Un Transpass aux Calanques

It is so satisfying to live in a city with a decent transit system.  Since giving up our rental car, we have been easily able to navigate the city on foot or by transit. Marseille`s transit system consists of a metro, trams and buses. At the moment we are about a ten minute walk from the major bus route that goes to Keith`s work, and the best part is the bus he needs comes every five minutes. 

On Saturday we decided to take advantage of this efficient system to whisk us to the outskirts of town, so that we could do some hiking. After searching all over the internet, I ended up finding a map of the local calanques and trails at the local hypermarché.  With this map we discovered that we could actually take a bus right out to the one of the various trail heads and then catch another bus back from our end point.  How sophisticated is that?

Hopefully you have been able to tell from the pictures, Marseille is a city which is built on various hills in a valley surrounded by mountains. The mountains are actually within city limits, but are so rugged and inaccessible that there are only a few homes hugging the coast beside the range.  Hence, we were able to feel like we were hiking in the middle of the wilderness while still actually within the city. 

 

The hike we chose was an interesting taste of what these trails have to offer.  Having been on the trail close to Keith`s work, we assumed that most of the trails would be like that: wide, gravel paths, heavily used, and with gentle inclines.  This is not the case, which actually suits us just fine. The trail started off as a wide path, but soon narrowed to the single file style of hiking we are used to.  Ascending into the mountains provided us with some excellent views and raised our heart rates.

 The trail is well maintained, regardless of the evidence of frequent rock slides along it. To heighten the adventure, there were multiple points where we were walking along ledges created by fencing being secured into the rock face and then simply filled with rocks from the slides to produce narrow paths along cliffs which were just skree. As our ascent continued we also ran into sections of the trail where “stairs” had been chiselled into boulders. To continue the hike, we scrambled up these stairs more often using all four limbs rather than just two.

At lunch we stopped at the top of a peak to take in the sights. Highly satisfied with what we had explored along the path and content with our abilities, not only to hike, but also to claw our way up the steep cliff stairs, we took a break. When we were getting ready to start off again, we heard the sounds of another hiker coming from down the trail.  Considering we hadn`t seen anyone all morning, this was a bit of a reassurance that other people actually used these trails. From the same direction we had just completed came a man, in full spandex, who stopped for a minute, said hello, and then continued to RUN along the trail.  A few seconds afterwards, a woman followed at a brisk pace. As she continued on along the next cliff, she stumbled a bit in the loose gravel, which the paths are composed of, and Keith and I simply looked at each other.  All of a sudden we didn`t feel quite so athletic, but were satisfied that we were not crazy enough to run the trail. It amazed us that these people would be moving forward at such a pace, when the potential of losing one’s footing and falling down a steep cliff was such a dangerous possibility.

The weather was terrific for the hike. It was a just a bit overcast, so Keith didn’t burn, and the temperature hovered around the 15°C. Temperature warnings are one of the few things you can find on line about the calanques and there was also a sign at the end of the trail reminding patrons that if the warning is red you can only hike until 11:00 a.m., and if the warning is black you are not permitted onto the trails because it is too hot. It makes us a bit fearful about the temperatures we will have to deal with in the summer. Obviously we haven’t yet adjusted to the climate as we basked in our t-shirts, in what we considered wonderful weather, while it seemed no one else thought this a weekend worth going hiking.

The hike was lovely, but once again I regret the craziness of our packing frenzy over those last days in Kingston.  We threw our hiking boots into the box which will accompany my in-laws when they visit this spring. This was a huge mistake. Runners just aren’t great footwear for the rocky paths around here. In fact, as soon as I saw the mountains surrounding Marseille, I had this regret. I know that the boots are heavy, but they would be perfect for all of our outings. This just adds to list of things which I am lamenting not bringing. Oh well there is only so much space.