Cassis

After leaving Arles we wound our way through the French Provencal countryside to Cassis. It is a beach town on the Mediterranean which is famous for the Calanques nearby. They are kind of like French fjords which you can only access by water or hiking in from inland.

Kurtis's artistic 360 shot of our apartment.

We have rented a small apartment on the 3rd floor of a small apartment building on the Rue Marie Therese.There is no vehicles on the streets many little cafes and shop interspersed throughtout the little lanes. Truly no place like this in Canada. There is a gelato spot 2 steps outside our door and an amazing restaurant 2 steps from that. On the next lane over is the port with all of the activity of fisherman, restaurants, tourist shops, hotels and general people zoo. It was a bit of excitement to find this place which involved 3 priests, 2 frenchmen, 1 chambermaid and a lot of prayer to finally park the car somewhere safe and gather ourselves together. I'm not sure we are ready for that story to be funny yet. Use your imagination.
On Tuesday we chose to drive to a place called Tour de Fondue and board a ferry to the Iles de La Poquerolles. It promised white sand beaches and warmer water than is here in Cassis. Marvelous recommendation. It was a relaxing day for me to swim and lay on the beach. Kelvin and the boys took turns touring around the island on bikes.

We were completely exhausted when we finally got back to Cassis so we bought some premade Croque de Monsieur (grilled ham and cheese sandwiches) and ate them at the apartment. As in the french tradition it was 9 pm by the time we ate supper.

Wednesday we rented 4 kayaks to go exploring the Calanques. Again magnificent. I am sure these pictures will not come close to explaining the blue of this water, the white of the cliffs and the marvelous heat. There are about 7 Calanques in the area. We explored 3 of them and spent most of the afternoon at the beach at the far end of the 2nd one we entered. What was a bit of work to get there was worth every second when we were there. Kurtis, Troy and I spent most of the afternoon in the water. They climbed up the cliffs and jumped. I lounged in the water and took pictures. Tough day.

We are finally back at the apartment with enough time to relax today, so everyone is having a snooze. I probably should be too but it is great to get down some of our events so I don't forget.

My friend Tensy has completed abandoned our family but Joy is shining brighter everyday