Sète, France lingers long after you've left its canals behind. There's something about a place that hasn't been polished for visitors, that continues its daily rhythms whether you're watching or not, that makes it harder to shake. You'll remember the particular quality of light bouncing off the Grand Canal at dusk, the taste of oysters eaten standing at a market stall, the view from Mont Saint-Clair where sea and lagoon embrace a sliver of land that somehow became a town. Sète doesn't demand that you fall in love with it—the fishing boats will keep coming in, the joutes will happen every summer, Les Halles will open before dawn regardless of whether tourists discover it. But if you've paid attention, if you've wandered its bridges and climbed its stairs and lingered over its seafood, you'll find yourself thinking about return before you even realize it.

Marseille, France doesn't apologize for itself. France's oldest city—founded by Greek sailors around 600 BCE—sprawls across sun-bleached hillsides above the Mediterranean, wearing its 2,600 years with a swagger that more polished French cities can't quite muster. This is a port town in its bones: gritty, multilayered, stubbornly authentic, and utterly unlike anywhere else in France. While Paris perfects its postcard beauty and the Côte d'Azur chases glamour, Marseille does its own thing.