Cassis, France, Wed 16 - Thurs 17 July 08

After a day of accommodation booking, internet and wondering around in Arles we headed for Cassis late afternoon. Cassis was the only beach town we could find accommodation in however we knew we were in for something a bit different when the guy on the phone told us it was an hour walk from the train station to get to the hostel and they had no showers.. hmm... interesting. His words were it was a very 'traditional' hostel. Sounded like an adventure and our only chance for the beach so we took it.

Cassis is a small coastal town not far from Marseille (second largest city in France) and quite far from French Riviera favourites so was reasonably quiet for this time of year. We stopped in at Marseille to get food for dinner & lunch as the hostel mentioned they have nothing around them, so by the time we got into Cassis it was late afternoon.

Unfortunately arriving in Cassis we realised we had no idea where the hostel was and since it was so late the information centre was closed. Calls to the hostel resulted in no answer which wasn't a good sign but we managed to spot a couple of references to youth hostels on a map in the information centre's window. We picked the one most likely and headed off, note we had no map to take with us so we had to follow our nose a bit - Vania did a pretty great job finding the way. We saw quite a bit of the Cassis town during this walk and I really liked what I saw.

The map had indicated the hostel was along a track that existed at the end of a road in an area called the Calanques. We reached the end of the road to find the start of two trails into the Calanques; a series of limestone cliffs, hills and inlets covered in some areas with shrubs. This could explain the 'remoteness' the guy on the phone had tried to explain, there didn't seem to be anything around. Unfortunately no sign of a hostel and the sun was going down so we were getting worried but we finally spotted the hostelling international logo on a small rock with an arrow - yay!... that was until we saw the track... straight uphill into the rocky calanques. This was going to be a tough end to the day!

It was hard going walking through the calanques with our packs, Vania must have had about 20-25kilos in hers, I really don't know how she did it, she's a machine! The incredible views kept us going though. With the sun going down and the moon coming up there really are no words to describe how beautiful it was. At each turn in the path we would turn around and gasp at how gorgeous it looked back down towards the beach not thinking it could possibly get any more beautiful.. till we got to the next bend and turned around again and somehow it had! It was the most beautiful site of our entire trip.

Two hours after arriving in cassis we finally made it to the hostel as the sun had almost set. It was a building in the middle of nowhere with literally nothing else around. The hostel was very cool with a camp style setup. Big communal kitchen, outdoor seating area with incredible views back down to Cassis. A major highlight of our trip. We cooked up some soup for dinner and ate it on the rock wall as we watched the moon rise and listened to a guy play his guitar. It really doesn't get much better than that. We were completely knackered after the climb so headed to bed in large 10 bed dorms that were wide open to the elements, listening to the guitar and cicadas from bed and we had perfect views to watch the sunrise in the morning!

We could only get one night in the hostel so the next morning we had to pack back up again and carry all our gear back down the hill. We left pretty early because it was already scorching and due to fire risk you're not allowed in the calanques hills between 11am and 5pm. We took the other walking track which we were told would lead us to a beach in the cliffs. Lots of rock clambering later (not easy on slippery rocks with big backpacks) we found a busy little inlet beach and located a flat rock to chill out on.

After noticing no one else was in the water except a couple of brave souls we realised it must be cold.. but we weren't quite prepared for it. It was skin burning, muscle numbing, I can't breathe freezing! I think it could have been the coldest water I've ever swam in. I think I lasted about 3-5 minutes before I couldn't feel many parts of my body and decided I couldn't stay in any longer. Once I jumped out Vania noticed I was bleeding and I found a big cut on my foot, no doubt from standing on a sharp rock in the water but I was so numb from the cold I hadn't felt a thing! Thankfully due to having our backpacks with us Vania had a full first aid kit on hand for me :)

The rangers arrived about midday, we think to tell people they had to go back because of the people ban during the day but we were already on our way back so didn't talk to them. Instead we climbed back over the rocks and walked back into town (well I kind of half limped back). We parked ourselves at the town beach and enjoyed another freezing swim followed by some well deserved sun bathing time.

I was very sad to leave Cassis, we'd had such a great time here but we needed to catch our train to our next town.