Les Rochers et Falaises - Fantastique!

When I was here in 2015, my friends and I did a boat tour from Bandol along the coast to just west of Cassis.  It was a wonderful experience as the scenery is unbelievably beautiful.  At that time, Trip Advisor rated the boat trip as the #1 activity to do here.   

The coast (le littoral) here has many small, very picturesque inlets or coves known as les calanques.  In fact, from just east of Marseille to La Ciotat, there is a marine national park of that name, Parc National des Calanques.  The boat trips vary in the number of calanques that you see and the one we booked today visited 13.  It was the first time for me to ride in a boat which had a hybrid engine.  So, some of the time it was running on electric energy.  Also new was that non-French speaking passengers were provided a book explaining identifying some of the sights.  It is unfortunate but the commentary given by the captain is all in French and he talks very quickly so it is sometimes hard to catch what he is saying.

We headed out of Bandol harbour at 2 pm and our first point of interest was the shipbuilding yard in La Ciotat.  Shipbuilding has been done here since the 15th century.  The site is best known for the construction on LNG carriers (liquid gas).  At one point, over 8000 people were employed here.  However, competition from emerging countries forced its closure in 1987.  More recently, it was reborn as a site for building yachts and super-yachts.  We could see a couple in the dry dock.


La Ciotat is the entry point to the park.  Immediately, you see the rock known as le bec de l'aigle or Eagle's Beak.  Just past that is the one called le tete du chien - dog's head.  



Further along, we saw numerous coves, mostly of limestone.  It was from one of the coves that the French government gifted the US stone for the base of the Statue of Liberty.  For the next few hours, we just sat back and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.



Of particular interest, were two coves.  One is called la calanque d'Oule or cove of organs because it resembles pipe organs and the other, les pierres tombees or fallen stones.





We went as far as the bay of Marseille before returning to the port in Bandol.  The last calanque we visited was Sormiou, the only one that is inhabited.  




What a great way to see this very unique part of the coastline!  I just wish I had studied geology to understand it all better!




Comments

  1. Bev29 October 2022 at 23:59

    This post so reminded me of our trip to that area, probably in 1995 or so. We were there at Easter, and saw many climbers on the steep cliffs. And, then walked back to our starting point, not exactly well-prepared, as it was hotter than we expected, we had two tired teenagers and almost no extra food or water. We made it though...and sure enjoyed the first ice cream shop that appeared.

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