Les Calanques de Cassis

BIENVENUE A CASSIS!!!

Yesterday, the whole Wellesley-in-Aix gang went on one last group excursion before the start of classes. Monsieur Lydgate and Melanie took us to the beautiful seaside town of Cassis, right on the Mediterranean Sea. The town has a harbor filled with small private boats and a beach and all sorts of beautiful small colorful buildings lined up along the dock. We were lucky enough to have some beautiful weather, perfect for a 45-minute boat tour of the Calanques of Cassis.
A calanque is an inlet enclosed by tall rock formations and cliff faces along the shore of a body of water. They are particularly beautiful along the Mediterranean Sea because of the unique colors of the natural environment along this shore. There are several of them along the southern coast of France around Marseille and Cassis. It was windy and sunny and perfect for a boat ride, and the view of the open sea and the rock formations was absolutely amazing. It's time like this when you realize how little of the world you've seen. Sure, I had seen pictures, movies depicting this environment, but after having lived in my American East coast life for the past 20 years, I never saw crystal-clear turquoise waters, a sun this brilliant, majestic rock formations like this before. Even thinking about my 4 weeks in Paris, the cultural and environmental differences between the two regions are astonishing. I don't think it necessarily made me feel small, but it made me realize that there is a lot more of the world that I want to discover during my lifetime.
The boat was tiny, and so when it hit big waves, it would jump up in the air, and people would stumble and fall a little, and it was hysterical, especially when the young woman sitting across from me screamed and clung to her husband, and in the process of almost falling nearly knocked over like all 4 people standing around her. But as we approached the calanques, the water calmed significantly, and the wind seemed to disappear. In the sudden calm, this is what we saw:

In one of the inlets there was a beach, and all along the top of the cliffs, I could see people hiking. I NEED TO DO THAT. Angus, Jin, just a heads up, at least one of you will most likely be spending time with me here hiking. If it's cold, if it's snowing, if you're tired, if you're jetlagged, tant pis. We WILL go hiking. Maybe these pictures will convince you that it'll be a-freakin-mazing:

After our boat ride, we had a group lunch at a restaurant called Nino's where I had a fish soup (really really good), steak, and an apple tart with coffee for dessert. So good. And then, we went swimming (and beachcombing, if you're cool like me)! I now have an impressive collection of every color of rock from that beach and a whole crapload of seaglass. The water was PHENOMENAL. As soon as I got in, it felt warm, and I swam out to the buoys and treaded water for a while, watching some cool boats, looking out at the cliffs, and daydreaming for a little while. It was really quite pleasant and refreshing.
Afterwards, when it started to rain, we walked around the town a little bit and then loaded the bus back up to drive along the Rue des Crètes, stopping at the top of some of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Driving up the narrow, incredibly steep, sharp turns of the mountain paths, I thought our massive coach bus was gonna take someone out or go tumbling down into some valley. It was kind of scary, but props to our driver, we made it. The view from the top was SPECTACULAR!!! We could see the entire town of Cassis and far out across the ocean. I felt like I was on top of the world, and I wish we could've stayed there longer, but Monsieur Lydgate rounded us up for a group picture and then sent us back on the bus in 10 minutes to head back to Aix-en-Provence.