Advertisement
This whole trip began with a dream at home in Australia about Cassis, a tiny town on the south coast of France, just 22km east of Marseille. Over a year ago, I was browsing the internet looking for ways for us to get to Europe again, and came across the Camargo Foundation - an institute situated in Cassis for the encouragement of artists, thinkers and performers. Thy offered several residential courses each year for selected participants, including accommodation and some support - it sounded too good to be true! We felt more and more drawn to it, and Peter put together his application. We knew, however, that it was a long shot and probably favoured artists with more profile.
As the months went by we talked about the options and what we would do if Cassis didn’t happen, and we agreed that we would come anyway, and perhaps there would be advantages in being free to go where we liked and Peter could paint anyway. So when Peter was not one of the 9 visual artists chosen out of 950 applicants (!), we had already decided to come. A little windfall made it possible and here we are in Provence!
There are a couple of rainy days coming up soon, so we took the opportunity of a sunny Saturday yesterday for our expedition to Cassis -we didn’t want to go to the beach in the rain! It was, of course, the weekend, and the end of a holiday sort of week with two public holidays, so we just accepted our fate as once again we would be heading into parking mayhem! It would be our longest drive so far, and we both have to psych ourselves for the adrenalin-filled experience that takes both of us plus our speaking maps on full alert to manage. Because we avoided tolls and motorways, and made a couple of mistakes, it took close to two hours all up. We now know that offline maps do not re-route themselves, but somehow we made it back onto the blue route line.
The route took us via Marseille, which was scary as it is a huge city, and we discovered that there are major roadworks which Google maps didn’t quite cope with. Suddenly we exited with relief and were on the little road to the coast. We now know just to head for the middle
of a town, and Peter lets me out while he valiantly does battle with all the other thousands doing the same thing. The other big challenge is finding a public loo, and I was pleased to be able at least to ask in French.
What a stunning little town! Bathed in sunlight, surrounded by incredible geological formations at great height, a busy marina with millions of $$$ worth of boats, and half the French population promenading (many with dogs). Nearby is the national park of Les Calanques, inlets of multi shades of aqua sea between rugged white cliffs creating a huge business in boat tours. Apart from that, it is a very popular area for hiking and camping. In town, there is boutique shopping and cafe crawling! Everyone loves to sit out in the sun, crowded at tiny tables with their wine and coffee. Water is the most expensive drink! Almost not a hat in sight, and we have found that the sun is not as harsh in this hemisphere. We, however, have both had brush with skin cancers this year so probably stand out with our hats and sunscreen routines. Especially Peter in his Van Gogh style wide
brimmed woven chapeau! It does help me find him when we are lost, which is quite often.
We opted to stay away from the touristy part and enjoyed our picnic made from our market purchases. There were empty benches in the shade as everyone else wanted the sun! Cassis has two little beaches with the usual European line up of deck chairs, and we strolled out along the breakwater to the lighthouse breathing in the sea air. The whole place is picture perfect from any angle. I had spotted a little electric train that does a circuit around the town, and as I strongly prefer land-based trains to water-based boats, we bought our tickets and hopped in. It snaked its way through the narrow streets, avoiding pedestrians and bumping over the road humps - it was a lot of fun. People toiling up the steep inclines looked at us enviously as we chugged past and I wished we could have had our little grandsons on board! I recognised the street of the Camargo Foundation and we managed to snatch a shot as we went past - we had looked at it so often on the Internet. It has a
most magnificent location overlooking the water and the town. We salute them for what they do for artists, even if it wasn’t for us this time. The train took us to the first calanque area, where the car parks were full and there were families and hikers everywhere. A short photo stop and Peter managed to trot all the way to the inlet and back (I always think he will be left behind!) before we headed back to town. I could never have walked that far, so it was a perfect ride.
We felt ready to go home then so Peter headed up the hill to the carpark, and that was when the drama began! I waited and waited, and eventually he called (and of course my phone was running down) and said he thought our car had been stolen! I was so shocked and could only think of his art gear in the boot. No, I said, you are mistaken. Are you sure? He had been searching for ages, but said he would look again. I sat on the kerb listening to my Audible book to pass the time and not panic, but I did wonder what we
would do so far from our accommodation. Amazingly, he had taken a photo of the car where it was parked, and eventually a French person helped him uncover the data under the photo and voila! There was the location and a map! Helpful and a bit scary really. He was in the wrong car park...
Eventually about two hours after we decided to go home, we managed to reconnect, complete with said rental car and all our gear and facing the drive home a little depleted. Somehow the map didn’t avoid tollways as we told it to, so suddenly we were on a freeway with 130kph maximum, hurtling into a gigantic toll road with all sorts of symbols and gates that we didn't understand. We both could see us stuck at the toll with a line of cars behind us, but took a punt, thrust my credit card (Peter's is not working well here...) randomly into a slot and to our utter astonishment, whoa, we got a green light! Two more tolls later, Peter was getting the hang of French style driving and we got home very quickly!
Completely bushed, we had to freshen up as we were
to have drinks with our friendly host, Loïc, even though I could have gone straight to pyjamas at that point. He brought trays of drinks and local food to our cottage and we had a warm and relaxed time chatting, eating and drinking. Olives, dips, nuts, fried cheese pastries and little sausages, followed by rock melon, accompanied by local wines. The best of Provençal hospitality - it is what we hoped for here and it completed a day of varied experiences. We decided to call that dinner and head for bed!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.287s; Tpl: 0.028s; cc: 13; qc: 39; dbt: 0.0375s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Julie French
non-member comment
I am loving your blog Jeanette, you have such a lovely writing style I feel as though I am living it with you!