Calanque Hike

Le Parque National des Calanques was just as stunning as I remembered it from when Jeff and I visited 6 years ago. We chose the day with the best weather forecast and hiked just over 5 miles round trip. This hike was the number one reason we chose Marseille as our second destination for this trip. The mild Mediterranean coast is my absolute favorite place to go during February, even though I've only been there at this time of year three times in my life. It's a gorgeous antidote to winter gloom back home.

Dans une calanque avec ma famille.

Journal entry from Thursday, February 13th:

I was tortured with jet lag sleeplessness all night last night. I was so tired I fell asleep around 9pm, but woke up feeling completely wide awake at 11pm. I laid there for an hour hoping I would fall back asleep. No luck. So I read. And read. And shifted my position. And went to the bathroom. And read. And heard two guys having a heated French conversation somewhere out on the street. And read. And tossed and turned. Eventually Jeff woke up around 3am, and we ate breakfast sometime after 4am. The street sweepers came. Jeff went back to bed, and I kept reading. I finished my book at 5:50am and decided to give sleep one last try. The next thing I knew, it was 9am.

Basically, I was awake from 11pm to 6am, which equates to a full afternoon and evening on Pacific Time, and I couldn't fall asleep until 9pm Pacific time. Apparently I haven't adjusted at all to the France time zone. Sigh. I did not take a nap at all today because I didn't want a repeat of last night! I couldn't even run today thanks to that rotten no-sleep night.

The kids didn't sleep great last night either, so we had to wake them up around 9am. Then we got ready to go on our hiking adventure!

We embarked on our hiking adventure around 10am. We took two buses out to Luminy, the end of the B2 bus line and the edge of the Calanques National Park. It was close to an hour on buses, but it beat renting a car! The trailhead was super close to the bus stop, and we started hiking right away. Our hike ended up being 5.4 miles with 500 feet of elevation gain. It was absolutely beautiful: the weather and the scenery combined to make an idyllic family outing. First we visited a viewpoint up high over the Mediterranean Sea, and then we hiked down the trail to the Calanque de Sougiton. The air was 60 degrees. The sun was shining. The sky was blue, matching the water. We dipped our feet into the cold Mediterranean briefly, then shifted to rock collecting and rock skipping. Amber was in her element with all of the rocks! We limited her to choose 2 rocks to take home With great difficulty, she selected three rocks.

While we were enjoying the rocks and water, I glanced up and happened to see two swimmers climbing out of the water onto a rock. Both were bare chested and wearing only tiny bikini bottom Speedos. "Ok, that's very European," I thought. "Leisure swimming in Speedos. No big deal." Then I did a double take as one of the people turned around to sit on the rock. It was a woman. A topless woman. My eyes widened and I quickly looked away. "I feel like I've had the full French experience now," I told Jeff.

The hike back up and out of the Calanque was quite sweaty and tiring. Amber was suddenly so tired and so cranky! Rose and I tried various tactics to distract Amber from her tiredness, but nothing worked until we were most of the way done with the uphill. Then Rose grabbed Amber's hand and started asking her about a video game she liked, which led to a conversation about Pokemon and other digital things. Rose was adorable and sweet and genuine with Amber, drawing her tired sister out of her angry shell till they were walking happily side by side, hands linked and swinging between them. 

The hour-long bus ride back to Marseille was brutal. We took one bus the whole way and it was so completely packed with people (standing room only). We kept squeezing closer together every time more people came on at each stop. At one point a very short old woman in a shawl stumbled and grabbed my butt with one hand to steady herself! She was on her way to a recently vacated bus seat when the driver slammed on the brakes. So I tried to help her into the seat by placing my arm around her back for balance. We got very close in that 10 seconds, but never spoke or learned each other's names, haha.

We walked towards our Airbnb from the bus stop and found a sit-down kebab shop on the way, for a nice big filling lunch. We got home around 3:15pm. Resisting a nap was very hard for me when Jeff was comfortably snoozing right next to me! I feel like I'm going to pass out asleep right now and it's only 8:30pm France time. Sigh.

We stirred and got ourselves moving a little after 5pm, going on a short walk around Vieux Port and stopping at a few shops: electronics for a spare European charging plug, a Savonnerie (soap shop) for a gift for Jeff's mom and sister, Monoprix for a few dinner and breakfast groceries, and a patisserie for some pastries and baguettes. Then we came home for dinner and resssst.

I loved today so much! We had fun family time together. The sun was warm and the views were stellar. I decided that hiking along the Mediterranean is the perfect antidote to winter. 

Enjoying a seat on the bus while we could.

Amber brought a notebook for the bus ride.

The trail started out super wide, then branched into various paths as we got further into the park.

First view of the Mediterranean!

Heading out to the viewpoint.

That gorgeous white limestone calanque-ing into the blue blue water. A Calanque is an inlet, but it sounds kind of like ca-thunk to me, so calanque-ing just works.

Climbing up to the viewpoint. The limestone here was rubbed all smooth from hundreds of hikers.

My favorite family picture of the whole trip. We are country people. We are all happiest when we have air to breathe and space to move! All five of us agreed that this hike was the favorite activity of the trip.

View down into the calanque next door. It had a small harbor with boats moored.

We ran down part of the trail that was paved because it was so steep, running felt easier.

That BRIGHT blue water gave me a thrill every time I looked at it.

Jeff brought our clunky awesome old camera and it made me happy to not be the only one taking pictures for once.

Here's the picture Jeff was taking in the picture I took of him taking a picture. :)

Amber was in rock heaven.

Standing in the frigid Mediterranean!

Here's the picture Jeff took of me in the water. He said "I even got your feet in the picture."

Jeff gave Jay a refresher on how to skip rocks.

I found some heart shaped seaweed stuck to this rock the day before Valentine's Day.

Family picture! Thankfully the topless swimmers had vacated those sunny rocks in the background by the time we took this picture.

This is what happens when I tell my family to gather for a picture. How is this gathered, people?

So many different colored rocks! Like I said, Amber was in rock heaven.

Cute sisters holding hands.

Jay declined his sisters' offers to hold hands with them.

Assiette Kebab lunch: a kebab plate. This was massive and I could not finish it, even in my famished post-hike state.

Amber was overjoyed to get a cheeseburger for her lunch. She tried far more new foods than I expected her to on this trip, so every now and then we got her a burger.

Street sign for our favorite Marseille road.

Our short evening stroll to the shops was bathed in golden sunset streamers.

Same harbor as the morning, but different light. I love the effect that light has on a scene. The buildings in the background are all pink from the sunset.

The giant mirror pavilion: that thing was so much fun to walk under!

Soap shop: savonnerie.