Just behind the harbour, Vieux Cassis is where Mistral's "who has seen Paris but not Cassis has seen nothing" is said to have been born, inspired by an 18th-century fountain on Place de la République. The rest of the village backs him up: paved lanes, pastel façades, shuttered windows, laundry above narrow passages and sun-warmed stone that feels properly lived in. Wander without a plan, let a shaded square catch you, then climb to Église Saint-Michel, built in the 1860s from the pale local stone.

Just behind the harbour, Vieux Cassis is where Mistral's "who has seen Paris but not Cassis has seen nothing" is said to have been born, inspired by an 18th-century fountain on Place de la République. The rest of the village backs him up: paved lanes, pastel façades, shuttered windows, laundry above narrow passages and sun-warmed stone that feels properly lived in. Wander without a plan, let a shaded square catch you, then climb to Église Saint-Michel, built in the 1860s from the pale local stone.

Cassis didn't start here: for centuries its first port was the calanque of Port-Miou, until the harbour you see today took over in the 17th century. The Port de Cassis has done a bit of everything since, from fishing to shipping out the pale stone quarried in the calanques. Now pastel fishermen's houses frame the basin, the morning catch comes off the pointus, and by evening the terraces take over. Come early for the boats and the light, return for the aperitif.

Cassis is famous for its calanques, but its beaches are how you enjoy the sea without planning an expedition. Plage de la Grande Mer, right by the port under the old château, is the central, animated one, where you go from towel to terrace in a few minutes. Plage du Bestouan, ten minutes' walk from the centre, feels more tucked away, with flat pebbles, Cap Canaille on the horizon and an underground river that runs out to sea beneath it, said to keep the water cooler. Both are supervised in summer.

Cassis is famous for its calanques, but its beaches are how you enjoy the sea without planning an expedition. Plage de la Grande Mer, right by the port under the old château, is the central, animated one, where you go from towel to terrace in a few minutes. Plage du Bestouan, ten minutes' walk from the centre, feels more tucked away, with flat pebbles, Cap Canaille on the horizon and an underground river that runs out to sea beneath it, said to keep the water cooler. Both are supervised in summer.

Cassis has a national park in its back garden, and the Calanques National Park hike escalates one cove at a time. Port-Miou, a former quarry now full of boats, is the warm-up. Port-Pin is the smallest and most intimate cove, pine-lined and easy to love. En-Vau saves the steepest, rockiest finish for last, with a beach as the reward. No appetite for hiking? Boats and kayaks give you the cliffs at sea level. Check access before you go: in summer, fire risk can close the trails.

Cassis has a national park in its back garden, and the Calanques National Park hike escalates one cove at a time. Port-Miou, a former quarry now full of boats, is the warm-up. Port-Pin is the smallest and most intimate cove, pine-lined and easy to love. En-Vau saves the steepest, rockiest finish for last, with a beach as the reward. No appetite for hiking? Boats and kayaks give you the cliffs at sea level. Check access before you go: in summer, fire risk can close the trails.

In October 1376, the last French pope, Gregory XI, sheltered his entire fleet in Port-Miou to wait out a storm on the way from Avignon to Rome, a fair review for a 1.4 km inlet that antiquity already called Portus melior, "the best port". Centuries of quarrying left their marks on the pale cliffs, and boats now moor deep inside the water. It's the first calanque you reach from Cassis, and the moment the village stops feeling like a village and starts becoming a landscape.

Aleppo pines give Port-Pin its name, and its shade makes it the gentlest of the three calanques around Cassis. A small beach of sand and pebbles, turquoise water and white limestone reward a walk of about 45 minutes from the Port-Miou car park, which is also why it fills up in summer. Detour 150 metres for a blowhole nicknamed Neptune's nostril, bring water and proper shoes, then choose: on to En-Vau, or stay in the blue.

Aleppo pines give Port-Pin its name, and its shade makes it the gentlest of the three calanques around Cassis. A small beach of sand and pebbles, turquoise water and white limestone reward a walk of about 45 minutes from the Port-Miou car park, which is also why it fills up in summer. Detour 150 metres for a blowhole nicknamed Neptune's nostril, bring water and proper shoes, then choose: on to En-Vau, or stay in the blue.

En-Vau means "in the valley", and the name fits: after a long hike, a gorge of white limestone needles, one of them nicknamed God's Finger, opens onto a pebble beach walled in by cliffs up to 100 metres high. It is the most demanding of the three calanques, roughly two hours from Cassis, with a steep, rocky descent at the end, so aim for the morning when the light still reaches the sand. En-Vau even hosted a scene of Fantômas in 1964, and that first glimpse of the water below has never looked less than cinematic.

This is where Cassis stops being cute: Cap Canaille rises 394 metres in red, gold and burnt orange, a very different mood from the white Calanques and at its best in the late afternoon, when the cliff glows. The Route des Crêtes runs along the ridge for about 15 km towards La Ciotat, with viewpoints over the bay, the Calanques and the vineyards, by car or on foot, and on Sundays the road closes to traffic.

This is where Cassis stops being cute: Cap Canaille rises 394 metres in red, gold and burnt orange, a very different mood from the white Calanques and at its best in the late afternoon, when the cliff glows. The Route des Crêtes runs along the ridge for about 15 km towards La Ciotat, with viewpoints over the bay, the Calanques and the vineyards, by car or on foot, and on Sundays the road closes to traffic.

Mistral wrote that Cassis white shines like a limpid diamond and smells of rosemary, heather and myrtle. Around a dozen estates share the appellation, so here are two to test the claim. Cassis Bodin runs guided tastings at Château de Fontblanche, home of Émile Bodin, the first winemaker in Provence to sell wine in bottles. Domaine du Bagnol is organic, 200 metres from the sea and run by a Cassis native who made his career in Paris, then came home in 1997 to a vineyard the town archives mention as far back as 1430.