Falaises Soubeyranes

Between the fishing port of Cassis and the old shipbuilding town of La Ciotat, the Provençal coast rears up into a wall of rock that drops sheer into the Mediterranean. The Falaises Soubeyranes reach 394 metres at their highest point, making them the highest sea cliffs in France and among the tallest anywhere in Europe. Their name comes from the Provençal word for sovereign, and seen from a boat they live up to it: a rampart of ochre, rust and pale grey that runs for a little over four kilometres, from Cap Canaille in the north to the headland of the Bec de l'Aigle in the south.

What sets these cliffs apart from the white limestone calanques further west is their colour and layering. The rock is a stack of limestone, sandstone and puddingstone, a natural conglomerate of rounded pebbles cemented together. Around 80 million years ago a river poured gravel and fine sediment into a warm sea here, building an underwater fan that was later lifted out of the water to form the massif. Wind and sea have since carved its face into ledges, hollows and overhangs, and the varied strata and fossils have made the site well known to geologists. Because the soils are sandy and acidic rather than limy, the plant life differs from the rest of the Calanques, with maquis, myrtle and pine on the heights and salt-tolerant plants on the cliff faces.

The cliffs are also a refuge for wildlife. Peregrine falcons and eagle owls nest on the ledges, bats shelter in the caves, and the European shag, rare on the French mainland, breeds along the base of the rock. The hills behind were used by people from the Neolithic onwards, and old farming terraces and sandstone quarries survive in the scrub. Along the crest runs the Route des Crêtes, a road built in the 1960s that follows the cliff tops between Cassis and La Ciotat, with long views over both bays and out to sea. The whole massif now lies within the Calanques National Park.

Getting there

The cliffs rise just west of La Ciotat, about 3.5 km from the town centre, and the Route des Crêtes links them by road with Cassis. La Ciotat and Cassis both have stations on the Marseille–Toulon railway line. Marseille Provence Airport (MRS) is about 40 km to the north-west.