France 46 - Cassis and the Calanques

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I always love Fridays. It’s the last day of the week normally at work and I have the weekends to look forward to. And a long weekend every week at that. Today started with a Labrador dog sniffing round our plot and thinking of depositing a present along the way. He wouldn’t move and kept sniffing round our electric hook up cables. In the end we accidently moved the cables and they hit him where it hurt and he took off without leaving us something to remove. We had moved to Cassis a little further along the coast. The plot was a reasonable 80 square metres and the sun was shining. Our plot was half in the sun and half in the shade which is quite a good arrangement. If it gets too hot at least you can get out of the sun. The police or ambulance sirens had followed us from Port Grimaud and over coffee we heard them roaring passed twice.

Our solar panel was putting in .19 to the batteries and has been topping them up continually this holiday. Not being very electrically minded have no idea if this is good, average or poor. As we have camped we have never put the batteries to the test yet. Reception was friendly and we booked in for one night only as we were not sure what we planned to do over the next few days. The holiday has become less organised as we head home and is subject to change. We only knew that we wanted to get Moto GP on the TV and would stay as long as it took.

First job was to get tokens for the washing machine. The washing had been piling up and as the sun was shining it seemed a good day to be drying the towels, socks and smalls. There were 2 washing machines and big signs saying not to wash clothes in the sink. Tokens cost 4 euro and the wash would take about 40 mins. Long enough time to make and eat dinner. I did notice as I used the machine others ignored the “it is forbidden to wash clothes” and filled the sinks and seemed to be washing knickers and leaving them to dry on the concrete and even wash what looked like a horse blanket!!! There was a small shop selling roasted chickens, some tinned foods, sterilised milk and bread and croissants. Buses ran from outside the campsite for Marseilles although they were were not often. It appeared to be a 15 minute walk to the station.

As the sun beat down we closed our blinds to keep the heat out of the van. The sky was a beautiful blue colour without a cloud in sight. Perfect holiday weather. We ate our dinner, salad followed by strawberries and raspberries. Perfection. Who needs work. It was a lovely setting watching the Calanques just behind the campsite . These are limestone bluffs which form fjord like openings into the sea. Trips are available from Cassis to view a choice of 3 or 5 of the Calanques at a cost of around 11 – 15 euros. For 35 euros per person you can spend a whole day in a boat seeing all of the Calanques. The grey cliffs turn pink and crimson in the evening sunlight. I spent time reading more chapters of my Poldark book and Glenn did Sudoko and crosswords. Spoke to a couple from Hull who were planning to visit the Calanques . Our first chat with Brits since Italy.

We walked into Cassis which is downhill from the campsite and takes about 15 to 20 minutes. Cassis comprises of a main street or two lined with shops. The front is full of restaurants, bars and cafes. A sandy beach stretches to the azure blue sea. The town was heaving with people drinking at the bars and ordering their evening meals. We sat at one bar enjoying watching the night life. The walk back took considerably longer due to it being uphill and what a hill it turned out to be.

The next day we laughed at the antics of a Dutch caravan owner who was trying to park into one of the spaces ably assisted by his wife and their dog. He tried to drive down a narrow alley between the bins and the washing block and almost demolished the roof of the block and his caravan. And then had to try to reverse all the way back without damaging anything. We tried to help as much as we could but it was not appreciated. We watched a French family playing boules. It is brilliant to see them set up their pitch on any piece of ground long enough. What a shame we cannot do the same when we play bowls.

Dinner was bread and roasted chicken covered in rosemary bought from the local shop and tasty it was too. Today seemed to be the day when French turned up to see their families I guess families from the north had planned a holiday here and they had relatives who lived locally. The relatives paid a small fee to enter and park up at the site and spent the day socialising with their families, playing cards, drinking wine and eating.

Tomorrow is Monday and this time time next week our holiday will be over. We are booked on an early train from Calais. Not looking forward to it as this holiday has been brilliant so far and we have done so many things and had such good weather which is highly unusual for us. Our trip tomorrow is to Marseilles and this should prove interesting we hope.

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