Blue Water White Cliffs

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Geo: 43.216, 5.53863

Today we headed for the seaside town of Cassis, which lies south-east of Marseilles. The site where Cassis now sits was first occupied between 500 and 600 BC by the Ligures, who constructed a fortified habitation at the top of the Baou Redon. These people lived by fishing, hunting, and by farming.

During the Roman times, Cassis was part of the maritime route made by the Emperor Antonius Pius. At this time, the port advanced right up to Baragnon. It was a small village, established mainly around the Arena and Corton beaches. The principal livelihood was fishing and maritime trade with North Africa and the Middle East.

We had discovered Cassis on our previous European holiday, and it was one of the destinations we had to visit again. On our previous visit to Cassis we had taken a boat tour to visit the Calanques, a series of narrow fjord-like inlets between towering white cliffs. We were however, unable to swim from the tour boat. This time we decided to hire a boat to see the Calanques, and the boat hire place gave us the Alligator IV, a sturdy little boat which sat only about half a metre above the water line. Going out on the Mediterranean Sea in a boat of this size sounds a little crazy, but it has been that sort of holiday, where we "lived on the edge" at times.

We booked our boat for the afternoon, and walked around Cassis until 1.00pm. After heading out to sea, we made for the third Calanque, which you are allowed to swim in. After eating lunch on the boat, we jumped in for a swim. The water was as blue as, and clear and warm to swim in. You can't moor closer than 200 metres to the beach, so we swam into the beach. After swimming back, we headed further around the cliffs.

We then turned the boat around and ran with the swell, headed for the second calanque. We cruised around the second calanque, and then headed into the first calanque where I dived overboard for another swim.

It was time to turn around and head back to port. Lucky there was good weather on the day, with the sun shining most of the time and little wind on the water. A good swell would have swamped the little boat.

After arriving back at Cassis port, we watched a series of Water Jousting contests, with boats running at each other with a jouster at the front of each boat.

We then had dinner in Cassis and then headed back to our hotel in Aups.

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