Retirement Is Great: Cassis, Saint-Victoire, and Nice

Thursday, May 1

Today we traveled to Cassis (prounounced 'Kassee'), on the Mediterranean Sea.

We had done some internet research regarding where to park in Cassis, and free parking with a shuttle was available at Parking Relais des Gorguettes. The signs took us right there, and while a bit out of town, once we took the shuttle into town, we were glad we hadn’t tried to find parking downtown. Even early in the tourist season, it was quite crowded.

Cassis

More of Cassis

Cassis from the pier

Scientists believe the area around Cassis was occupied between 20,000 and 12,000 B.C. based on cave paintings and carvings. Cassis itself dates back to 500-600 B.C. Links between the ancient city of Massalia (Marseille), founded by the Phoceans, also suggest the possible presence of ancient Greek settlements. In Roman times, Cassis was one of the Emperor Antonin’s trading ports.

We took the little tourist train on a 50 minute trip through the town. It gave us a good idea of what we might be interested in. We decided to take one of the boat tours of the “Calanques” (coves). It was to leave at 2pm with check in at 1:30, so after a bit of menu browsing at the various restaurants, we decided on one and sat down for lunch – that was a little after 12. Lunch was great -- I had flank steak with “pomme frites” and salad, and Arne had “salade du pecheur” (salad of the fisherman) which had squid, shrimp, and scallops on a bed of lettuce and an awesome dressing. For the main course, Arne had “poisson du jour” which happened to be grouper served with “riz” (rice). While lunch was excellent, we missed the 2pm boat (left the restaurant at 2:15), so we booked a ticket for the 3pm boat – which actually left at 3:15.

The Calendal Statue
Calendal was a humble anchovy fishermanand hero of a work by famous local poet Frederic Mistral. His memory is now honored by this statue on the pier.

Cap Canaille lies east of Cassis. It's red sandstone rocks, streaked with chalk, date back around 90 million years! It's cliffs are some of the highest in Europe reaching an altitude of 399 meters.

Le Chateau
14th century fortification, now privately owned and partly converted into a luxury B&B, it sits high above the city on a rocky cliff.

Cap Canaille in the distance. Note the color of the sea.

Vineyards on the hill side above the city.

It took a little over an hour to see 5 Calanques (think mini-fjord made from limestone). They were very impressive, photos do not do them justice. With a brisk wind blowing, we ended up getting sprayed several times with sea spray! The sea is soooooooo deep blue, but also aqua in the shallow areas. The Mediterranean Sea is unlike anything we’ve seen before. And a big thank you to Doug Graves for suggesting we go to Cassis. It was not on our list, but we loved the little village and would have liked to explore a bit more. There are lots of places where I could have gotten better photos, but it would have required a hike and we ran out of time.

The city of Cassis

On our way out of the port on the tour boat

La Vieille Auberge - the place we had lunch

Some homes on the chalky cliffs

The shoreline on the way to the first Calanque

Looking back at Cassis

In the first Calanque

Heading back toward the Sea.

Cap Canaille

I tried to do a panoramic shot from the boat. It was a little bumpy, hence the 'wavy' horizon.

A popular beach in one of the Calanques

Incredible chalk formations in the calanques. The stone extracted from the calanques was used for building and decorative purposes for many years. It was used to build the port cities along the Mediterranean, including Marseille.

Another shot of Cap Canaille. You can see the red sandstone with the streaks of chalk in it.

The locals play Petanque (Boules) in the square.

Friday, May 2

Our last day in the Aix area and our plan was to take the train to Marseille today, however, it was a little rainy and very windy and we just didn’t feel up to it. We had a lazy morning and around noon headed off in the car to an area known as Montagne Sainte-Victoire on a “small” (narrow) highway (D17). Mont Sainte-Victoire is a 1000+ meter mountain just outside Aix. The artist, Paul Cezanne spent some time painting around that area (actually he was born in Aix-en-Provence and died there too). The terrain is very rocky and quite steep (we took a small hike to get some pictures).

Montagne Sainte-Victoire 1011 meters

There is a large national park surrounding the mountain. Those are olive trees in the foreground.

On our drive, we passed an old guy slowly walking along the highway trailed by a donkey that looked like it had all of his possessions on its back. I wanted to take a picture but it would have been awkward…Shortly after we saw him, there was another guy walking along the road with a small cart piled high with all his belongings too. This is out in the middle of nowhere…We wondered where they were going.

We continued to follow the road through a couple quaint, small towns to Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, home of the Gothic Basilique Ste. Marie Madeleine built in the 13^th century because of a belief that Mary Magdalene’s relics (i.e. – bones) had been buried there. The Basilica is an amazing piece of architecture and has some interesting artifacts. Mary Magdalene’s skull on display in a golden case, as well as a replica and written history of the Shroud of Turin.

Looking across the vineyards toward Sainte-Victoire

Basilique Ste. Marie Madeleine

Inside the Basilica - it was gorgeous!

Shroud of turn display (obviously not the real one) - it was an interesting presentation and history tracking the discovery and movement of the shroud through the centuries.

The organ inside the Basilica

A statue depicting Mary Magdalene

We returned to the apartment on A8 (toll road). Uneventful until we got to town – traffic was horrible, and by the time we got to “our” parking garage there were only 4 spots open (the garage electronically keeps track of occupied spots). Luckily, we only needed 1. The local artists fair is going on now, right next to the park by our apartment.

All-in-all not a bad “tourist day” for what started to be a down day.

Moving day tomorrow – on to Nice.

Saturday, May 3

We are getting really good at packing up quickly! We were out the door about 10:30 AM (had planned to leave a little later, but there was no reason to wait around). We figured we would get down near Nice early and possibly have time for a drive through Cannes (which is on the way). No such luck. We were on the ‘free’ way (it’s not free) for about 5 minutes and came to a complete stop. Accident ahead. We crawled along for over an hour as the freeway went from 3 lanes to 2 lanes to finally 1 lane. When we reached the accident here’s what we saw.

The back up

Smoke is never a good sign

Wow!

Once we cleared the accident site, we were back up to speed, but now we were late (supposed to meet at the apartment at 1PM). We managed to arrive in Nice right about 1PM but had to get to the other side of town, which took another 15 minutes. It’s a very picturesque city! Looking forward to our 3 days here before heading to Paris on Wednesday.

Here are the first photos of Nice. BTW, France's freeways (I use that term loosely, since they are definitely NOT FREE) are in awesome shape! There's a reason for that:

Toll booth...

The cost to drive on the A8 from Aix-en-Provence to Nice - 14.40 Euros - plus another 3 Euros for one of the side highways! That adds up to about $25. That being said, the drivers are okay - sometimes they drive in the middle of two lanes, but mostly they stay to the right.

Our first images of Nice, which some of you have seen on Facebook.

The view from our apartment....we have been spending a lot of time just watching the airplanes take off and land. Airport is on the nearer peninsula you see.