Calanques National Park

The Calanques are a coast of white limestone cut into narrow inlets, running east from the southern edge of Marseille past Cassis toward La Ciotat. A calanque is a steep-sided valley drowned by the sea, a little like a miniature fjord in rock that glows almost white in the Provençal sun, and here a whole series of them opens onto water of startling clarity: Sormiou and Morgiou with their tiny fishing harbours, Sugiton under its pine-covered slopes, Port-Miou and Port-Pin closer to Cassis, and En-Vau, the most celebrated, where sheer walls and needles of rock enclose a pale pebble beach. The rock is Urgonian limestone, laid down in warm shallow seas in the age of the dinosaurs and later lifted, fractured and carved by erosion.

The national park was created by decree in April 2012, and it is unusual in reaching right up to the edge of a large city. It covers about 520 square kilometres, of which only around 85 are on land; the rest is sea, including the islands of the Riou archipelago. Despite the dry, wind-scoured hills, the massif holds roughly 900 plant species, many of them adapted to drought and salt spray, and the cliffs shelter Bonelli's eagle and nesting shearwaters, while red coral, groupers and meadows of seagrass live below the surface. At the eastern end the coast rises to Cap Canaille, at 394 metres often called the highest sea cliff in France, its ochre and grey layers a contrast to the white rock further west.

The Calanques also hide one of the great discoveries of prehistoric art. In 1985 the diver Henri Cosquer found the entrance to a cave in these cliffs, now 37 metres below sea level because the Mediterranean has risen since the Ice Age. Inside, above the water line, are hand stencils and paintings of horses, bison, seals and penguin-like great auks, dated to two phases around 27,000 and 19,000 years ago. The cave itself cannot be visited, but it adds a deep human past to a coastline that already feels primeval. Seen from a boat or from the clifftop paths, the inlets change colour through the day, from milky blue in the morning to deep green in the shade of the walls.

Getting there

The park begins at the edge of Marseille's southern districts, about 6 kilometres from the city, and Marseille Provence Airport (MRS) is about 32 kilometres away. Callelongue, at the western end, can be reached by city bus from Marseille, and Sormiou and Morgiou are reached by road and then on foot; Sugiton is reached on foot from the Luminy university campus. Cassis is the starting point for boat trips along the inlets and for the coastal paths to Port-Miou, Port-Pin and En-Vau.