Bon Jour!! I hope you're all enjoying your Sunday and relaxing. I'm heading out in a bit to go to Marseille with Brittany's friends who are visiting from Florence, and tomorrow I'm going to ATTEMPT to climb Mont St. Victoire with Katja. We'll see how that goes!! But what I really wanted to show you in this update is how beautiful it was in Cassis, where I spent the day yesterday with my room mates Lauren and Katie.
We were out of the house by 8am, hiking up the street outside our apartment to the Avenue des Belges, and then onto the Avenue de l'Europe to the Gare Routiere to catch a bus to Marseille. From there, it was a short walk uphill to the train station, where we bought tickets to Cassis for 4 euro - it's only 45 minutes away from Aix. The view from the train station in Marseille, the Gare St Charles, is amazing. The entire city is laid out before you, including a spectacular view of Notre Dame de la Garde. You can see it on a hill in the background of the picture below, where Katie and Lauren are sitting on the steps as we waited for our train.
Our train to Cassis departed on time (thankfully no strikes today), but the station in Cassis is very far uphill from the downtown area and beach. It was necessary to hike downhill for a while to get into town. On the way, we passed a large vineyard called La Ferme Blanche, where we stopped for un degustation (tasting) and to buy some wine for our picnic lunch. We ended up purchasing three bottles: two whites and one rosé, which I am seen carrying here as we left the vineyard. We used our French all day! At the train station, talking to the vineyard owner, and at the Office de Tourisme in Cassis.
When we finally made it down to the beach, we were so impressed. The water was gorgeous, it was sunny blue skies out, and the town was adorable and clean. Every picture we took looked like a post card! Lauren and Katie had packed a lunch the night before: We had egg salad in pita wraps, and a really cool invention: they took a green, a yellow, and a red bell pepper, than cut them in half. Inside each half, they put fresh tuna salad. It was delicious, filling, and totally healthy. Then we had some dessert and lounged around on the beach for a while. Below is Lauren with her Chanel sunglasses and Longchamp bag, looking out at the Mediterranean. It's so easy being French!
Eventually Lauren and I got up and went in search of tickets for a boat ride around the famous Calanques - the rocky inlets that line the coast from Cassis to Marseille, about 15 miles. In the end, we opted for a 45 minute boat ride to explore three Calanque inlets. The trees that you see on the rock faces grow very slowly, but what's interesting about them is that they grow directly on the rocks, without soil! Cassis is the only place where you can find them growing naturally.
The Calanques are also a very popular place to hike: we saw loads of people on the rocks from our boat. I even ran into my friends Jenny, Dorrie, and Mike; they were heading out to camp on the beach for the night! Talk about adventurous.
Everyone was exhausted by the time we finally caught the bus home. However, it was much closer to the center of town than an uphill hike to the train station, and it was a bargain at 3 euro. It was an amazing day.
