance to have a car?

The price of parking comes out about equal to the price of transit.

Thank you all in advance. Your answers and advice have been so helpful before.

Also, maybe it's bad form to put this in the same post (I'm new to this - pardon if I get it wrong), but we're also up for hearing any opinions about kayaking the Calanques.

Posted by
7304 posts

No, I'd keep the car, park it when you can (expensive as it is), and leave it there while you go hiking. Main reason being poor transit to Cassis, station is up on the hill two miles from town and buses are infrequent.
With the car, be sure to drive to Cap Canaille / routes des Crêtes just east of town. You can also use the car to drive (early!) to the Presqu'Ile where most Calanques hikes start.

On the way to Marseille St Charles Station allow some extra time, reaching the station coming from the east takes some patience and navigational skills. Car drop off is Boulevard Voltaire for most rental companies, next Hotel Ibis.

Posted by
16895 posts

Is that price for parking right at your Cassis hotel or would you have to find a separate parking lot? (When I've stayed at Cassis, it was at a youth hostel actually only accessible by car, not in the town itself.)

Note that Cassis train station is well above the town (2 miles), so without a car you'd transfer to and from your hotel by local bus or taxi. There are beautiful drives available on the way in and out.

I'd probably think again about dropping at Aix-en-Provence TGV station, drive time one hour, where at least 4 of the major car rental agencies are present. Direct trains from there to Paris take just over 3 hours.

Posted by
10632 posts

I had a car the whole time we lived in Cassis for six months, although I had originally planned to be carless. It was more convenient for getting around to Aubagne, Marseille, and visiting one of our kids at the university in Aix. It’s worth keeping. Balso’s advice is right on, as is Laura’s to catch the train at the Aix TGV station rather than in Marseille, if you don’t like citées. Plan for jams in Cassis, though. You might want to just park it and forget it. You can also hike to the top of Cap Canaille—a feat.

Posted by
21 posts

We already booked our train from Marseille. Darn! Should have asked here first! Taking the train from Aix sounds lovely. Oh well, next time.
Our Air BNB does not have parking; that's for street parking.

This is super helpful. We'll keep the car, probably just park it, but then take it to Marseille when we need to catch our train.

There are so many wonderful things. I wish we could travel for months instead of scant weeks.

Posted by
33847 posts

Most trains from Marseille-St-Charles to Paris Gare de Lyon stop at Aix about 15 minutes after leaving Marseille. If you want to drop your car at Aix it is worth seeing if the train you have the ticket for stops there.

If so, drop the car and board the train in Aix. Nobody will mind. After all, it might have taken you that long to walk down the train to your seats in Marseille, if you took your time.

Just be sure to get on the right train. Use the number, not the destination, no matter how juicy it looks.

If you don't know how to look up intermediary stops give us the train number of date and time and we can tell you.

For example,
Marseille-St-Charles dep 09:06 TGV 6112 TGV Duplex Direction: Paris Gare de Lyon

Aix-en-Provence TGV dep 09:21

Avignon TGV dep 09:43

Paris Gare de Lyon arr 12:23