The gulls are squabbling as I walk along the harbourfront and glance at the chilled-out folks in shorts, T-shirts and sunglasses enjoying beers outside the Temple Bar.

Seeing the name of this and the other watering holes on and around the strip — The Ten Bells, The Old Ship, The Crown, O’ Kylian’s Pub — reminds me of coastal towns in Britain and Ireland.

But we’re in the south of France.

A 40-minute drive east of Marseille, just beyond the picturesque port town of Cassis, La Ciotat is a relatively unsung Provencal destination, especially as overseas travellers are usually drawn to the likes of St Tropez and Cannes instead.

But this is a really nice spot, brimming with nautical intrigue, stunning Mediterranean vistas and surprising cultural heritage. A fishing and trading port since ancient Greek and Roman times, La Ciotat became a shipbuilding powerhouse in the 17th century.

And despite economy-crushing closures in the 1980s, it has reinvented itself as a hub for repairing and refitting luxury yachts. A few of these multi-million-dollar vessels are today gleaming in the waters of the picturesque old harbour, Le Port Vieux, though it’s the smaller, traditional pointus - the colourfully painted wooden boats with tapered bows and sterns — that are more my cup of tea.

A flurry of masts and cranes pierce the sky. Beside one is a monument unveiled in 2007 by French artist Gilbert Ganteaume that pays tribute to asbestos victims who worked on the shipyards.

The converted harbourside building next door contains a free-to-enter exhibition displaying models of merchant steamships, oil tankers and naval vessels constructed at La Ciotat (which means “The City” in Occitan, a regional language spoken here, along with French). A few doors down, there’s a store that turns old ropes and sails into bags and gifts.

As well as the pubs, mariners from around the world have sought refuge and spiritual guidance in the city’s chapels and churches. The largest, the Eglise Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, rises between Le Port Vieux and the historic quarter, where jasmine-scented alleys and squares are lined with shuttered apartments, independent stores and food and drink spots, including the vintage book-stocked Le Cafe de l’Horloge and trendy coffee shop Sea La Vie.

La Ciotat has more than 7km of coastline, from rugged cliff-shaded coves — called calanques — to a central, family-friendly necklace of sandy beaches. One is named Plage Lumiere after pioneers of cinema the Lumiere brothers, Louis and Auguste, who had a summer house here and screened a trailblazing 50-second moving picture, L’arrivee d’un train en gare de La Ciotat (The Arrival of A Train At La Ciotat Station), at the city’s Eden Theatre in 1899, a decade after the venue opened as a theatre and music hall.

Now billed as the planet’s oldest purpose-built cinema still in operation — a fact recognised by Guinness World Records — it offers guided tours for groups.

We pass the cinema on our stroll along the seafront promenade, politely declining (“non, merci!”) the gentle overtures of staff attempting to seduce passersby into their beachfront bars and eateries.

We’ve pre-booked a table at Le Nautique, a French-Italian restaurant overlooking a cute marina at the end of La Grande Plage. After lunch on the pine-shaded terrace— shrimp and scallop risotto with local rosé wine, followed by espressos and creamy chocolate patisserie-style desserts — we stretch our legs with a walk back to Le Port Vieux, passing sun-bronzed teenagers chatting among themselves and a group of perma-tanned pensioners tossing boules.

Another of La Ciotat’s claims to fame is that it’s the birthplace of petanque. The first official tournament was played here in 1910, and the game has become an intrinsic part of life and leisure in Provence, a region of France that offers so much more than the big names.

fact file + To help plan a trip to La Ciotat, see destinationlaciotat.com + La Ciotat is on the railway line between Marseille and Ventimiglia in Italy. For tickets and timetables, see sncf-connect.com/en-en