Markets and hiking to Les Calanques

I set the alarm for 8am as that's when the markets started and we had lots planned for today. Finally for the first time since Paul Lews dad recommended it we had managed to buy a baguette last night to eat for breakfast this morning as that tasted a lot better with raspberry jam on it than normal toast. I have to admit I was a little excited at the idea of something tasting realitively normal for a change. Lew was up also despite staying up till 1am editing the photos which you can now see in the gallery on our website (check it out! 👌🏻). We dressed up looking maybe just a tad more French than usual so we fitted in to the market vibe, although the only thing missing was our lack of French language! We walked 10 minutes and the first of the markets we came across was the flea markets which we wernt overly interested and kept walking to the nearby clothing market. I don't know whether these people own actual stores or they just sell their stuff on Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday when the markets are on but they had a lot of nice stuff. There were oodles of soft cashmere/wool like jerseys and sweaters that I was trying to buy back in London to get me through the up and coming winter but had no luck back then. I did find a nice light blue one for €40 ($66 NZD) and this place had a changing room so you could try it on first. Lew was on the phone with his mum at this stage so all I was getting was eyebrow signals to tell me what he liked and didn't like. The only problem is these places only have cash so if your coming prepare yourself with enough in case you find something you fancy. Before we carried on to the textiles market across the street we had to check our the new Apple Watch and IPhone 8 in the store since Lew wouldn't mind the watch - perhaps when he is no longer unemployed! We also had to check out the Addidas store (and every other shoe store we pass) since Lew is looking for a pair he saw back in Montpellier but didn't buy then and there. I'm not keeping tally but we have been to a few.... The textiles market had lots of beautiful hand crafted goods and also a lot of Turkish towels which I struggled to find at home. I made sure Lew steered me away from these as I knew I probably wouldn't leave without taking one home with me. Onto our fourth type of market which was the flower market in the Place de la Mairie which smelt amazing and you could buy orchards for less than €10 ($16.50 NZD) which is unreal . since we are so home sick I though perhaps we could buy some flowers that could live in the back of our car or maybe even some lettuces! Lew wasn't so keen and constantly reminding me of how we are getting all this stuff back to London which is true. Next came the the produce market where we were a tad stumped at what to buy for dinner since there were so many nice vegetables staring back at us. I managed to make the decision and buy broccoli, beans, cucumber, pears and grapes. Because its all cash you lose track of how much stuff costs so I can't even give you an estimate. Across the street to the produce market was a couple of fish stores selling all sorts of sea creatures. We had no clue what each fish was I just opted to get a fillet of the cheapest one, I didn't even get a name so I could google what it was later but i's probably some cheap bottom feeder! It was starting to get hot and closer to midday, plus our arms were full and we couldn't carry anymore goodies home anyways. We had also picked up some tasty garlic spread from a man who spoke good English and let me try some of his olives as well. I asked him what the French do with their olives mostly and he said they cook with them and also eat them with wine. We didn't buy any since I wouldn't know how to cook with them and we are currently wineless. Walking back to the apartment once again we saw numerous trendy looking clothing stores but we couldn't really take the fish of unknown name and broccoli etc shopping with us!

We made some lunch with a fresh baguette we brought on the way home with the freshly sliced Rosetta salami and garlic spread. Lew was keen to hit the road and get to Cassis which is a small seaside town about an hour away from Aix since we had an hours hike into the Les Calanques. Changing into our hiking gear were ready for an adventure that wasn't just walking around a beautiful old town. Yay to having a bit of excitement back!

We chose to take the autoroute to Cassis costing us about €4.50 ($6.50 NZD) but it meant we could possibly have more time hanging out on a beach and swimming since it was a scorching 26 degrees with no clouds in sight. We have certainly been lucky with our weather and I think in the 6 weeks we have been travelling we have had 4 days of average rainy weather that has mostly cleared in the afternoon anyways. Arriving in Cassis we had decided we had better buy some sunblock since there will be minimal shade on the walk in and on the beach. The first pharmacy we went to was closed and the supermarket was very over priced. We decided to park the car up and walk into town to see what was happening. It ended up being this stunning wee town with boats tied up in the harbour in front of the seaside restaurants. The buildings were different colours adding to the vibrant atmosphere of the place. Certainly a must to visit. We also managed to find some affordable sunblock at the pharmacy in town.

I don't know if any of you have heard of the Les Calanques which are 9 natural inlets of Massif des Calanques along the coast of the Parc National des Calanques (Natural Park of Calanques) south of Marseilles. Our plan was to visit the most well known of the 9 inlets called Calanque d'En-Vau which entailed a 4.5km walk which would take approximately an hour from a carpark called Col de la Gardiole. However, access to this carpark is prohibited at certain times of the year such as in the middle of summer and when the fire risk is too high. Luckily for us we were there at a time where access if not regulated. You can find all these details easily on calanques13.com if you are planning to do this, but I mostly just found other blogs about it on Pinterest which is how we scheduled it into out itinerary or lack there of! Coming off the main road D559 onto a gravel path we made our way into the carpark through some windy roads. It didn't take too long for us to come out in a big gravel patch that had at least 20 other cars parked up. We were pleased we didnt have anything in the car as we thought it would be a very easy place for thieves to break in. Using google maps Lew found a way down to the beach which I dont think was the proper way down as we saw a few grey haired travellers with walking sticks on their way back up and I am pretty sure they wouldn't have taken the route we did! Most of what we walked was just scree but with medium sized white rocks that even we struggled to walk in with our trustee Adidas. I believe it was more like a short cut as it joined up on a few tracks with at least another 3-4 people on it. The walk was hot in the mid afternoon sun and we were pleased we had brought some sunblock. The mountains were very photogenic and the smell of pine made us feel relaxed like we were on one of our usual Sunday escapades back in NZ. As we got closer to the beachfront we saw people climbing the rocks above us and we also realised then that because of the make up of the inlet and the surrounding mountains it will be already in the shade. So much for bringing my kindle ready to sunbath and the effort to find the sunblock!

The cove itself was certainly very beautiful with rocks either side that echoes the voices of the other people in the area. There were one or two people swimming at this stage and dipping our feet in we noticed a few small jellyfish and that the water was rather chilly! This didn't stop Lew and he changed into his togs underneath the towels we had brought and stumbled over the rocks to the waters edge. I have to admit he was rather slow to get in so I knew he really was finding it cold! I went in to my knees and figured I really just had to get in myself since the water was so clear you forgot you were swimming in an ocean instead of a lake. I also awkwardly got changed under my towel and it felt like everyones eyes were on me as I walked to the waters edge. My bikini felt rather skimpy since everyone was sitting on the beach wearing jackets so I tried to just get in as fast as possible. It was the kind of cold that took your breath away but Lew insisted it got better as you stayed in for longer (hardly!). We didn't last much longer but perhaps all those underwater flips will tire dolphin Lewis out! We changed back on the beach and ate some snacks whilst admiring the view. Our other plan had actually been to take a boat in to it but we were very pleased we didn't since the boats can't actually come in to the beach itself and people have to view it from afar. Since the sun wasn't in the bay we didn't think there was too much point in staying since we still had the drive back in traffic to deal with. We left the beach as many other people already had and made the slow ascent up the scree. I think we can both say that we felt the most relaxed we had in awhile and vowed to find more adventures like this on our travels. We decided not to take the toll roads home which meant it was 1 hour 30 minutes back with a quick stop off to get potatoes and a baguette. Homemade fish n chips was on the menu for tonight and luckily for us the fish didn't actually taste bad at all! 

Au Revoir, tomorrow we head to Nice for two nights which will complete our French Riviera adventures before we head into ITALY! hmmm now thats going to be a whole new ball game.