Our goal for today was to do some hiking in the Calanques national park. Calanques means inlet, and that is the main feature of this park. It sits between Marseilles, straddles Cassis, and extends over to La Ciotat. Seeing how busy Cassis was yesterday, we decided to do a hike leaving from La Ciotat.
Waking to find a bustling market right outside of our door, we packed for a hike, and took off. We made a few stops along the way to stock up on supplies for a picnic. We also stopped for breakfast, where I got banana bread, and mom got an egg sandwich. We each ordered a cappuccino, but they gave us a third, as I think they made it accidentally.
Sufficiently loaded on calories and caffeine, we strolled past the plentiful tents and restaurants, up and behind the shipyard, and towards the peninsula, which wound around to a wide open bay.
We found a spot along the somewhat sharp rocks, and got ready to swim. I was able to discretely change into a swim-suit a little faster than mom, so I had a head start. With my mask on, I dove in, trying to see what I could. My buoyancy and lack of fins made it difficult to get very deep, but it didn’t appear to be a terribly interesting spot for seeing the undersea flora and fauna anyways. After mom had her fill of swimming, we packed up, and hiked back to a nearby park for a picnic, with the cheese, strawberry jam, and seeded bread that we acquired along the way. Once finished, we walked back to where we were staying.
With over half of the day left, we decided to pick up what we had dropped earlier, and drove out towards Arles. But instead of stopping, we passed straight through, going out to see the Camargue– a boggy region at the mouth of the Rhône. This area is well known as the home of an ancient breed of horses, as well as a breed of domesticated cattle, and a form of wild rice. There’s a very big Cowboy aesthetic to the Camargue Horseman, wrangling the Camargue Cattle. We saw both on our way to see the Camargue’s other famour (though seasonal) denizen: the Flament Rose — AKA the Pink Flamingo.
We drove out to the Ornithological Park of Pont de Gau to see wild flamingos. Nature documentaries have led me to believe that they are only in exotic tropical locations, so maybe Provence is tropical? The park was not terribly big, so we were able to see our pink friends rather quickly. They were also surrounded by terns, herons, and ducks.
We turned around to drive back towards Arles, admiring the horses, bulls, and apparently the french barbecue competition(?), which we went back and forth over, deciding whether or not to crash it.
Finally in Arles, we parked on a sidewalk (like you do) and went for a walk in the old town. Arles is situated right on the Rhône, and is known for ancient Roman ruins, including a mini-colosseum amphitheater, where bullfighting with the Camargue bulls is common.
Our understanding, albeit limited, was that no bulls are killed during the bullfights here. We got there an hour after the event started, so we decided against getting tickets, but we were able to get a seat at a restaurant overlooking the rear exit, so we were able to at least see something! And I ordered a Camargue beef stew with Camargue rice and Provençal wine, so it felt pretty gosh-danged authentic.
The evening done, we went back to our car, and made the two hour trek back to La Ciotat, rocking out to Luka’s birthday playlist, trying to understand the speed limit as it jumped without warning between 130kph and 90kph.