Calanques National Park Rules 2026: Entry, Boats & Bans

Booking choice: The schooner day with lunch, from $146 per person. Check dates Tour details

The Parc national des Calanques was created on 18 April 2012, France's tenth national park. It covers 8,500 hectares of land and 43,500 of sea between Marseille, Cassis and La Ciotat, and gets 2 to 3 million visitors a year.

Most of its rules exist because of those numbers. Here is what they mean for a visitor, by boat and on foot, plus what the word calanque means and how to say it.

The quick answer

No, you don't pay to enter: the park is free and open around the clock, except on red fire-risk days. At sea, boats keep to 5 knots within 300 m of shore, jet skis are banned, and only authorised boats carry passengers. No boat may land on En-Vau beach, and none may anchor in En-Vau or Port-Pin. On land: no fires, no smoking, no camping, dogs on a lead, and a free Sugiton booking on busy summer days.

Calanque cliffs at golden hour seen from the sea — A national park on the edge of France's second city.

Do you have to pay to enter Calanques National Park?

No. Entry is free and the park is open 24 hours a day, every day, except when it closes for fire risk.

The park's FAQ says so directly. There are no gates and no tickets. What you pay for is getting there and getting around: a bus ticket, a parking space if you find one, a sea shuttle (€5), a Cassis port boat (€19 to €33 in 2026) or a tour.

Sugiton's summer reservation is free too. One listing, the picnic catamaran, names a "calanques tax" among its inclusions; that is an operator cost, not an entry fee for you.

What does calanque mean in French?

A narrow cove between steep rock walls. The word comes from Provençal calanco, from an old root, kal, meaning stone.

The park's page on place names traces it to Provençal calanco, a cove with steep sides, from the Indo-European kal (stone) and a Ligurian suffix for a steep slope, the same one as in avalanche. Geologically, a calanque is a river valley cut into limestone and drowned when the sea rose after the last ice age.

The names along the coast have meanings too:

Name	Meaning
Port-Miou	From Portus melior, "best port": sheltered, used by Roman ships
Sormiou	Usually read as "better spring"
En-Vau	Vau means valley
Morgiou	From pre-Roman mor, height
L'Oule	Provençal for cauldron

How do I pronounce Calanques?

Ka-LONK. The French is [kalɑ̃k]: stress the second syllable, nasal "on", and don't sound the -ques.

The plural sounds the same as the singular. Sormiou is "sor-MYOO", En-Vau "on-VOH" and Port-Miou "por-MYOO". Cassis is "ka-SEE": locals don't sound the final s, unlike the blackcurrant liqueur.

What are the rules for boats in the park?

5 knots within 300 m of shore, no jet skis or towed sports, and only park-authorised boats may carry passengers. Drones are banned over the whole park.

Speed: 5 knots inside the 300 m strip, marked by yellow buoys. Nobody may tie up to a yellow buoy.
Banned outright: jet skis, water-skiing, parasailing and other motorised towing.
Passenger boats: only authorised operators, shown by a flag and an orange sticker on the hull. Look for the sticker if anyone offers you a ride off a beach.
Big boats: vessels over 24 m may not anchor anywhere from Frioul to La Ciotat.
Drones and model planes: banned over the park.

Aerial view of a tour boat moving slowly through a narrow calanque — Inside the buoys every boat slows down, tour boats included.

Why can't boats land or anchor at En-Vau?

Because of crowding. Landing on En-Vau beach from a boat has been banned since the 2000s, and anchoring and drifting have been banned in En-Vau and Port-Pin since summer 2021.

Until the 1990s a ferry from Cassis put people straight onto En-Vau's beach. The park now counts about 1,000 people at once there at peak times, and the boats added to it. Landing went first. Then prefectoral orders in May 2021 banned anchoring and drifting in En-Vau and Port-Pin, with marker buoys laid that July. Sugiton and Marseilleveyre were named as next.

For you: the boats still enter En-Vau, slow down and show it to you. Swims happen in other coves and at the islands. The way to stand on that beach is to walk or to paddle in, which is what the paddleboard tour from Port-Miou does. See swimming in the calanques for where the boats do stop.

En-Vau from the water, a pebble beach between high white limestone walls — En-Vau: seen from every boat, landed on by none.

What are the no-take zones?

Seven zones covering about 10% of the park's sea where all fishing is banned, including the eastern half of the Riou archipelago.

Inside them no fishing of any kind is allowed, and some boundaries aren't marked on the water. Feeding or disturbing sea life is banned everywhere in the park. Around Riou, the "Cousteau triangle" also bans mooring and diving to protect underwater archaeology.

On the Riou islands you may land only on Riou itself, from sunrise to sunset, between the calanques of Fontagne and Monastério, and stay on the path. The rest is for nesting seabirds: Cory's and Yelkouan shearwaters, storm petrels and shags. The result is the clearest snorkelling in the park. The schooner day and the picnic catamaran both stop near Riou for a swim.

Riou island, bare white limestone rising from deep blue water — Riou: landing on one stretch only, the rest left to the birds.

Calanques Sailing Day on a 1949 Schooner

A day under sail through the Riou islands on a 1949 wooden schooner, with two swims and lunch on deck.

★ 4.7 · 7 hours · from $146

Explore the schooner day with lunch Tour details

What happens on fire-risk days, and what else is banned on land?

From 1 June to 30 September the land can close the next day for fire risk. All year, fires, smoking, camp stoves and camping are banned, and dogs must be on a lead.

The fire-risk map comes out each evening between 17:00 and 18:00. On a red day nobody may enter the massif, and the Route des Crêtes above Cassis closes. Boat trips still run, but no one lands; the Frioul islands stay open. The fire-risk post covers the season.

Fire, smoking, gas stoves: banned all year, fine €135.
Camping and bivouac: banned all year, including roadsides through the core, fine €68.
Dogs: allowed on a lead.
Sugiton: free booking on busy summer days in 2026, capped at 400 a day. See the Sugiton post.
Roads: Sormiou, Morgiou and Callelongue closed to cars by day in summer 2026.

On a red day the land shuts and the schooner still sails: a full day at sea with two swims.

Check dates for the schooner day with lunch

Is Calanques National Park worth visiting?

Yes. It is one of the few national parks on the edge of a big city, and the rules are why it still looks the way it does.

The white cliffs, deep coves and islands are a short bus or boat ride from Marseille's centre. Plan around the rules and they barely get in the way: book the boat for July and August, walk in spring and autumn, and check the fire-risk map the evening before.

Our pick for a first visit is a boat. You see the most calanques for the least effort, and a red day doesn't stop you. For the ports, see the Calanques from Marseille.