Les Falaises et le Littoral

Une falaise is the French word for cliff and le littoral means coastline.  In this part of "le sud de France", these are unbelievably picturesque although a bit scary in terms of the roads that go along them.  A few times over the last few days, we've seen glimpses of les rockers (the rocks) near La Ciotat.  We first spotted them way in the distance on our way to Le Castellet.  They looked very intriguing and I wanted to see them closer up.

So, when we left Cassis after lunch Friday, we decided to find a road that would give us views of these rocks and the rest of the coast.  The road we wanted is called La Route des Cretes and Sue, who does not like heights, expressed some trepidation about taking it, particularly as with its twists and turns we could not see what it was going to be like.  However, we saw two large tour buses going up it and that along with my promise to drive slowly, convinced her.   And, as it turned out, it was not that bad at all.  Coming from the west, the road is very wide until you get to the summit - that is where the tour buses turn around - and even after that it is fine.  The drive takes you around Cap Canaille which has the highest sea cliffs in France and the second highest in Europe (the highest are in County Donegal in Ireland).  We stopped several times before we reached the summit and, I have to admit, the heights were dizzying and I was quite careful not to get too close to the edge.  No barriers or safety fences here!  What amazed us is how close people were sitting or walking on the edge!

Looking down on Cassis



Looking out to sea

See if you can spot the person sitting near the edge of the cliff.  Un fou!

Check out the striations in the rocks

This is part of the road and luckily very little of the drive actually goes along the edge of the cliffs

The rock here is so eroded that it forms a stone bridge

The drive back to Bandol through La Ciotat and Les Lacques at sea level was a piece of cake!  Saturday our plan is to see these cliffs from a completely different perspective.