Eating & Cliff Jumping in Marseille, France (Calanques National Park)

During the month of June my husband and I were able to spend three weeks traveling throughout Europe. We visited 6 different countries including Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Monaco, and Morocco. Since so many of my recipes are inspirited by international travel, I want to share some highlights (including cliff jumping at Calanques National Park near Marseilles, France) from our trip throughout the next few weeks!

Our time in Marseille was short and sandwiched in between four days in Cinque Terre and a couple of days in Barcelona. As an itinerary refresher, we started our three week trip with a week in Ireland before flying to Barcelona and driving all the way across southern France to Cinque Terre, Italy. After three amazing days in Italy, we worked our way slowly back to Barcelona with a few pit stops along the way to see parts of Southern France.  For two nights, we stayed right outside of Marseille in a city called la Ciotat at the cutest French couple's apartment. They had an entirely separate room/studio in their back yard where we stayed. It had a small fridge, bathroom, couch, bed and open area and it was beautifully decorated. Being without Internet connection too, it really felt like a getaway and we rested well when we weren't out exploring.

We can't speak a lick of French and our hosts could barely speak English, but our first day there they still managed to give us directions to a lot where we could park our car and also how to get to a nearby grocery store. Because our little studio had a mini fridge, I was able to buy some veggies the first night we arrived and enjoyed a raw salad for the first time in a while. It felt so good to get some produce in me!

We spent two nights total in La Ciotat and one full day exploring areas around Marseille and Marseille itself. The main activity we did during our time there, and the main highlight of our time in Southern France, was hiking down the Calanques and cliff jumping. We left early in the morning and made the beautiful drive along the Cliffs of Cassis towards our parking location for the Calanques. The drive was so scenic and windy and we stopped often to get out and take pictures of the water and landscape.

The drive to the Calanques took a little longer than we thought. You actually have to park in a far back parking lot of a university to get to the start of the hike. It took us a while to find the right place, but soon enough we saw people in hiking gear and bathing suits and we knew we were in the right place. We were hungry again by the time we arrived so we scoped out a sandwich stand and ended up meeting some new friends (from London and America) while waiting in line who were exploring the area looking for some hiking. We let them know about the Cliffs of Calanques and later in the day they ended up joining us down by the water. It was nice to speak English with some likeminded people and they also were able to get some pictures of Brett and I cliff jumping together which was great!

The hike to the cliffs started out very leisurely and flat, but eventually started to make the steeper descent down to the water. It was a nice paved walkway almost the entire way down until just before the water where we had to do a little bit of shuffling over rocks. We were happy to see other swimmers and jumpers down below as we got closer because that confirmed we were in the right place!

The water was aqua blue and popped against the light, tan rocks. We changed into our suits behind some rocks and went down to find a good place to camp out for the morning/afternoon. It took a while of sitting in the sun for me to work up the nerve to get into the frigid water. We had dipped our toes in earlier and it was icy cold. We waded in slowly in the shallow water and I literally lost my breath when I let the water go up to my shoulders. Thankfully, the freezing water became more bearable once I got numb. We swam out to the large rock in the middle of the cove and climbed up the rocks and over to the ledge to jump off. Brett took the first jump and I followed soon after. The height of the cliff was perfect for me. It was high enough to provide some excitement, but not too high to make me scared. Brett, being the amazing cliff jumper that he is, did flips and dives, while stuck with the basic jump. Maybe someday I'll be doing gainers off of cliffs, but not anytime soon!

I was only able to manage a couple of jumps before I got to cold and had to head back in.

Brett continued to jump and even found higher rocks to jump off of. The cliff we both jumped off of was probably about 25 feet and the highest cliff Brett jumped off of was probably 50-60 feet! What a daredevil!

The morning started out warm and sunny, but as the day went on clouds and fog started to roll in. We had seen that it might rain during the afternoon so we decided to pack up and start the hike back up the cliffs to our car. Overall it was an amazing afternoon of activity, adventure, and new friends and we finished off the night walking around downtown Marseille. We actually wouldn't have known about the Calanques if wasn't for Brett's aunt and uncle. They had recently vacationed in Marseille and discovered the Calanques when googling "fun things to do for teenagers in Marseille." They filled us in with all of the details including directions and parking and it worked out great. Brett said it may have been one of the highlights of our entire three week trip and I would agree!