We are a very active couple in our 30s, traveling in july, we are in and out from paris (we arent so crazy about rxploring paris, maybe one or 2 days there) and we love Summer and beaches. We are going to europe in the total of 14 days. We will be visiting friends in hamburg (maybe) for 2 or 3 days and thrn heading south to marseille (also visiting some friends) with day trips to the French riviera. We would love to explore some other places, spain or italy (but looking forward to good beaches, since ive heard that the cote dazur are very rocky), but for only 2 or 3 days. So much of the 10 days we would be south trying to take some 2 or 3 days to go to spain or italy. How doable is this itinerary?! That would be too
Much?! Any suggestions?! What would suit best to go from hamburg to marseille?! Thank you very much!

It is the high season for beaching it, but you don't need to go to Italy or Spain for a beautiful sandy beach.
head along the Mediterranean to the beach towns that stretch between Montpellier and the Spanish border. We stayed a month in St Cyprien la Plage, just past Perpignan, which has a beautiful sandy beach. There are a number of other towns..get a map and start checking them out. Much of Europe goes to these beautiful beaches in summer, so there will be lots of people and lots of traffic. Are you driving once you reach Marseille?

If you are depending on trains, you may want to try the Ligurian coast of Italy. The only place I've personnaly seen a sandy beach was Monterosso, Italy.

Throwing Hamburg into your itinerary for a couple days is odd...you may need to fly to Marseille from there, probably via Paris, so consider that a day totally devoted to travel. Maybe your friends in Hamburg can give you better info about how to get places from there.

You really need to lay out where you plan to be and when, and determine how you will get from place to place and how long each transfer will take.

Hamburg makes this itinerary a bit crazy. Why go from there to the Med? Why not head to the gorgeous beaches of Denmark? We spent a month in Aarhus many years ago and loved the virtually unpopulated sandy beaches of southern Denmark.

If you must go south, yes, the beaches on the Côte d'Azur are rocky. As mentioned, the ones between the Riviera and the Costa Brava are sandy...like Sète and St-Cyprien-la-Plage. No need to go all the way to Spain or Italy.

It's tru that many of the beaches west of the riviera are sandy rather than rocky - but they still aren;t grat vs beaches in the US or carib. I never understand people who go to europe for beaches when there are so many better ones so much closer. Fine if it's a small part of a mainly europe focused trip - but there's a reason that europeans who can afford it go to the Carib or Asia for beach vacations.

Some of the resorts on the Baltic Sea (east of Hamburg) are very popular with Germans and are considered good value - that might be another avenue for you:

http://www.vorpommern.de/english.html

Lavandula

Thanks uhoh_busted and everyone for the replies, for just some more information we will be driving around after we get to marseile and might also take the train, depending where we are going... the beaches after montpelier sounds a great option! we might drive till barcelona as well with our friends and spend some time there

for hamburg we will be visiting some family, so it definitely will be a stop by somehow!

we are really looking forward to know a different enviroment, as we are travelling to europe (its gonna be our first time there in the south), and as just it is summer time we were looking forward enjoy some beach/water time... however as we have been to brazilian, caribean and south USA beaches, i was scared we would be a bit disapointed with the rocky ones... althought we are also looking forward to go to georges du verdon canions, porquerolles islands and also enjoy some time at callanques... i think it will be a great and different experience.

any other suggestions will be welcome!!

now were figuring out how we would get to marseile from hamburg... since its a long way trip by train... so i think the best would be flying.. however it has been a bit difficult to one way flights at a good price... what are the best ways, itineraries, low cost airlines and prices to get to marseile from hamburg?! i thought that maybe getting 2 roundtrip flights from paris and them marseile would be the best price option.

Ryanair has a flight from Hamburg Lubeck to Barcelona el Prat, where rental cars are plentiful. Ryanair also flies from Marseille to airports near Paris (but not CDG or Orly), or you could take the train. TGV now runs from Avignon to Paris.

Just a thought.

Best of luck to you!