{"id":1798,"date":"2013-05-08T20:17:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T19:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1798"},"modified":"2026-05-25T06:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T05:57:07","slug":"walking-in-cezannes-footsteps-and-on-to-the-mediterranean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/05\/08\/walking-in-cezannes-footsteps-and-on-to-the-mediterranean\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking In Cezanne\u2019s Footsteps And On To The Mediterranean"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we drove out of the campsite on Monday morning, we realised that we had actually been parked almost under the Trois Sautets Bridge which was much favoured by Cezanne; he used to paint many pictures of the bathers in the water and on the beach below.\u00a0 It\u2019s now a rather built up area, with no sign of beaches on the riverbank and certainly no sign of any bathers, but it was a lovely campsite.<\/p>\n

We left Aix-En-Provence and drove east, out towards the mountains of southern Provence.\u00a0 We were very quickly stunned by glimpses of Mont Sainte Victoire and as soon as we found a car park we pulled in.\u00a0 It was definitely time for us to do a walk that wasn\u2019t tramping the streets, but out in the fresh air amongst the wildflowers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Mont
Mont Sainte Victoire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Walking
Walking up Mont Sainte Victoire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We followed a route up towards the Oppidum and then continued on further to a crag that looked way out to the west.\u00a0 We then doubled back and followed a path below the main cliff and out on to a wider path that led us back down to Eileen.\u00a0 It was a beautiful walk and the cliff walls are a spectacular sight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rodney
Rodney looking west below Mont Sainte Victoire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Looking
Looking east below Mont Sainte Victoire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We probably walked for about two hours, including all the photo stops, and it was fascinating watching the mist try to clear from the top and then finally do so, annoyingly, just as we headed away.\u00a0 I can see why Cezanne liked to walk in this area so much and he apparently painted Mont Sainte Victoire over sixty times.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Mont
Mont Sainte Victoire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We drove on a little further east and then finally turned south, stopping to picnic near Peynier with views back towards the mountains.\u00a0 Then after a supermarket stock-up, we drove into Cassis and found Camping Les Cigales (cicadas, to those of us who love them in Sydney).\u00a0 It\u2019s a big campsite with over a hundred pitches, but it\u2019s nicely laid out and apparently only a fifteen minute walk downhill to the harbour.\u00a0 We\u2019ve glimpsed the sea already and also the massive cliffs that stand behind the town, which as the sun was setting, turned a beautiful peachy colour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cassis
Cassis Harbour<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

And the next morning we meandered downhill from the campsite until we finally popped out at the harbour.\u00a0 The guide book describes Cassis as one of the prettiest towns on the Provence coastline and we certainly weren\u2019t disappointed.\u00a0 The water was a lovely turquoise blue and the buildings look as if someone handed out pots of paint in every pastel hue.\u00a0 The back streets are narrow and winding and there are numerous restaurants, which by lunch time all looked to be very full.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"It's
It’s a posh place too…..<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We decided to catch the Petit Train and acquaint ourselves with the area immediately, as we could see from the map that the train wound its way up and down the steep hills and right out to Calanque de Port-Mieu and the chapel of Notre-Dame-de Bon-Voyage passing a couple of pebbly beaches and some gorgeous houses on route.\u00a0 It was a great ride, though rather bumpy at times and it did save us a lot of walking.\u00a0 When we got back to the harbour, we strolled along to the lighthouse and then managed to get a seat, front row, in a restaurant right on the Plage de Grande Mer.\u00a0 We only ordered salads, but in typical, laid back, French fashion, the ordering and delivery took over half an hour; but we didn\u2019t care, sitting in the sunshine and watching the beach filling up with sunbathers until you could hardly see the pebbles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Calanque
Calanque de Port-Mieu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

After lunch we strolled along to the far side of the harbour, licked our ice creams and finally started the steep plod back up to the campsite.\u00a0 We took a break at the local supermarket to buy some ripe tomatoes and a lump of buffalo mozzarella for our dinner and got back to Eileen late in the afternoon.\u00a0 We sat outside in the sunshine for a while, reading and resting our feet before a cool shower and an early night.\u00a0 We have to walk back down that hill in the morning for our next adventure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cap
Cap Canaille<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another sunny day, happy days!\u00a0 And it\u2019s also Neil\u2019s 60th birthday, happy birthday greetings big brother.\u00a0 It was actually warm enough to sit outside for the first time, so we enjoyed our still warm baguette and croissants for breakfast in the sunshine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The old baguette lady….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Later in the morning we pottered downhill to the harbour and hopped aboard the Notos II \u00a0as it was about to leave its berth.\u00a0 We spent a wonderful hour cruising along the coastline from Cassis to five of the nearest Calanques (inlets).\u00a0 Port Miou, Port Pin and En Vau are all very different, but equally lovely, especially from across the deep turquoise water.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"'God's
‘God’s finger’ above the ‘Devil’s hole’ in En Vau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The cliffs gradually increased in height, up to 130 metres and we counted numerous rock climbers working their way slowly up various sections of the cliffs, apparently they come from all over the world to climb this area.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Rock
Rock climbing near Devenson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Looking
Looking through the crack to En Vau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

At one point our boat squeezed into a huge crack in the cliff and we could see right through to the bay on the other side.\u00a0 At Devenson the boat turned around and we headed back to Cassis, marvelling still at the cliffs beside us and at the enormous cliffs of Cap Canaille ahead of us, on the far side of Cassis.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been told that these are the highest cliffs in France and the third highest in Europe at 394 metres above sea level.\u00a0 They\u2019re certainly impressive and tomorrow we aim to drive along the top and enjoy the views on route to La Ciotat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Looking
Looking west along the coast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our late lunch was eaten outside a tiny restaurant in a back lane and then after sitting by the beach for a bit of \u2018people watching\u2019, we plodded back up that darn steep hill to the campsite, for the last time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The\u00a0 harbour and the Chateau at Cassis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we drove out of the campsite on Monday morning, we realised that we had actually been parked almost under the Trois Sautets Bridge which was much favoured by Cezanne; he used to paint many pictures of the bathers in the water and on the beach below.\u00a0 It\u2019s now a rather built up area, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8408,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions\/8408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}