What is the Marseille outdoor escape game?
The Marseille outdoor escape game is an escape room taken out of doors: you hold your phone, walk the city, and at each of its 10 stops you work out a puzzle by watching the surroundings and reasoning step by step. Allow about 2 hours, including 51 minutes of walking over 4 km, and pick any day that suits your plans.
The puzzles sit on the Canebière, at the opera, on the Old Port, at Fort Saint-Jean, the Mucem, La Major cathedral and in the lanes of Le Panier. Each one stands alone, so nothing ties them into a plot. If you get stuck, three levels of hints are there to help. Marseille suits the format because the sites follow one walkable line, from the 19th-century avenue to the oldest quarter, so the game feels like a single outing.
- Durationabout 2 hours
- Walkingabout 51 min · 4 km
- Stops10
- LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch
What you do during the escape game
Solve
Work out each puzzle from what you observe on site and from plain logic. You need no prior knowledge of Marseille.
Observe
Clues are hidden in the surroundings, from details on the façades to the layout of each square.
Navigate
Google Maps guides you from one site to the next, covering about 51 minutes of walking in total.
Pace yourself
No clock runs in the background. Use a hint when you need one, pause, and continue later or on another day.
See the route and attractions →
How it works
- Book online Choose the number of players. Your booking reference arrives by email straight away.
- Get the app Download the World City Trail app from the App Store or Google Play and enter your booking reference.
- Play when you like Start whenever you are ready, walk at your own pace and pause any time. No guide, no fixed schedule.
Who it is for
Friends
The puzzles give everyone something to argue over at the next site, and nobody needs to know Marseille beforehand.
Couples
A shared challenge that keeps you talking as you move from one site to the next, at your own speed.
Team building
Each player works from their own phone, so colleagues can play together without a guide or a fixed schedule.
Good to know
- Bring a charged smartphone with mobile data; a power bank helps.
- Best started in daylight, so you can see the details the puzzles ask about.
- No entry tickets needed: everything happens outside the buildings. Going inside is optional and paid separately.
- Family friendly; children must be accompanied by an adult.
- Not suitable for wheelchair users and difficult with strollers.
- Teams of up to 5 work best; bigger groups split into several teams, one ticket per player.
- Every purchase helps support stray cats and dogs in Greece.
Puzzle route: from Les Réformés to La Vieille Charité
10 stops · about 51 min walking · start: Les Réformés (Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Church) · finish: La Vieille Charité
The route opens at Les Réformés, the church with twin spires at the top of the Canebière, and ends at La Vieille Charité. In between come La Canebière, the Opéra de Marseille, Pavillon Daviel, the Vieux-Port, Fort Saint-Jean, the Mucem, Cathédrale La Major and Le Panier. Start in daylight, because the puzzles are solved outdoors and rain or wind slow the game. No entry tickets are needed for the puzzles, and a few streets are steep.
Open the route map ↗
1Les Réformés (Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Church)Start
At the top of the Canebière rises the neo-Gothic church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, built in the second half of the 19th century. Locals call it Les Réformés, after the convent of reformed Augustinian friars that stood here before it. Its twin spires close the view up the city's main avenue.
2La Canebière
The Canebière runs for about a kilometre from the Old Port up to Les Réformés and is Marseille's best-known avenue. Its name comes from the Provençal word for hemp, recalling the rope-makers who once supplied the ships in the port. Look up at the grand 19th-century façades of former hotels, banks and shipping offices.
3Opéra de Marseille
Marseille's opera house stands on the site of the Grand-Théâtre, which opened in 1787. After a fire in 1919 the interior was rebuilt in Art Deco style and the house reopened in 1924, behind the colonnade of the older façade. Look for the stylised reliefs and lettering of the 1920s above the entrance.
4Pavillon Daviel
On the edge of Le Panier, the Pavillon Daviel is an 18th-century building that long served as the city's courthouse. It is known for its elegant wrought-iron balcony, and the square in front is named after Jacques Daviel, a surgeon who pioneered cataract operations while working in Marseille.
5Vieux-Port (Old Port)
On this quay of the Old Port the little tourist trains of Marseille set off. The harbour is where Greek sailors from Phocaea founded the city around 600 BC, which makes Marseille one of the oldest cities in France. Nearby stands the 17th-century town hall, one of the few buildings on the quay to survive the destruction of the old quarter in 1943.
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6Fort Saint-Jean
Louis XIV had Fort Saint-Jean and Fort Saint-Nicolas built at the harbour entrance from the 1660s, after Marseille had rebelled against royal authority. The fort absorbed older buildings, including the 15th-century square tower of King René and a commandery of the Knights of Saint John. A footbridge now links it to the Mucem.
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7Mucem
The Museum of Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean opened in 2013, when Marseille was European Capital of Culture. Architect Rudy Ricciotti wrapped its cube-shaped building in a lace-like screen of dark fibre-reinforced concrete. Footbridges connect its roof terrace to Fort Saint-Jean and the Panier district.
8Cathédrale La Major
Marseille's cathedral, Sainte-Marie-Majeure or La Major, was built between 1852 and 1893 in a Romano-Byzantine style designed by Léon Vaudoyer. Its striped walls of green and white stone and its domes make it one of the largest churches built in France in the 19th century. The much smaller medieval Old Major still stands at its foot.
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9Le Panier
This stop lies in Le Panier, Marseille's oldest quarter, on the hill where the Greek colony of Massalia grew up. Its steep lanes, staircases and small squares are known for colourful façades, street art and small craft and design shops. In 1943 the German occupiers blew up much of the lower part of the old town near the port.
10La Vieille CharitéFinish
La Vieille Charité was built between 1671 and 1749 to designs by the Marseille architect Pierre Puget, as a poorhouse where the city's beggars were confined. Three storeys of arcaded galleries surround a courtyard with a chapel crowned by an oval dome. Today it houses museums of Mediterranean archaeology and of African, Oceanic and Amerindian arts.
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