La Ciotat
by Céleste | May 8, 2015
Before leaving for London, Vincent and I decided to head to the beach! We’ve been to the calanques near Marseille (Sormiou, where Vincent proposed to me), and the calanques near Cassis (Port Pin and Port Miou). Now we were heading to La Ciotat, at the very end of the stretch of the calanques, to the calanque de Mugel and the Bec de l’Aigle (Eagle’s Beak). We took the Catreize line, number 72, all the way to La Ciotat, which was about an hour and a half total. It was the same bus we took to Aubagne to switch to Cassis, if you’ll recall.
We reached the city right outside of the tourist office (the stop was the gare routière). We headed in to the tourism office for some maps and information, including a hiking map. The maps were not the best, though they did contain some interesting information about the calanques themselves.
We started to walk toward the hiking/calanques area, passing by a market. It seemed like a really nice market for such a small town, with everything from shoes and purses, to cupcakes and ice cream. We knew we would have to stop and get something on the way back!
We walked through the port area, which was full of large machinery. Vincent hypothesized that the machinery was there for assembling ships. I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t give the port a very romantic look.
We made it to the park which marked the beginning of the calanques of this area. It was a nice little park, with flowers and herbs planted, and there were many families picnicking on the grass. We stopped first at a little beach, where I dipped my feet into the water. The weather was nice, with a slight breeze, but too cold to swim, so we decided to hike instead. We started up the trail and watched climbers making their way across the sheer rock face. Not my idea of fun, but interesting enough to watch.
As we continued on, the path stopped. It was very short and led up to a rock wall which went up the side of the cliff. We climbed halfway up this wall and sat to enjoy the view. It wasn’t much of a hike however, and I think we would have needed climbing equipment to continue. So we returned to the park, which had several other trails.
We followed one up some carved steps, to look out at the sea. It was a short climb but beautiful.
Finally, we hiked up the side of this area and had a picnic ourselves, right by the eagle’s beak (at least we thought that was the eagle’s beak!) Our little camp was surrounded by wild rosemary, which smelled great!
After enjoying our lunch, we headed back to the beach to lie in the sun and read. I listened to my book while Vincent played around on his phone. I actually fell asleep for about 45 minutes. We eventually got up because I wasn’t in the mood for a sunburn. We moved to the park and laid under a tree and just enjoyed the weather.
Finally, we made our way back to La Ciotat. We bought two cupcakes at the market: Vincent got an oreo cupcake (of course. If there’s one thing I know about my husband, it’s that if there is an oreo option, he will choose that), and I got a salted caramel cupcake. We sat down at a Moroccan cafe (memories!) and got some mint tea while waiting for the return bus.* It was a nice end to the day!
*It also turned out to be Victory in Europe Day, so the bus was on a “jours fériés” schedule (public holiday). We had to wait an extra thirty minutes for the bus home. No big deal, though!
