Cassis II

GORGEOUS day today!! Perfect weather for our outing to Cassis. We enjoyed this little seaside community so much with Mom and Dave 2 weeks ago we decided to go back again-this time with Sarah and to swim in the warm water. Wednesday's are half days for Sarah so we picked her up from school in Luynes(sort of pronounced Lou-een) which is just south of Aix, and headed down to the coast. We thought we'd do so much better getting there this time but managed to miss the road we wanted a second time!! At least we didn't end up lost in Old Port Marseilles like last time!

We came into town a bit north of where we did the first time and tried to find the large sandy beach we'd read about in the guide book. After driving west from the town center along the coastal road, we came to a nearly full parking lot and saw some people walking down to some stairs to the sea. We were thrilled to find a parking place, gathered our picnic and all of our beach things and eagerly went down to the steps that led us to.....a rock covered beach. These rocks were more like boulders-no way you could swim here! So disappointing-where did all those people go from their cars? "Into town" was our only conclusion. We were quite hungry so we ate our lunch and then packed ourselves back into the car and headed out to find the smooth limestone beach we'd been to on our first visit to Cassis.

In no time at all, we were in a new car park and happily re situated on the 'right' beach, in amongst lots of other bathers. There was lots of great scenery for Nick!! He thought many of the topless women would really have looked better with their tops on! Sarah got a kick out of singing "Do your boobs hang low"!! We all went swimming in the nice, warm water. The stones were a bit tough on the feet though. It's impossible to look graceful getting in or out of the water here. The relatively small beach was covered with families, older couples, single men and women, many of whom seemed to be out for a little sun on their lunch break. We'd see individuals get up from their towels and put their "office" clothes back on over their suits and stroll off the beach presumably back to work! They looked very relaxed and refreshed.

After we'd been at the beach for a while, Sarah and I went to look at the harbor of Cassis just around the corner from the beach. We really enjoyed seeing all these kids being towed out into the open water for a series of afternoon races.


They were towed out quite far out before they began the races. Later in the afternoon, we saw them all towed back in again. Nice life!


We had the best time in the water over on the left side of the beach. We first went over to investigate what we thought was sandy spot on beach because it was nearly white. But, once in the water, we discovered it was a soft, water sculpted slab of limestone. We sat here for a long time and let the gentle, and sometimes unexpectedly big, waves wash over us! We were treated to a bit of excitement when a Frenchman swam in to the shore to show his wife and daughter the octopus that was clinging to his back! Everyone surrounded him for a viewing and photo op!














As the sun moved slightly lower in the sky, it felt like we could lounge there forever, but it was already 5pm so we decided it was time to head back to Aix. We rinsed off under the powerful, freshwater public showers that spout out of the sea wall at the back of the beach. We clandestinely changed back into our by the car in the parking lot and headed home. Can't wait to come back next year!