Cap Canaille & Cassis

Xavier and I had a holiday on Friday. Cassis is one hour from our house...so we set off for a lunch on the Mediterranean. Up above Cassis rests Cap Canaille: the highest sea cliff in France, looking out over the Mediterranean and Cassis. The height is dizzying - 394m (1,293 ft) above and a straight fall down. Incredible. Xavier doesn't love heights and he turned white the closer we got to that edge (hence the numerous photos featuring me). The color of the water, the ochre rock, the vegetation of the Côte d'Azur...remarkable. French Riviera at its best.




My legs dangling 1,293 ft in the air from that perch - such a whir





We drove down into Cassis to find a restaurant recommended by a local friend: La Presqu'île. It is one of those Côte d'Azur establishments that manages to be ritzy/high end and dumpy around the edges. I love that mix - only in this context (St. Tropez had a few of these as well). We parked the car and the smell of sun heating sandy pine trees and the sound of doves cooing brought memories - all of Xavier's summers in Saint-Aygulf, and my time in St. Tropez. The food was fancy and very good, the view and reflection from the water (right there) - even better. As soon as we had finished and had our café we went straight down to the beach below - smooth white stone against turquoise water. It was too inviting, I had to go in. In my underwear. The first breath was choking and then I kicked hard and kept kicking. About 10 minutes later, I felt like it was the middle of summer and I was just in for a dip. Xavier joined - couldn't resist. After 30 minutes in the water and a swim out to the buoy, we washed ashore. My teeth chattered for a while after being in for so long, but it felt like a spring purification session. Fantastic. You know where I will be whenever I have a spare chunk of time for a swim.

Les Calanques.

Stephen and I headed out one day last week to explore the Calanques between Cassis and Marseille. It is a stretch of land between those two coastal cities that is protected - a national park, actually. The calanques are inlets in the Mediterranean coastline with high limestone cliffs on both sides. The water beneath is turquoise. The trees - phosphorescent green.



We started in Cassis and hiked through the Calanque de Port Miou (just outside of Cassis), the Calanque de Port Pin to the Calanque d'en Vau. We started around noon and were back in Cassis about 4pm, with a nice rest/swim on the beach near Calanque d'en Vau in the middle. We also scrambled up a pretty steep and poorly marked trail on our way back (climbing at certain points, afraid we'd have to turn around and certain the way down would be much trickier than climbing up the rock faces). It was a wild trek and was just right. I had been craving that kind of excursion for a long time. The terrain is unreal - such beauty. The water was frigid, but fitting with the rest of the experience. I loved spending time there in between those cliffs with my brother - having a good heart-to-heart. It made the notion of living this far away from him more bearable.