This is the (or an) official Tourism office in Marseille. Located adjacent to the Vieux Port, it's…read morea central location that has an extensive set of guides and tour books inside. Some of the local city tour companies have their starting points outside the office usually somewhere along the street. A helpful and necessary place to visit if you're looking for a map or someone who speaks English that can guide you wherever you need to go in the city. The official city tour of Marseille run by NAP Tourism stops right outside the office. It's about a 90 minute tour or so with an audio track. You go from the old port up steep side streets to the Basilique Notre Dame where you have 40 minutes to go around, and take pictures. Then it goes around the rest of the city highlighting important districts, other prominent churches, and the like. It's NOT a hop-on, hop-off tour besides the one stop at the Notre Dame cathedral so it's nice to sit on a warm bus on a colder day. You get a nice overview of the city and I encourage you save a day to take a cliche tour. It's especially good if you're only in the city for a short time and want to make the most of it.

One thing I am learning about France is that most larger towns and all cities have tourism offices…read moreand the workers usually speak decent English. In Marseille's office, one of their workers was actually from the US and he helped me out a lot when trying to navigate around the city. He was able to explain the Metro system, train schedule, and gave me maps of both the city and of walking tours around Marseille. This should be your first stop if visiting Marseille.