Relatively close to Mount Saint-Victoire, depicted in many paintings by Paul Cézanne, lies Aix-en-Provence, a favorite city of students and a shopping center of interest not only to tourists.
The historic core within the ring road is divided by the Cours Mirabeau.

On the Cours Mirabeau, under sprawling plane trees, several café terraces invite you to relax, such as the popular Le Petit Bistrot.

From Provence we arrive in Marseille, whose beauty is best admired from above, from the Neo-Byzantine Basilica of Nota Dame de la Garde.
At one time the Greeks found a natural port here; it was located somewhat farther away than the present Old Port.

When visiting Marseille, you should definitely try the famous fish soup bouillabaisse. For its preparation you need to boil in broth at least four varieties of fish and mussels with saffron.
You can try it in the Provençal restaurant "Les Arcenaulx", which also has a bookstore.

If you go along the coast (though the landscape there is sparse and uninteresting), you will get to the small port of Cassis. From there the boats go to Kalank, to fjord-like bays (narrow, winding and deeply incised bays with rocky shores), between whitish cliffs by the turquoise sea.

A calanque is a cove in French. The entire coast between Marseille and the town of Cassis is carved with coves. And it is so gracefully cut that the French created here a national park. Narrow coves dissecting the rocky coastline, wild beaches with turquoise sea, mountains, cliffs and gorges, overgrown with evergreen conifers. All this makes Calanque National Park one of the most beautiful places on the Côte d'Azur.
A visit to the park is free. You can get here by bus, car or boat, but the best way is by kayak! You will have an unforgettable experience during this amazing trip. It is better to stock up on food in advance, as there will be nowhere to buy edibles on the wild beach.

Fort St. John is located in the northern part of the Old Port, where the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (Hospitallers) lived since the 13th century.
After the Aragonese attack in 1423, the Duke of Provence, René of Anjou (alias King René the Good, 1434-1480) built a massive quadrangular tower (still standing) to protect the entrance to the harbour. In the 17th century, Louis XIV decided to defend Marseille with new fortifications, which were built on the requisitioned property of the Hospitaller order. In 1664 a lighthouse was built, and a few years later the engineer Chevalier Louis-Nicolas de Clerville was ordered by the king to build a fort. After de Clerville's death, the engineer and Marshal Sébastien Vauban was appointed head of the fortifications, under which the fort was separated from the town by a wide ditch filled with water.
For many years, the Fort of St. John housed military units, the Revolution turned the fort into a prison, and the Germans during World War II set up an ammunition depot here, which was blown up in 1944. After the liberation of France, the fort is returned to the French army and in the 60s becomes a monument of history and architecture.