Cassis: Sunshine Amidst a Storm

Voyage #2 with Miss Sara last weekend and we set off for Cassis, a seaside town in the South of France about 30 minutes by train from Marseille.

Excuse the absolutely horrendous quality

It was pouring rain when I set out for the train station Friday morning, but I had decided to wear a dress and sandals so I would be prepared for the weather in Cassis. After tramping through puddles of water and attracting lots of strange stares (who is that crazy lady dressed like it is 80 degrees and sunny when it is miserably storming? hey, that's me!), I made it to Part-Dieu, bought my carte jeune (a train pass that allows me to get reduced rates on almost any French train ticket) and met Sara. We hopped on our train around 10:30 am and enjoyed a fairly simple ride from Lyon to Marseille, where we semi-ran to our connecting train to Cassis.

Train ride-TGV to Marseille

Cassis train station

Around 1 we arrived in the little train station of Cassis, where we discovered the 0.84 euro bus that takes you to downtown. Down we went, after enjoying a nice conversation with a girl interviewing for a possible internship in Cassis. We then had lunch at a restaurant near the water, which was probably more than we needed but we were hungry. I had fried calamari, Sara had moules-frites, and we both had some sangria. The meal ended with some ice cream.

Colorful shutters: the tour guide told us that each house has different color shutters because the fishermen would use  leftover paint from painting their boats to paint their shutters. It also made their house easier to find at night.

First view of Cassis

Lunch!

After that, we laid out on the gorgeous Plage de Grand Mer (haha funny French people) for about an hour and took naps. We took some photos and trekked up to our hotel which was less than a mile away but all painfully uphill. With our backpacks and purses in tow, we started whining about halfway up but eventually made it there in one piece and rinsed off before heading out again.

This is what I am talking about! (Also, first sighting of a topless French woman at the beach was here!)

Around 7pm, we decided to descend again and get dinner at a place I had found on TripAdvisor. Beforehand, we walked around and enjoyed the strange lighting that the storm of the evening was bringing. It lit up the shore and the storefronts in a very cool way as you can see in the pictures. I kind of felt like I was in an Edgar Allen Poe poem, in a weird way.

Colorful houses. 

Awkward smile in front of colorful houses

View of all of the city at night—the castle on the top right

After we wandered, it was dinner time. This dinner was easily the most decadent, the most expensive, and the best meal I have ever eaten. We went to a place called La Défonce, tucked into a little side alley in Cassis. The waiter first brought us out some garlicky hummus with bread crisps, while we drank our Cassis white wine. Then we had our entrée (appetizer) plate of salad and chèvre chaud (hot goat cheese) on pieces of bread, which was AMAZING. Next up was the plat (main dish) which was spaghettoni with tiger prawns from Nigeria, cooked in Pastis (anise-flavored alcohol), tomatoes, and pepper. It had such an interesting taste with the licorice-anise flavor but I really loved it. Finally, we had the dessert—my first real French crème brûlée. It was delicious! I think it was my first crème brûlée, period. The restaurant is owned by a husband and wife and their son was our server. The woman was so so sweet, speaking to us in both English and French and treating us like family. She even told us the crème brûlée is her special recipe. I have never had a dining experience that was so pleasant. If you go to Cassis and want a really lovely meal (and don't mind shelling out some money), you MUST go here.

Santé! Ching ching! 

Chèvre chaud :) 

Sara with the shrimp!

Crème brûlée time!! Thanks to the lovely owner for the pic!

Moving on, because embarrassingly my longest paragraph is on food. We then returned to the hotel and got ready for bed, but noticed on the way that, even at 10pm at night, the restaurants were hoppin'. People eat dinner later here on average and meals can take a couple hours if you are with good, close friends. (Hence, the reason our meal took over 2 hours :))

At 5 am the next morning, we awoke to the loudest storm ever. It was raining buckets; there was lightning, thunder, the whole she-bang. Is that how you spell that word? Anyways, I felt like I was in a monsoon but luckily by the time we woke up the next morning the storm had passed and the sky was clearing up.

We checked out at 11am on Saturday and made our trek back down the hill into downtown. We grabbed Nutella crêpes and coffee to start our mornings. So, I can finally check "Eat a Nutella crêpe in France" off my bucket list. (Yes, that was on my actual bucket list). Then, we decided to spring for the boat tour of 5 of the Cassis calanques. A calanque is basically a little cove that is carved into the rocks along the Mediterranean Sea. Supposedly, they were formed over time by glaciers and then as sea level dropped you can see more of their magnificence. Whether or not that is completely accurate, they are beautiful and so huge. The boat ride was a very bouncy and we got sprayed more than once as we dipped across the water. The water was a really deep sapphire blue that is not really done justice by these photos, but I felt like I was floating on a sea of gems.

We saw the first five from the right: Port-Miou, Port-Pin, En-Vau, L'Oule, and Devenson

Ruins and parts of calanques

We saw a real skinny dipper right before this, cliff-jumping!

Dog who stole our hearts

We met a couple from Atlanta and had a lovely chat with them about their daughter who also studied abroad and loves to travel and about our lives in France. We ended our weekend shopping for postcards, eating ice cream, and grabbing pastries as we made our way back to the bus and the train.

Relaxation

Cassis was like a mini-vacation from life. Something I would definitely love to see again. There is a really long and beautiful hike along the calanques, so maybe someday….