Grove Koger
One of the most striking features of the Mediterranean coast of France is Cap Canaille. Said to be the highest sea cliff in the country, it’s an imposing 1,293-foot headland of grey marl overlain with strata of red and ochre limestone, sandstone and pudding stone (a conglomerate of stones and sand). The Michelin travel guide tells us that the word canaille is derived from the Latin phrase canalis mons, meaning “mountain of waters”—apparently a reference to the fresh water that Roman aqueducts once carried down from its heights. Confusingly enough, the rock face of the headland itself is known as the Falaises de Soubeyrannes, or Cliffs of Soubeyrannes.
Cap Canaille looms over the bay and port of Cassis (kah-see), which I visited for the first time in 1992 with friends before attending On Miracle Ground VII, the conference of the International Lawrence Durrell Society, in Avignon. Maggie and I were fortunate enough to spend another week there in 2008 in an apartment overlooking the port’s attractive little harbor. At that time, we read a complaint that the port “lacked luxury infrastructure,” an odd phrase that we eventually learned meant that its harbor was so small that it could accommodate only modest yachts!
Cassis has a reasonably large sand beach near the harbor, as well as an assortment of cafes, small groceries and boulangeries, so we ate well. Among the port’s cultural attractions is its Musée Municipal Méditerranéen d’Arts et Tradition Populaires, which offers a range of historical exhibits and a small number of paintings of the region. This latter selection is particularly enjoyable, as the talented artists represented are far from well-known and viewers have the opportunity of experiencing artworks whose beauty hasn’t been dulled by familiarity.
A short distance from Cassis are several calanques (ka-lawnk), deep fjord-like inlets that have been carved out of the area’s limestone. Small boat tours depart periodically from the port’s harbor and offer an opportunity for visitors to see the inlets close-up and spend time swimming off their pebbly beaches.
Since our visit, French authorities have created a national park, the Parc National des Calanques, stretching from Marseille in the west to La Ciotat in the east.
Our photographs show Cap Canaille (at midday and early evening) and Calanque d’En-Vau. The postcards date from early in the last century, and on the back of the second (which shows Calanque de Port Pin) the original owner has written that “the water is the deepest of blues and greens.” The booklet below describes visits by Virginia Woolf and several other members of the Bloomsbury Group to the little port, with Caws arguing that Woolf’s time there played an important role in the conception of her novels To the Lighthouse and The Waves. Its delightful cover is by Robert Campling.
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