Provence Trip Sept 2024 - Part 9 La Route des Cretes

After leaving La Faviere we started the slow journey west in the direction of home. We hoped to visit Cassis which is just east of Marseille, which we had tried to visit a previous time but couldn't find a place to park. It had looked such a lovely town that we thought we would try to get into the campsite 20 mins walk from the port, as that seemed to be the only way we could get a chance to see the place!

On the way we took a scenic road between La Ciotat and Cassis which goes along the clifftops and has the most amazing views, with plenty of places to pull off to take photos.

This natural 'bridge' wasn't as close as it looks in the photo and wasn't really accessible, otherwise we would have taken a closer look!

The kind of views we had. It was a bit of a shame that this scenic road wasn't very long, only about 30 minutes of driving time, though it took us longer due to several stops.

This is a hemi parasitic plant called Odontites luteus. It is a part of the Broomrape family of parasitic plants.

I was stumped by this plant at first because the seed pods looked like they had been carved from wood. They were very unusual. It turns out it is none other than the Sage-leaved Rockrose (Cistus salviifolius), only I've never seen it in the autumn before, only in the spring when it is flowering! Aren't those seed pods amazing?!

Some tourists took some photos of us and vice versa. Only in the first photo I had my eyes shut, and then I was just leaning over to Keith so he could put his arm around me when she took the next photo, so I look a bit strange! 😀

Looking straight down over the cliff!

A view of Cassis.

Cassis again, zoomed in.

It turned out this was to be the best view we would get of Cassis as the campsite was full, of course. They don't allow booking either which is really annoying. I don't think we are destined to ever get here!

Here's a map showing our route from La Faviere to here, and then on to our next, and last, stop of our trip - the Camargue.