Marseille Walking Tour with a Licensed Guide (private)

Name: Marseille Walking Tour with a Licensed Guide (private)
Brand: Ophorus

3 hours

Max 8 people

Marseille, France

About this activity

A private Marseille Guided Walking Tour with a Certified Guide including all the major landmarks of the city. Follow your guide on a 3-hour tour to visit Le Panier district, The Old Port, the Palais Longchamp & the Abbey of St Victor.

Highlights

Historical Panier District
Visit the Old Port of Marseille
Private Licensed tour guide
Optional visit of Mucem Museum

Full description

Your English speaking local guide will come and pick you up at your centrally located hotel or accommodation in central Marseille. If you are coming from out of town, it will be possible for us to organize a dedicated meeting point in Marseille such as in front of the Marseille tourism office.

Discover the best of Marseille with a private guide. This walking guided tour will allow you to discover one of the oldest districts of the Phocean City. You will have the opportunity to walk along the Old Port, where you will gain a better understanding of why Marseille was a strategic place for the Greeks to build a city.

Meet your Guide at your hotel or dedicated Meeting Point

3 Hours Guided Walking Tour of Marseille, with your personal, licensed Tour Guide

End of tour in central Marseille

The Old Port

The Vieux Port represents the birthplace of Marseilles. This is where the city began as a Greek port around 600 BC. Surrounded by serene blue waters, the Old Port is located in the west of Marseille near the Canebière boulevard.

The Old port of Marseille was completely renovated in 2013 and the district is without a doubt the heart of the City. The whole area became semi-pedestrianised as part of a big redevelopment project designed by the British architect Norman Foster to open up the space for bars and restaurants, vendors and public events.

This is where all the major events of Marseille take place and where the crowds meet when they celebrate their football team’s achievements. In the morning, one should not miss the very lively fish market.

The Panier District

Your guided tour continues in the Panier district, which is another area that one should not miss when visiting Marseille. This popular neighborhood is topped by the Old Charity and is composed of small but steep streets, crossed by multiple stairways and lined with elevated buildings and their colorful façades. Here, spend time to stroll through the narrow streets and reach Moulin’s square where numerous art galleries, restaurants, cafés and designer boutiques have settled.

The 'Vieille Charité' hospital

In accordance with the royal policy of “the great confinement of the poor”, in 1640 the City Council decided to “confine Marseille’s native poor to a clean and specific place.” In 1670, a charity within the Magistrate Council commissioned Pierre Puget, the Marseille-born king’s architect, to build a General Hospital to accommodate beggars and the poor. The first stone was laid in 1671 of what would be one of Pierre Puget’s most beautiful architectural designs.

The hospital was completed in 1749 with four wings of buildings enclosed on the outside and opened by a 3 floor corridor on an internal rectangular courtyard to access the vast communal work and residential spaces separating men and women. The chapel built in the centre of the courtyard between 1679 and 1707 is a stunning architectural piece with an ovoid dome, the epitome of Italian baroque. The current façade wasn’t built until 1863 and echoes the Charité’s mission.

The Mucem Museum

Built on the historical site of the Fort St-Jean, Marseille’s most recent cultural offering bridges the gap between the city and the sea. The Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM) opened its doors in June 2013 while Marseille was European Capital of Culture.

The building was designed by architect Rudy Riciotti and it was the first museum entirely dedicated to Mediterranean culture, which has played such a major role in European and in African history. Resolutely contemporary, the architecture combines raw materials and shapes that play with the light and shadow of the south of France. It is listed among the world’s 50 most visited museums.

The Cantini Museum

This museum visit can be a great option if you would like to enhance your guided walking tour of Marseille. Art lovers will appreciate the superb collection of modern and contemporary art displayed within a 17th-century hôtel particulier (mansion). The local art collector Jules Cantini bought this elegant house in 1888, and he bequeathed it to the city of Marseilles in 1916.

The Musée Cantini boasts one of the country's most extensive assortments of modern art created between 1900 and 1960. Highlights of the collection include works by Raoul Dufy, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso.

Your local guide is flexible, so if you wish to see some other highlights of the City such as the Corniche or the Football stadium then you will need to inform your guide who will adapt the tour to your requirements as long as the timing is not an issue. If you would like to visit Notre Dame de la Garde, please let us know as we will need to adapt your itinerary and program accordingly.

Included / Excluded

Guide will meet you at your hotel or dedicated meeting point
Services of an experienced, licensed tour guide
3 hour guided walking tour of Marseille

Personal insurance and expenses
Meals, drinks
Any entrance fees
Gratuities for your guide

Meeting point

Start Location

Marseille, France

Important information

Know before you book

Tour is operated in English.
Price is per group
Tour involves walking and is not suitable for wheelchairs.

Know before you go

Please be ready 10 minutes before arrival time
You must wear good walking shoes for this tour.
Currency is in Euros

Cancellation policy

Free cancellation up to 30 days before the activity starts

Ophorus requires full payment by credit card, internet payment (through our website) or wire transfer (Wire transfer fees at the charge of the Guest) to make a reservation. We accept payment by AMEX, Visa and Master Card. There is no charge or service fee for processing credit card payments except with American Express +3%. For any cancellation, the following fees will be deducted from the refund: > Up to 30 days before the service, 100% refund > From less than 30 days to 15 days before the service, 20% fee > From 14 days to 4 days before the service, 50% fee > From 3 days before the service, 100% fee

Reviews

4.8(3,342 reviews)

GetYourGuide traveler

May 2026

5.0

We had a very fun day with Matt to Mont Saint-Mitchel. Matt is an excellent tour guide & he cared for his clients very much. He's an on time person. We learned a lot about the history of Saint-Mitchel via Matt. He made sure we have enough time browsing this beautiful UNESCO. We definitely recommend friends & family this tour. Thank you Matt

GetYourGuide traveler

May 2026

5.0

Pascal was, above all, a smiling whirlwind of energy from the very start — bursting with knowledge, passion, and just the right amount of dramatic flair. He painted the horror of the Omaha Beach invasion so vividly that we could practically hear the chaos, then marched us through the bunkers at Pointe du Hoc like we were on a mission ourselves. And before we even caught our breath, he had already catapulted us back to Bayeux at invasion speed. A legend in tour‑guide form. Thanks from Croatian Team😉

Lindsay A

May 2026

5.0

Our Normandy D-Day tour was well worth it and we so enjoyed our tour guide Matt. He made the tour engaging, entertaining and informative. The tour was just the right size and a half day was perfect for us. It would have been much harder to get around to the sites and understand each without the information that Matt was constantly sharing. There was hardly a time that Matt was not telling us what/how/when of what we were looking at. Thanks Matt!