One stop away from Cassis, La Ciotat manages to escape the excess
tourists during the low season, and even the beginning of the summer. However, once summer
comes along, this sleepy fishing village explodes with parties and clubs. The town’s
overnight transformation from an innocuous port where middle-class Frenchmen dock their
boats to party central is like Extreme Makeover Port Edition. La Ciotat’s old town seems
to be very confined to the port, but expanded development along the beaches has made the
technical city limits somewhat undefinable. The expansion has shifted the focal point of
tourism to the beaches, leaving the old port uniquely untouched by the pasty masses
searching for sun in the summer. A good place for low key sailing or scuba diving, not to
mention a calanque hike and beach time, Ciotat is sure to remain a budget traveler’s
paradise, so long as the rest of the world doesn’t find out there is a low priced sea town
in southern France.