Vallon des Auffes beach

Marseille is the most important city of Provence in front of Aix-en-Provence. It is also a famous seaside resort with French and foreign tourists. Among the assets of the city, there are 32 beaches including 22 of sand, 19 of pebbles and 3 coves in the calanques.

Among all these beaches, there is that of the Vallon des Auffes, at the level of the Porte de l'Orient, just below the bridge of the Fausse Monnaie. The location is easy to find as it is spanned by the famous Kennedy Corniche Bridge. It is a cove that houses a small harbor with fishermen's cabanas and small restaurants in the water.

To reach the neighborhood, you have to go downstairs on the side of the viaduct and then go along the wooden pontoon of the cliff that leads to the beach. Which means that you have to leave the car at the top of the Kennedy Corniche, if you find a parking space, which is a real puzzle in the Marseille city. The best thing would be to take the bus or walk from the Old Port, the journey being about twenty minutes.

Once there, the place seems quite curious: you are in the heart of the city and yet it feels like being out of Marseille and is now in a Provencal fishing village, far from the great Mediterranean port. It must be said that many places in Marseille produce this effect, particularly the districts located at the bottom of a creek such as the Vallon des Auffes or its counterparts south of the city (the Goudes, Callelongue, etc.)

Au Vallon des Auffes, the scenery is total as the site is picturesque. The beach in itself is not very wide in comparison with its neighbor Catalans, a few minutes away. It is not a "beach" in the common sense of the term, insofar as swimmers settle down on the quay of the harbor or on the rocks and not on a wide expanse of sand. As for the baths, they will be simply in the middle of the sharp, these small colorful fishing boats typical of Provence.

As far as the swimming spot is concerned, it should be pointed out that the Vallons des Auffes beach is not monitored and that there is even a sign forbidding swimming (due to the risks associated with the comings and goings of peach). Nevertheless, the local fishermen say that it is quite possible to bathe and they even show a lot of sympathy by indicating a bathing area that their boats will avoid as long as there are swimmers. Marseilles fishermen are really kind ones, isn’t it ?