Today we are in Calanques National Park in Southern France.
The national park is between one of the largest cities in France, Marseille
and a seaside town called Cassis. And we are going to do a hike today to see three of these Calanques
and you may have seen the picture in the thumbnail thought wow that's super pretty,
but what the heck is a Caanque and that's exactly what I thought. So it is an inlet with
limestone cliffs and it's specifically used for these inlets in the Mediterranean Sea in France
and it may be used elsewhere but it really does specifically refer to these little inlets of
super blue really pretty water. So we are excited to do a little hike and check them out we're here
in October so we're planning on swimming but it might be a little too cold so we'll see.
We made it to the second calanque. It took us about 40 minutes to walk from the start of the trail to here. this
is the Calanque de Port Pin. I really hope i'm saying calanque right because i'm gonna say it this way
the whole entire video. But the first one that you pass is the Calanque de Port-Miou and you
can't really swim there it's mostly just a port. There's lots of boats. It has some really pretty
views you walk by there and then you're able to go down to the second calanque and
we had a little snack here took a break. There's some people swimming, some people kayaked here
we are bad at kayaking so definitely glad we hiked and we are now going to head on to
the third calanque where we are going to swim and take a longer break there. It looks like
it's a little bit longer of a walk we will keep you updated on how long it takes us.
Okay we finally made it to the third calanque d'en-vau and it is quite the hike especially to
get down to the beach. So the more scenic route or the blue path you just follow the blue paints
on the rocks took us about probably an hour 45 hour 50 almost two hours to get from the
second spot all the way here which to get down to the beach though you're also just like climbing
down a cliff so it's not it's not easy. It is a strenuous hike so we are really excited though
to be here and to swim the water looks beautiful and I do think the more scenic routes worth it.
It's really the way to see those just beautiful from above views of the calanques so I think it was
worth it. We'll see after when we're walking back how we feel about that. We're going to take the
direct route back though. So ready for a swim even though it's cold we definitely worked up a sweat.
So we came into town to Cassis to eat some ice cream and get some dinner before we head to our
airbnb. It took us probably about an hour and a half to hike back from the bottom of the third
calanque to all the way back to our car we were going kind of fast because we only paid for five
hours of parking and we didn't want to get fined so we were going kind of quickly. I'd recommend
definitely paying extra just to be safe and then also you could look for a lot that you just pay
for the whole day. It was only one euro an hour though on the street that we parked on. I think it
was Avenue Notre Dame. The direct path back that we took was very rocky. It was not easier it was
uh more direct so it was a shorter path, but we still you know took some time to get back.
If you're walking to the third calanque it is all uphill if you are coming back it's all downhill.
So the view is um there is no view from that you're just walking down the hill so if you wanted
to see the view and didn't want to do the entire scenic route you could just kind of go left and
get that beautiful view of the third calanque from above and then take the direct route back as well.
If you're not in the hiking and don't want to go that far because it is a lot of work
then the second calanque is really beautiful. You can swim it's like a 40 minute walk from your 40
minutes to an hour walk from your car depending on where you park so definitely worth it super
beautiful. We had a great time. Loved being able to swim. One last tip I wore sandals. That was also
not a great idea, so if you have hiking shoes bring them. We don't have hiking shoes I probably should
just kind of worn some exercise shoes with better tread because it is very rocky like I mentioned.
So it's a beautiful hike though. Super amazing. Love the swimming. Definitely should check it
out if you're here. If you have learned something from our video you know please like and subscribe
and we hope to see you soon! One thing I forgot to add you can also take a boat tour from Cassis,
so if you don't want to hike the boat tour is an option and it looks a little pricey though.
For 45 minutes it's 17 euros for an adult and then they have um different durations of tours to
different calanques so you can actually go see more than the ones that we hiked to today. But you know
just two people you're already in close to 40 euros just for the minimum um but it would be
something definitely really cool to be able to see the other ones in just such a short period
of time. They don't let you get off to swim though so if you want to swim hiking is your best choice.