Getting there.

Getting to the Calanques by car is as simple as following the Auto Route du Soliel, until you reach Marseille. If you have flown in from Nice its probably best to approach most of the climbing locations by following the road (D599) that leads out of Cassis. If not you are faced with a car journey through Marseille, which is always an interesting experience the first time. If you following the A7 or A55 into Marseille then stay on the motorway until you see the signs for Les Ports, follow this until you start picking up sign posts for La Plage. Eventually you will follow signs that take you under the port by tunnel before putting you on the beach road. Follow this until you come to a roundabout, where you turn left towards Mazargues, this in turn leads to Sugiton via the Luminy. Or back at the roundabout instead of turning left, go straight ahead following the coastline to Les Goudes.

Two pieces of advice
1) don't attempt the journey into Marseille during the rush hours after 9am is fine and
2) at the end of the day don't follow the signposts for Cinq Avenues as you can easily see a brilliant day ruined by sitting in traffic jams caused by so many traffic lights.

As far as leaving your car, personally I've yet to have a problem, but then I always leave it empty and I try to park at the Luminy in sight of one of the mobile Cafes or as close as possible to the small village of Callongue near to Les Goudes.

Either way Hire Cars seem to have a special attraction to car thieves as they are easy to identify and due to their cheap specification they are easy to break into.