Cultural Journey to Marseille and Château La Coste

In the morning, at 9:30 am, departure with a direct flight from Barcelona to Marseille with an expected arrival at 10:45 am. Upon leaving the airport, we will meet our driver and Lidia, an official guide of the city of Marseille and Provence, who will accompany us during this 5-day tour. Today we will take a Marseille panoramic tour .

We will travel by coach along the famous Corniche Kennedy, a coastal avenue of more than five kilometers that borders the Mediterranean in the south of Marseille. From here we will enjoy open views towards the Frioul Archipelago and the historic Château d'If. We will also pass through the seaside area of the city, with the Prado Beaches and the Escale Borely, where the maritime and luminous character of Marseille is perceived.

We will continue towards the monumental Longchamp Palace, where we will make a stop to enjoy the surroundings. We will discuss the urban and symbolic meaning of the complex, built to celebrate the arrival of canal water to the city, as well as some aspects of its architecture and the role it played in the transformation of Marseille in the 19th century.

We will enjoy a good meal in the surroundings of the palace and then resume our tour towards the most contemporary area of the city.

The tour will then take us to the La Joliette neighborhood, the contemporary sector of the city. Thanks to the Euroméditerranée project, this former industrial port area has been deeply remodeled, giving rise to a new urban landscape where works by great architects such as Kengo Kuma, Zaha Hadid, and Jean Nouvel dialogue.

On this tour, we will discuss some keys to their architecture: in Kengo Kuma, the constructive lightness, the use of natural materials, and the idea of buildings as filters between interior and exterior; in Zaha Hadid, the fluid geometries, the dynamic lines, and the sensation of continuous movement; and in Jean Nouvel, the work with light, the skins of the buildings, and the play between transparency and opacity in dialogue with the port context.

At the end of this tour, we will head to the hotel.  We will be staying at the Grand Hotel Beauvau****, located in the very heart of Marseille’s Old Port. Set in a modern environment, this historic Marseille hotel has preserved its timeless spirit, reflecting the style of George Sand and Frédéric Chopin, who once stayed there. Known for its classic elegance, the hotel combines refined design with an unbeatable location from which to explore the city.

Free time and free dinner to continue exploring Marseille at your own pace on this first night.

We leave in the morning from Marseille towards Provence to spend the full day at one of the most singular cultural and landscape projects in Europe.

Château La Coste was born from the encounter between the region’s winemaking tradition and a contemporary vision of art and architecture. What was once a historic estate is today a great outdoor cultural park, where the landscape ceases to be a backdrop and becomes a stage for creation. Among vineyards, paths and forests, some of the great names in contemporary architecture have built pavilions and interventions that each propose, in their own way, a different way of inhabiting the land.

We will pause before the refined language of Tadao Ando, with his concrete, water and silence. Before the structures of Jean Nouvel, which play with shadow and lightness. Before the sculptural volumes of Frank Gehry, unmistakable and dynamic. Before the technical precision of Renzo Piano, subtly integrated into the surroundings. And before the more structural and industrial approach of Richard Rogers, in direct dialogue with the landscape.

Art appears scattered throughout the trail not as isolated pieces, but as stations along an itinerary where walking is an essential part of the aesthetic experience. The assertiveness of steel in the sculptures of Richard Serra, which compel the body to circle and pass through space. The lightness and colour of Alexander Calder, which introduce movement into the landscape. The symbolic and political dimension of Ai Weiwei. The intimate and emotional counterpoint of Louise Bourgeois. Art as an extension of the landscape, and the landscape as an extension of the museum.

The day is completed with a lunch on the estate and a wine tasting from the vineyard: a complete sensory immersion where seeing, walking, smelling and tasting form part of the same experience.

Return to Marseille in the mid-afternoon. An author’s trip to Marseille invites precisely this: to pause, to savour, to take one’s time. Free time to rest or continue enjoying the city as evening falls.

We leave in the morning for Aix-en-Provence, birthplace of Paul Cézanne and one of the most refined cultural centres of Provence. Being Saturday, its squares and streets are animated by open-air markets: colours, aromas and everyday scenes that allow us to experience the city not only as a historic-artistic setting, but as a living and contemporary space.

We take a walking tour of the historic centre following the places that shaped the artist’s life: the school where he studied, the spaces of his youth, his father’s hat factory (key to the family’s financial stability, which allowed him to paint) and, on the outskirts of the city, his last home and studio, the Atelier Cézanne, where he worked in the final years of his life. These places are not merely biography: they allow us to read the relationship between the artist’s life and the evolution of his gaze.

We visit the Musée Granet, one of the most interesting museums in the south of France. Its collection, with around 750 works, offers a broad panorama from the Primitives and the Renaissance to the great modern and contemporary masters: Rubens, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Degas, Picasso, Braque, Giacometti. A museum that contextualises Cézanne’s work within the French pictorial tradition and its modern offshoots, and that surprises with the richness of its permanent collection.

Throughout the day, a constant presence: the silhouette of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the mountain that Cézanne painted obsessively from multiple viewpoints and that has become an icon of the birth of modern painting. We observe how the relief, volumes and structure of the landscape dialogue with his way of constructing pictorial form. Seeing the mountain after having seen the paintings (or vice versa) is one of those experiences that only a cultural trip to Marseille and Provence can offer.

If the group’s pace allows, on the way back we make a stop at L’Estaque, an emblematic location in the painting of Cézanne and other artists of the late 19th century, where the harbour, the houses and the Mediterranean landscape gave rise to some of his most luminous compositions.

Return to Marseille at dusk. Free time and dinner on your own.

A day dedicated to the historic and cultural heart of Marseille, with three visits that complement each other in an extraordinary way.

We begin at the Cathedral of Sainte-Marie-Majeure (Cathédrale La Major), with its imposing blend of Byzantine and Romanesque styles and its monumental presence overlooking the harbour. A religious architecture that reflects the commercial history and Mediterranean identity of the city: Marseille as a place of encounter, transit and mixing.

Next, the Le Panier neighbourhood, the historic heart of the city. Its narrow streets, staircases, squares and colourful façades allow us to discover the daily life of old Marseille and its recent transformations, between tradition and urban renewal. A neighbourhood that has managed to preserve its character without becoming frozen in time.

The central visit of the day is the MUCEM, the Museum of the Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean. We analyse both the permanent exhibition and the building designed by Rudy Ricciotti, whose latticed concrete façade creates effects of light and shadow that engage with the harbour and coastline in an extraordinary way. Opposite it, Stefano Boeri’s building (Villa Méditerranée) completes the new urban development with its commitment to transparency, vertical greenery and a direct relationship with the maritime environment.

We close the day with an unparalleled visit: the replica of the Cosquer Cave, an underwater cave containing paintings and engravings over 27,000 years old. Horses, deer, seals and geometric signs that allow us to understand the life and artistic gaze of our ancestors, and to appreciate a unique link between art, history and nature in the Mediterranean. An experience that reframes everything seen during the trip: art does not begin in the 20th century, nor in the 19th. It begins here.

Free afternoon to stroll, discover hidden corners, enjoy the spring atmosphere of the harbour and its squares. Dinner on your own and overnight at the hotel.

First thing in the morning, after having breakfast, we will check out of the hotel and head to the Marseille airport to take our return flight to Barcelona scheduled for 09:40 am, arriving in Barcelona at 10:50 am.

End of the trip.