On our second day, we thought we'd try a 'single boot' trail, rated 'peaceful'
A short distance from the centre of Cassis, the views of limestone cliffs are breathtaking, we are looking at The Calanques to the west of Cassis, made up of a 400 metre thick layer of white limestone. Marine valleys have been carved out of them forming miniature fjords.
The Calanque de Port-Miou is one of the three big Cassis
calanques. It is very long and narrow, and thus was very suitable for
establishing a marina. It was also a place where limestone was mined for making whitewash. In the photo below you can see the hoppers used in this process, the limestone was extracted with dynamite, then crushed to be loaded on the boats waiting in front of the hoppers. Apparently the plinth for the statue of Liberty came from a quarry near here.The deep inlet is now used for eco boat mooring.
This is a view further out to see before we embarked on the little Prince trail, the walk is named after Le Petit Prince, a novel by Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry, who in 1944 took part in the last exploration for the
landing of the Allied troops. His plane disappeared into the sea on
July 31, 1944 off the coast of Cassis. It was found only in 2008,
which put an end to this mysterious disappearance.
Another view, the water was a fantastic blue colour, not picked up by the camera.
On the way back to our apartment we had a welcome cooling off in the sea.
Interestingly the reason why the water is colder than I had expected is this: The sea water is colder than one would expect because a number of
streams with water from the mountains behind flows through an
underground network in the sea here. One of the largest flows into the
Calanques de Port Miou. Another debouches in the water near the Plage
du Bestouan, just west of Cassis. With thanks to this
Coastal Walking (b)log for that information.
I couldn't resist taking another photo of Cap Canaille seen from our apartment
And here's the
Chateau de Cassis lit up at night. You can stay there.
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