Chapter 4our: Cassis

Cassis

Cassis is one of those postcard ports on the Mediterranean. It lies a little east of Marseilles, and west of Cannes. Cassis is on the eastern rim of the Bouche-du-Rhone, the large region that includes the vast Rhone River delta of the Camargue to the west. We will be driving northwest to Aix-en Provence, then up to the Châteauneuf du Pape region.

I shot this lighthouse at the entrance to the Cassis harbour.  If you were to expand the photo you would see Joanne's knees between the red pants and the little girl. I was taking names: I stopped Louis walking up the stairs, red-jacket Serge is walking w Marie-Noel & Mercredi, the little girl; couple to left, don't know, mama and babie to right, lovers seated waiting for sundown ...

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Hyères

Hyères was a brief stop on our way to Cassis where we stayed a night, then up early to visit a tiny fishing harbour. 
Check out the net mender's utility knife. It's an Opinel - the everyman knife of the I-always-gotta-have-a-knife-in-my-pocket Frenchman. 

Robert Louis Stevenson lived here in 1883/84.

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Cassis today is clearly a major tourist centre, but fishers are still busy, providing the many local restaurants and homes with fresh seafood. I ate from the sea here, and we touristed (is that a word?)

This is a very mountainous, hilly area on the coast where every square metre is used. Why? Because it is precious.

We always have a good Michelin map in the car, and we bring our GPS (TOMTOM) to Europe with up to date maps. Of course, the new Peugeot we are driving has a GPS in the dash. Our accommodation was so difficult to find, however, that we had them both going at once - female voices for clarity.

I have a bad head cold, rhinitis at every turn, nose dripping. Those crazy French drivers are on my rear bumper, stressing me out, but they have their windshield wipers on because I'm constantly sneezing out my window.

We circled around and around several times, even with the multi-colour large scale local Tourist Information Office map. Finally, we located the maison.

    I felt like                

a three-eyed Mexican: eye eye eye!

That night, I had to replace a lot of body fluid with a litre of Côtés de Rhône vin rouge - un remède.

Cap Canaille as seen from our bedroom window through a long telephoto lens and cropped tight, is Europe's highest coastal cliff - 394 metres high.

view from the beach

I call the photo (above) the Quick Fix Bowsprit.

Dining in France is what a lot of people dream of. There are many examples of dining in France. We discovered some new ones. These three little cafe tables are slightly larger than the chair seats that your bum sits on. They are made for tiny espresso coffee cups, shot glasses of pernod or pastis and the omnipresent ashtray.

We ate dinner on the quay at a table maybe twice this size. Remember - space is at a premium in these towns and villages, and even in Paris. We rub elbows with our neighbours, maybe exchange a bon apetit with them, and say, au revoir when we leave, but the rest of our dining experience is occupied with the magic trick of eating with good manners while managing a plate of food each, bottle of wine and one of water, four glasses for same, two baskets of frites, pepper, salt, napkin, customary jar of mayo and ketchup sleeves, cumpulsory ashtray.

I asked my wife if this is why one never sees the French with their elbows on the table. There is no space available for even one elbow. I usually take some dinner droppings away on my shirt and pants. Only in Italy is it acceptable to bib oneself.

The magic hour under a  threatening sky is a  beacon to a photographer. I captured the moment and others like it, then we ambled back up the mountainside to our lodging for a while to rest our bones before a late dinner on the quay, some of which was just described.

It seems that I am driven to try every kind of seafood available on the French coast. I ordered dourade/sea bream. I am always asked by the server if I want it de-boned but, mais non, madame/monsieur, je suis Norvégien/I'm Norwegian (I lie). I can do it myself. I leave behind a perfect Sylvester-the-cat fish head, bones and tail, still intact on the plate. Sorry, no photo.

Joanne is frequently plagued by drifting cigarette smoke around our table, I, by the voices of Gerard Depardieu at all of the other tables.

Funny about some of these meals. If you do not order a side salad you will not always be served vegetables. I needed greens. When my plate was taken away late that night in the dark, it was empty. I left nothing on it - no garnish, no lemon rind, no crustacean shells.

My camera is always with me, including a tripod attached to the small backpack. I used the sticks to capture this dark street scene before we headed up that way in search of our car, so we could get home to bed after a full-some day.

On day two, we touristed (that word again) with a boat trip to the  calanques. These are the other-world, weather-beaten limestone cliffs and bays of the Massif des Calanques  that line the Côte Bleue from Cassis to Marseilles. 

this rock was quarried for the Suez Canal and various ports

My bad for not taking the time to offer more information about the  calanques in the blog. But I gotta move on. I am falling way behind on where we are on this trip. Here are some images:

quotation lifted from a tourist brochure of the area:

 ... a landscape of visual shocks and opera of chalk tormented by the magic 
of thousands of years of geologic activity.

see the face on the wall?

skullface

le Parc National des Calanques

"Nice stone, but I'm just not into those kind of rocks," she said.

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