Les Calanques

Okay, so. 

Camille dropped me off at the bus station so that she could go home for a family party and that I could continue my journey through France. I took a bus to Marseilles and then a train to Cassis, the nearest town to Les Calanques: a beautiful region of perfect white limestone cliffs against the fantastically blue shimmer of the Mediterranean. 

I was immediately reminded of how nice I had it while we were traveling in the van: freedom to go anywhere any time, a place to store our things and convenience to sleep in it (for free). My 50 pound pack suddenly felt like a burden far greater than it felt during pre-batmobile times. 

But make haste! We've got cliffs to explore!

I arrived in Cassis around 9:30 at night and began the arduous task of walking through town looking for a place to camp that was out of sight from anyone. Conveniently enough there was a patch of forest adjacent to the campground that was expensive and full. I setup my hammock and dozed off immediately. 

The next morning I walked through the campground in hopes of finding a climbing partner. What I found was mostly couples, or hikers, or people that didn't speak English (English isn't as common as I thought it'd be in France). 

So instead I just made my way towards a popular climbing spot: Calanque En Vau. 

Cassis is a really beautiful town that is unfortunately tarnished at the moment by a French holiday and thus a monstrous influx of tourists. 

The hike was really nice (barring the times that there was a slightly steep step on the trail resulting in complete gridlock as novice hikers panicked at the daunting task ahead of them). 

This is the view of the first Calanque (which apparently translates to Creek) on the trail. 

First sight of Calanque En Vau. 

When I first arrived at the beach at the end of the Calanque, I was sad that it was rather busy. 2 hours later it turned into this horrific scene. 

The view from slightly higher was a nice vacation from the vacationers. 

Either way, it was a beautiful setting and I had a nice time relaxing, reading and swimming. I didn't manage to find a climbing partner but I did some deep water soloing along the western wall of the creek which was fun. 

I decided that given the holiday as well as the difficult tasks of camping illegally and finding climbing partners that I would move on to greener pastures. Halfway through the hike back to Cassis I found a sweet place to camp so that I could rest my legs and get things done the next morning. 

On the hike out the next morning I managed to roll my ankle on a poorly placed curb (after 2 hours of scrambling over polished limestone). This made for a fun day of limping around everywhere. 

I took a train back to Marseilles in hopes of finding a hostel for the night where I could shower, wash some clothes and devise a plan going forward. On the usual sites I found absolutely​ zero hostel rooms available. Upon further googling I was excited to find one "affordable" hotel room left. I quickly booked it and hobbled my way over. 

Long story short I booked a hotel of the same name in a different city. And the booking was nonrefundable. Woohoo! Thus began an adventure of hopping on and off trams and trains, hobbling towards an airport to find a taxi and eventually making it to my overpriced, unnecessarily far away hotel room. 

Time to stop blogging and start planning. I think the Verdon Gorge might be in my near future.