Starting in Marseilles, easiest way to get to Leipzig for a 1-2 day visit before heading to Prague. Not lots of time to squeeze in our visit to a former au pair before heading to the end of a big family vacation. Train? Plane? Please not the bus!
Marseille airport has quite a few international departures to all over Europe. You could get to at least Munich or Frankfurt then with further connection (or train) to Leipzig.
Marseille to Leipzig is a quite a long trip, with a lot of Alps in the way and few high speed rail lines you can use. If you have the time, it is perfectly doable by train. But if you don't have a lot of time my suggestion is to fly from Marseille to Frankfurt (several daily flights with Lufthansa) and then take the train to Leipzig.
This would be an absolutely fun train ride, going from Marseilles to Leipzig: Marseilles to Paris or Strasbourg, then to Frankfurt , direct to Leipzig....logistically very doable.
Off hand, I would take the Marseilles to Paris option, since I'm more familiar with train routes to Germany from Paris Est as Frankfurt and Mannheim are hubs as is Leipzig, obviously.
There is a daily direct TGV from Marseille to Frankfurt. If going by train, my choice would be to start with that train to avoid having to go to Paris.
Even better with the direct TGV connection to Frankfurt from Marseilles...thanks for the information, and then the Frankfurt- Leipzig trunk route on the ICE ....both legs very doable by train.
You actually do not have to go all the way to Frankfurt The route would be Marseilles - Mannheim - Leipzig.
As usual let www.bahn.de figure it out for you.
Will take a day, but getting from Marseilles to Leipzig will eat up a day no matter which mode you choose...
Boarding in Mannheim Hbf is admittedly better than starting in Frankfurt Hbf...less crowded.
I had a look at what DB suggests and the first thing that came up was a connection with one change in Karlsruhe, so it should be a very easy trip by train. Even if it will take a while as mentioned.