Toulon is a city on the French Riviera, famous for its 1793 siege, and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is the prefecture of the Var department.
Brest is a port city in the Finistère department, Brittany. Located in a sheltered bay not far from the western tip of a peninsula and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second largest French military port after Toulon. The city is located on the western edge of continental France. With 139,456 inhabitants (2020), Brest forms Western Brittany's largest metropolitan area, ranking third behind only Nantes and Rennes in the whole of historic Brittany, and the 25th most populous city in France (2019); moreover, Brest provides services to the one million inhabitants of Western Brittany. Although Brest is by far the largest city in Finistère, the préfecture of the department is in the much smaller town of Quimper.
Rochefort, unofficially Rochefort-sur-Mer for disambiguation, is a city and commune in Southwestern France, a port on the Charente estuary. It is a subprefecture of the Charente-Maritime department, located in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes more involved with original construction, dockyards are sometimes more linked with maintenance and basing activities. The terms are routinely used interchangeably, in part because the evolution of dockyards and shipyards has often caused them to change or merge roles.
Villefranche-sur-Mer is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera and is located south-west of the Principality of Monaco, which is just west of the French-Italian border.
The siege of Toulon was a military engagement that took place during the Federalist revolts and the War of the First Coalition, part of the French Revolutionary Wars. It was undertaken by forces of the French Republic against Royalist rebels supported by Anglo-Spanish forces in the southern French city of Toulon. It was during this siege that young Napoleon Bonaparte first won fame and promotion when his plan, involving the capture of fortifications above the harbour, was credited with forcing the city to capitulate and the Anglo-Spanish fleet to withdraw. The siege marked the first involvement of the British Royal Navy with the French Revolution.
The A50 autoroute is a French motorway connecting Marseille to Toulon. The motorway is 65 km and has a mixture of 2x2 and 2x3 lanes that run through mountainous coastal terrain along the Mediterranean. As such, it has some relatively sharp turns and steep gradients by French motorway standards, and some sections have a reduced speed limit of 110 km/h.
The Old Port of Marseille is at the end of the Canebière, the major street of Marseille. It has been the natural harbour of the city since antiquity and is now the main popular place in Marseille. It became mainly pedestrian in 2013.
The Tour Royale is a fort built in the 16th century to protect the entrance of the Petit Rade, the naval port of Toulon. It was the first fortification of the harbor, built 22 years after Provence became a part of France.
The Bagne of Toulon was a notorious bagne, or penal establishment in Toulon, France, made famous as the place of imprisonment of the fictional Jean Valjean, the hero of Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. It was opened in 1748 and closed in 1873.
Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer, commonly referred to simply as Saint-Mandrier, is a commune in the southeastern French department of Var, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Across the harbour from the military port of Toulon, first naval base in Europe by size and homeport of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, flagship of the French Navy, Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer is home to a fishing port of its own, tucked into a small inlet.
The Brest Arsenal is a collection of naval and military buildings located on the banks of the river Penfeld, in Brest, France.
Le Mourillon is a neighbourhood to the east of the French city of Toulon, near the entrance to the Rade or roadstead. It was once a fishing village, and then became the home of many of the officers of the French fleet and to part of the naval dockyard. Mourillon has a small fishing port, next to a 16th-century fort, Fort Saint Louis, which was reconstructed by Vauban. In the 1970s the city of Toulon built a series of sheltered sandy beaches in Mourillon, which today are very popular with the Toulonais and with naval families. The Museum of Asian Art is located in a house on the waterfront near Fort St. Louis.
Mogador was the lead ship of the French Navy's Mogador class of large destroyers. Named after the Moroccan town, she was built before the outbreak of World War II. The ship was heavily damaged during the British attack on Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940, but was later repaired and sailed to Toulon. She was scuttled in Toulon Harbor when the Germans tried to seize her, along with the rest of the fleet, on 27 November 1942.
Cherbourg Harbour is a harbour situated at the northern end of the Cotentin Peninsula, on the English Channel coastline, in Normandy, northwestern France. With a surface area of 1,500 hectares, it is the second largest artificial harbour in the world, after the 4,500 hectare Ras Laffan Harbour in Qatar. As well as Cherbourg Naval Base, it has been used for mercantile shipping.
Cherbourg Naval Base is a naval base in Cherbourg Harbour, Cherbourg, Manche department, Normandy. The town has been a base of the French Navy since the opening of the military port in 1813.
Arsenal de La Carraca, also Naval Station of La Carraca, is a naval shipyard and a naval base in San Fernando, Spain. It is a naval base for the construction and repair of ships, and the storage and distribution of arms and ammunition. The first military establishment of its kind to be created in Spain under the naval policy of Felipe V, it was developed by Patiño and the Marquis de la Ensenada. Though work on building the shipyard began in 1720, the formal decree issued by Fernando VI on October 3, 1752, accelerated its construction until it was completed in the late 18th century.
SS Gallia was a transatlantic ocean liner of the Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique built in 1913. Gallia was the Roman name for the province of Gaul.
The Arsenal de Rochefort was a French naval base and dockyard in the town of Rochefort. It was founded in 1665 and it was closed in 1926.
The Cartagena Naval Base, also known as Arsenal of Cartagena, is a military base and arsenal of the Spanish Navy located in the city of Cartagena. It is one of the oldest naval bases in Spain, having been created in the 18th century. Located in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, it is the main Spanish base in the Mediterranean Sea.
