Nice or Marseille: which southern French city should you choose?
Less than 100 miles apart as the crow flies, these two Mediterranean cities are nonetheless as different as chalk and cheese.
Nice, full of Belle Époque architecture, might feel quintessentially French, but it was only annexed to France in the mid-19th century. Marseille, the country's second city, is always evolving, with world food and street art in wild abundance. It's also the oldest city in France.
It's like choosing between a cocktail bar and a craft brewery: opt for Nice for glitz and glamour, but Marseille for urban cool and character. Not ready to pick based on one simile? Here's the lowdown.
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Culture & sights
Neither city will leave you disappointed. As colourful as a pack of Skittles, Nice's old town (Vieux Nice) largely dates from the Renaissance, with many streets barely wide enough to let a cart through.
It's a colour palette that enticed some of the most famous artists of the 20th century, including Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall (head to the Musée National Marc Chagall, partially designed by the artist himself, for hundreds of paintings and mosaics).
If you like the finer things in life, opulent Palais Lascaris, a 17th-century manor house with a collection of weird, wonderful and traditional musical instruments, is like window shopping on steroids.
Le Panier is Marseille's oldest quartier, higgledy-piggledy on the hill, but most of the frescos that brighten up the walls are very recent. A short walk from here takes you to Cours Julien, the most colourful street in the city. As to be expected in a city of this size, there's a good sprinkling of fine art galleries and palaces, but you could head to Paris for that.
Instead, go to tobacco factory-turned-events space La Friche la Belle de Mai to see whatever the latest exhibition is they're showing, or dance the night away at a rooftop party, or lose yourself in Mucem, a museum of Mediterranean history and civilisation set over multiple buildings, with a bridge on the third floor linking different sites across the harbour.
Food & drink
Simplified, it's a battle of the chickpeas. In Nice, there's socca, in Marseille, panisse, two dishes made from chickpea flour and water, yet prepared in different ways.
Socca is larger, flatter and baked in the oven (although still with lashings of olive oil), while panisse tends to be disc-shaped and deep fried. Both are so outrageously good that choosing one or the other would be like choosing a favourite child.
Nice's culinary specialities went viral before viral was a thing. You'd be hard pushed to find a UK salad bar that didn't serve salade niçoise, for example, a delicious mix of greens, hard-boiled eggs, tuna and olives. Ratatouille also came from here, as did pan bagnat (essentially a salade niçoise in a sandwich), and pissaladière (Nice's answer to a pizza, with no tomato sauce, but onions, olives and plenty of anchovies).
Marseille is famous for giving us bouillabaisse, a now extremely luxurious fish stew including scorpionfish, conger eel, and heaps of other fish and shellfish found in the Mediterranean, which was once the leftovers of the fishing haul.
Now, where it really comes into its own is in world cuisine. This is a city that has seen centuries of immigration, particularly from the Middle East and North Africa, and you won't find a finer couscous anywhere in France.
While both Nice and Marseille are watered by a steady supply of rosé, Cõtes de Provence, from neighbouring vineyards, Marseille is the birthplace of the famous liqueur company Pernod Ricard (originally two separate companies, Pernod and Ricard). It's best known for producing pastis, an aniseed-based liqueur generally enjoyed neat.
Beaches & nature
Just behind the city of Nice are the Préalps, the alpine foothills before arriving at the true mountain giants, nonetheless impressive with summits over 2,000 metres high in places.
For hikers, trail runners and mountain bikers, nature is never far away. In winter, the closest ski resorts to Nice are Isola 2000 and Auron, only 90 minutes away, meaning you really can ski during the day and swim in the Mediterranean Sea in the evening.
Nice's beaches win on size, and the Promenade des Anglais is lined with shingle beaches, many privately owned by beach clubs. The choice of cocktail bars and toes-in-the-shingle dining is excellent.
But size isn't everything, and Marseille's Plage des Catalans (a 20-minute walk from the Vieux Port) has an underwater sculpture museum, which you can visit for free if equipped with a snorkel mask and have the lung capacity to tackle it; it's 5m below the surface.
A larger beach, Plage du Prado, is a 45-minute bus ride from the city centre, but many Marseillais prefer to stretch out on the rocks at places like Anse de Maldormé. Pack waterproof shoes if heading here; the setting is idyllic, but the rocks shred your feet.
The best beaches by far, though, are just outside the city, in the calanques (limestone inlets) which run between Marseille and Cassis; pockmarked and scarred cliffs which plunge to meet hidden coves, most of which are inaccessible by road.
A kayaking and climbing haven, it's a victim of its own popularity, and visitor numbers are often capped in summer.
Getting around
There's no metro line in Nice, but the bus and tram networks are extensive, and trams even link the airport with the city centre.
Marseille does have a metro, but it's small for a city of its size, and with only two lines, it can often be chaotic, making buses the most practical option in much of the city. Both cities also have pay-per-use electric bikes: Lime and Pony in Nice, and levélo in Marseille.
Compare weather
Nice vs Marseille
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Maximum daytime temperature (°C)
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The above graphs compare the climate in Nice with the climate in Marseille. Find out more about conditions across the country in our complete guide to the climate in the south of France.
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