Toulon is not the Provence the brochures sell. It is a big, grey, working naval city, home to France's main Mediterranean fleet and the base of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, and a lot of cruisers sail straight past it for the prettier ports east and west. I think that is a mistake. The Vieille Darse marina drops you in the middle of a real French city, the great natural harbour around it has good anchorages, and the mountain of Mont Faron behind makes the whole thing rather dramatic. You just have to understand that you are a guest in someone else's harbour, and that someone is the Navy.
Used with that in mind, Toulon is one of the more interesting stops on this coast, and a handy bad-weather refuge to boot.
The harbour and the city marina
Toulon's rade, the great roadstead, splits into a large rade to the east and a sheltered petite rade to the west, contiguous between Toulon, La Seyne-sur-Mer and the Saint-Mandrier peninsula that closes it off to the south. The whole thing is one of the finest natural harbours in the Mediterranean, and that is exactly why the Navy is here.
For visitors, the obvious base is the Vieille Darse, the old harbour right in the city centre. It is a substantial marina with around 600 berths afloat and roughly 100 kept for visitors, takes boats up to about 55 metres, and offers depths of up to 8 metres, so size and draught are not a problem here. You raise the capitainerie on VHF channel 9. Berthing puts you within a couple of minutes' walk of the old town, the covered Provencal market on the cours Lafayette, the ferries to the islands, and a city's worth of shops, chandlers and restaurants. For provisioning and any boat jobs, that access is a real advantage over the smaller resort ports.
If the Vieille Darse is full, the second pleasure harbour at Saint-Louis du Mourillon, a little east towards the Mourillon beaches, has around 265 berths with roughly 69 for visitors, but it is shallower, with maximum lengths under about 6.5 metres and depths around a metre, so it suits smaller boats. Bigger yachts should aim for the Vieille Darse.
Approaching the rade
The approach to Toulon is wide and well marked, which is a relief in a harbour this busy. Coming from the east, you round the Cap Sicie massif and the Saint-Mandrier peninsula that shelter the rade from the southwest; from the west, you work past the Iles d'Or and the Giens peninsula. The entrance to the great rade is broad, but once inside you must follow the buoyed routes laid out for pleasure craft, because the rest of the water is given over to the Navy and to commercial and ferry traffic.
The petite rade, the inner western part, is where the marinas and the naval dockyard sit, and it is the more sheltered of the two. The large rade to the east is more open and gets the swell in a strong easterly or southeasterly, so in those conditions push on into the inner harbour rather than lingering in the outer roadstead. Ferries cross the rade constantly between Toulon and the peninsula villages, fast and frequent, so keep a sharp lookout and do not assume they will alter for you.
Sharing the water with the Navy
The single thing to understand about Toulon is that large parts of the harbour are off-limits. The naval base occupies much of the petite rade, and there are prohibited and restricted zones around the dockyard and the moored warships that you absolutely must not enter. They are marked on the chart, patrolled, and taken seriously. Keep to the buoyed channels for pleasure craft, stay well clear of anything grey and large, and if a naval patrol boat tells you to move, move.
It sounds intimidating but in practice it is straightforward: the routes for yachts are clear, the commercial and ferry traffic is well organised, and as long as you respect the boundaries the Navy ignores you completely. Coming in or out, keep a good lookout for ferries running to Saint-Mandrier, La Seyne and the Iles d'Or, and for the occasional warship movement, and you will have no trouble.
Anchorages in the petite rade
The petite rade is dotted with coves and small fishing harbours, and there is decent anchoring to be had if you stay outside the prohibited zones. The Saint-Mandrier peninsula and the Tamaris corniche on the La Seyne side shelter several anchorages from different wind directions, and in settled weather they make pleasant lunch and overnight stops within easy reach of the city.
The wind to watch is the mistral, the cold dry northwesterly that funnels down the Rhone valley and can arrive hard and with little warning. The big rade is largely open to the west and southwest, so an anchorage that is calm in a sea breeze can become untenable when the mistral fills in. Before you settle anywhere for the night, read reading the mistral before it traps you, and pick your spot for the forecast wind, not the wind you have now. The general weather behaviour of this coast is covered in the mistral and tramontane Med winds, which is worth understanding before you cruise Provence at all.
A few notes on anchoring here:
- Stay outside the naval prohibited zones. They are not negotiable and they are patrolled.
- Check the holding. Parts of the rade are weed over mud, so make sure the anchor is properly set.
- Plan for the mistral. The rade opens to the west, and a calm cove can turn rough fast.
- Mind the Posidonia. Anchoring rules on the French Mediterranean increasingly protect the seagrass, so avoid dropping on it where you can.
Toulon as a base and a refuge
For all its workaday looks, Toulon earns its place on a cruising plan. As a refuge it is excellent: the rade is huge and sheltered, the marina is deep and central, and you can sit out a mistral here in comfort while the open coast outside is unworkable. As a base it gives you city-scale provisioning, chandlers, repair facilities and good transport links, which the smaller ports nearby cannot match.
It is also well placed. The Iles d'Or, Porquerolles, Port-Cros and the Ile du Levant lie a short sail to the east, and the quieter Var coast runs west towards Bandol and Sanary. The island-hopping in Porquerolles and the Hyeres islands makes an easy onward leg, and Toulon is the natural mainland base from which to set out for them, top up, and return.
The city ashore
The reason I keep coming back to Toulon is the city itself. Step off the pontoon in the Vieille Darse and you are in the old town within a couple of minutes, among narrow streets, fountains and the daily market on the cours Lafayette, which is one of the best in Provence and runs most mornings. After weeks of small resort harbours where the only shops are a boutique and an ice-cream stall, a real working market and proper supermarkets are a genuine pleasure.
For boat jobs, Toulon is also far better equipped than its prettier neighbours. There are chandlers, sailmakers, riggers and engineers in and around the port, and the city's transport links, with a main railway station and an airport nearby at Hyeres, make it a practical place to change crew or have parts sent. If something has broken on the way down the coast, this is the place to get it sorted rather than further east where the Riviera prices climb and the workshops are busier.
The naval heritage gives the city its character. The Musee National de la Marine on the waterfront is worth an hour, the cable car up Mont Faron gives a view over the whole rade and the fleet, and the harbour-front cafes are full of sailors of one kind or another. It is not chic, and that is exactly its charm: Toulon is a port that works for a living, and it treats a visiting yacht as just another boat needing a berth.
Sail past Toulon if you only want postcards. Stop here if you want a real city, a deep central berth, a vast natural harbour and somewhere solid to hide when the mistral blows. Respect the Navy, watch the wind, and the grey naval port turns out to be one of the most useful harbours on the whole Provence coast.
