Les Calanques - on foot

9th October

It was just after 12.30pm when we disembarked from our unexpectedly exciting boat trip. We had not really thought about what to do for the rest of the day. I had brought my swimming trunks and a towel with me as I had it in my head that you could not really claim to have arrived in the Med until you threw yourself in  So I did. Cassis has a pleasant small beach just beyond the harbour. It  shelves steeply, so there was a fair old surf up, at least by Mediterranean standards. Because the nearby cliffs are white limestone, the sea around here takes on a particularly vivid blue; the waves  were a pale turquoise colour and the water really warm - it was great. I love swimming in the sea, and could hardly believe that it was three years ago in Magnetic Island in Queensland that I had last had the chance to do so.

Cassis beach

We wandered off to the tourist office as it advertised a Wifi hotspot. Because I use separate Google log-ins for the blog and my personal emails when I post from abroad, Google security occasionally activates, cuts me off from my account, then asks me a load of idiotic questions to verify my identity. It must be some kind of anti-hacking procedure, which is good, but annoying. So while I satisfied Google's insatiable curiosity, Gill checked out the weather, and we stood outside the Tourist Office on the quayside staring at our smart phones like proper tourists. An American couple strolled up and asked us about the boat trip, we advised them about the choppy sea, in the end I think they decided on taking a leisurely harbour-side lunch. It was the first time the woman had seen the Mediterranean, she could not have picked a more beautiful day.

We were at a bit of a loose end, so we decided to take the footpath long the cliff top and have a look at the Calanques from dry land. We had a small map of local randonee, unfortunately it had neither a scale nor contour lines so what appeared as a short stroll beyond the edge of town proved to be somewhat longer than anticipated; moreover, the roads were a bit of a switchback involving some sharp climbs and sudden drops.

The cliff-top path

Calanque de Port Miou, from the cliffs

It was worth it though. From the sea the Calanaques appear as natural inlets; from land it is clear that the natural landscape has been significantly changed by large scale quarrying. The views eastwards, beyond Cassis towards the tall cliffs of Cap Canaille are spectacular. The only other time I have seen such intensity of colour is in Crete.

green tree, red cliffs, deep blue sea - magic!

It is little surprise that in was in their summer jaunts to Cassis in the early years of the twentieth century that the painters Derain, Jawlensky and Matisse - 'Les Fauves' - developed a style which used colour, not to depict appearances, but represent inner emotional states. The colour today was so vivid ordinary objects sang out with a kind of hyper-real intensity. I was  taken by the  redness of the chairs in a quayside cafe. "Those are very red," I said: click!

We paused for a noisette when we got back to town. The problem with the position of the campsite is that even after we reached the town centre, we still faced a two kilometre uphill slog before we rejoined Maisy. As we staggered, breathlessly, through the gates of Les Cigale, Gill managed to summon up the puff to wheeze, "It must be good for us".