We will be porting in Marseilles for one day and should be back on the ship by 4 pm. We would like to explore small charming villages, either with guide or by train. I could use some assistance with towns outside of Marseilles that you loved and we accessible in the time that we have. Your. Suggestions are really appreciated.

You don't want to visit Marseilles itself?

Small, charming villages are generally some distance from Marseilles and reachable mostly with a car or a tour. Does your ship offer anything? That would be easiest.

Exactly how much time do you have?

We are there from 9-5 but should be back by 4. I like the charm of smaller towns.

Cassis of course! Or Aix, it's not a village so to speak but it's beautiful and relatively easy to reach by a direct bus line from MRS.

Cassis gets my vote. It's so charming and there are tours of the calanques combined with Cassis.

If you haven't visited Marseille before, Notre Dame de la Garde is pretty cool. We visited that and had lunch on the port as a day trip from Aix. You could do worse than a tour of Marseille as well.

We did a walking tour in Marseille using - http://www.marseilleprovencegreeters.com/en/

Our guide was Patrick and he spent 8 hours with us! We paid for his lunch and made a donation to the group. What a fabulous day - I can't recommend this enough.

We did drive to Cassis for lunch and a walk around. It was lovely too. I would be leary of trying to get to Cassis, walk around, do a boat ride to calanques and then try to get back to Marseille in time to depart on that short amount of time.

Marseille gets a bum rap but we found it to be most interesting, especially through Patrick's eyes.

Do you mean you are in port only from 9 to 5? How long will it take for you to get off the ship after it docks? You might find that you really have only about 4 to 5 hours to spend on land.

Yes in port from 9-5 so it would be safe to say that we have from 9:30-4:30. Ship tours are quite costly and a lot of people. Do we have time to take bus to Aix or is this risky?

Big ship or small..time to get off will be a factor and a ship, like time, waits for no one when the time is up at the end of the port call... There will probably be taxis available for you if interested but I would 1st check www.cruisecritic.com and go into the roll call of your ship. You may hook up with someone who is setting up a little outing!! Or fiond some suggestions..

Our tour to Cassis was with the tour group below:

http://www.rendez-vous-provence.com/index.html

We were based in Aix at that time and the van picked us up at our hotel. My notes don't say how long we took so you'd need to check. It might not be any cheaper than the tours already organized by your ship either.

When we were there, it was a 25-euro flat one-way taxi fee from the rail station to the port. Another half-hour to Cassis (sorry can't remember the cost). We ended up taking the tour because of timing and convenience (being picked up).

Aix is about 1/2 by bus from Marseille but it's much larger than Cassis and, as mentioned above, not a cute little place.

amer_can gives good advice. Also, check with Rick Steves as he gives the number of a bus that picks up in the old port and goes directly to Notre Dame de la Garde, Please let everyone know what you end up doing.

Here's a link to a trip report with details of a private tour of some areas of Provence from the port of Marseille. Scroll down to ShellD's post on July 24.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...s-in-italy.cfm

Thank you Tdudette..Nice to know that I can sometimes do it right!! Advise is based on cruising experience and 4 persons left behind after being late then later. They had to catch up on their own dime!!

Advice not advise (but I can do that if called upon!!