Whether you want to see big cities or small isolated villages, you want to holiday on the coast or wander through the mountainside, the important thing is to take your time while visiting the Bouches du Rhône. If you’re hiring a motorhome in France or you’re hiring a motorhome in England, this is a department with a little bit of everything to offer, not least of all a very agreeable climate.
Marseille, on the eastern side of the department, is the second city of France. It celebrated its 2600th birthday in 1999 and its history dates back to even before the Romans. It was the Greeks who founded the city and left the first impressions. There are many wonderful sights to see; the old quarter of Panier; the old port; the Park of Borley. Not to mention perhaps the biggest attraction, the ‘Calanques’. What better opportunity to visit this wonderful marvel of nature than if plan to do some motorhome travel in France.
Along this Mediterranean coast is the natural phenomenon ‘Les Calanques’, limestone cliffs and rocky outcrops which display the fossilised remains of marine micro-organisms from hundreds of millions of years ago. Stretching over 20km from the village of Goudes in the south western quarter of the city of Marseille to Cassis, the Calanques attract millions of visitors every year and are one of the most remarkable sites in France. Whilst we can pass a very agreeable moment in this area, huge efforts are made to protect this delicate nature and it is in the process of becoming a national park, hopefully in 2011.
Use the free Aires de Service in the Bouches de Rhône for an overnight stop and head to the west of the department to the Regional Nature Park of the Camargue. This breathtaking wilderness is famous for its white horses and its bulls. At the heart of the Camargue is the coastal town of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer. With its kilometres of beach well loved by bathers it is also an ideal place for walkers and horse riders.
In land there are also interesting towns to visit such as Aix-en-Provence, with its sumptuous facades around green squares, dotted with cafés and ancient fountains dating from as far back as the 15th century; Arles at the very northern tip of the Carmargue with no less than a hundred historic monuments dating from each and every period of its development. From Arles you can pass over the departmental border to do some motorhoming in the Vaucluse.
