“He who has seen Paris but not Cassis can say, ‘I have seen nothing.'” Those famous words are attributed to Nobel Prize-winning writer Frédéric Mistral—and after visiting this enchanting seaside village, you’ll understand why.

In this episode, Kit Parks explores the charming town of Cassis, nestled along France’s spectacular Mediterranean coast. Hike dramatic seaside cliffs, bike through picturesque vineyards, paddle a kayak beneath towering limestone calanques, swim in crystal-clear waters, and sip cocktails overlooking a medieval castle.

Cassis completely captured Kit’s heart and restored her soul. Tune in to discover why this beautiful Provençal village deserves a place on every active traveler’s bucket list.

Prefer to listen to the Podcast?  Check it out HERE

Cassis, France stole my heart!

Beautiful waterfront?  Check!

Vineyards?  Check!

Unpretentious with real people?   Check!

Medieval Castle?  Check!

Great food? Check!

History and culture? Check!

Great hiking, cycling and paddling?  Check, check and check!!!

“Qu’a vist Paris, se noun a vist Cassis, pou dire: n’ai rèn vist.”
(“He who has seen Paris but not Cassis can say, ‘I have seen nothing.'”)

These words, attributed to Nobel Prize-winning writer Frédéric Mistral, perfectly capture how I feel about Cassis. I was completely smitten the moment I laid eyes on this charming seaside village. By the end of my very first day, I told my host I would be staying until further notice.

To all my French-speaking listeners, I apologize in advance for butchering your beautiful language as I attempt to recite this quote in today’s podcast. Hopefully, you’ll at least get a good laugh from my efforts! 😊

This is the rock scramble to a delightful cove with a beautiful private beach (where I saw the rock climbers).  It looks harder than it was.

Getting to Cassis

The travel planning apps I relied on most were GoEuro (now Omio) and Rome2Rio. Both are free and incredibly helpful! Simply enter your starting point and destination, and the app will show you your transportation options, travel times, and estimated prices.

Another app I forgot to mention in the podcast is FlixBus. You can search schedules, book tickets, and store them right on the app, making bus travel throughout Europe quick and easy.

For train travel in France, use SNCF. I usually purchased my tickets at the station kiosk rather than booking in advance, although for popular routes during peak travel seasons, you may want to reserve ahead.

One important tip: Always validate your train ticket before boarding if your ticket requires validation. Just watch what the locals are doing—you’ll quickly get the hang of traveling like a pro.

And don’t worry if you don’t speak French. I found people throughout the region to be friendly and helpful, and you can usually find someone who speaks at least a little English. If not, a smile, a shrug of the shoulders, and a little pantomime go a long way! 😊

Château de Cassis

If your budget allows, splurge on a stay at the beautiful Château de Cassis. It’s at the top of my list for my next visit! Perched high above the harbor, the castle offers spectacular views of the Mediterranean and the charming village below, making it one of the most memorable places to stay in Cassis.

I stayed in a delightful hostel in town and had a wonderful experience. If you’re interested, send me an email and I’ll be happy to share the details.

For additional lodging options, stop by the Cassis Tourist Office or use your favorite hotel booking site to find accommodations that fit your budget and travel style.

I’m embarrased to even show this, but I promised to do so on today’s episode:)

(C) Active Travel Adventures LLC – All Rights Reserved

Hike, Bike & Paddle Provence: Cassis, France Podcast Transcript

Prefer to read instead of listen? Below is the complete transcript of
Kit Parks’ journey to the enchanting village of Cassis on France’s
Mediterranean coast. Discover spectacular hikes through Calanques
National Park, kayaking beneath towering limestone cliffs, cycling
through vineyards, climbing Cap Canaille, and why Cassis became Kit’s
favorite place in France. This transcript has been cleaned for
formatting, punctuation, and readability while preserving the original
spoken content.  Prefer to listen to the Podcast?  Listen HERE.

Getting There

“Qu’a vist Paris, se noun a vist Cassis, pou dire n’ai rèn vist.â€
Here’s what it means: “He who has seen Paris but not Cassis can say,
‘I haven’t seen anything.’†This was spoken by the Nobel
Prize-winning writer, Frederic Mistral. Our last adventure, the Tour du
Mont Blanc, was super gorgeous but tough so I thought we’d soften things
up a bit and do a lighter adventure in a different part of France. I’m
going to take you to a little village I hesitate to even cover as I’d
like to keep it a secret. The whole time I was there, I didn’t meet or
hear a single American. I think it might be a stealth playground of the
French. We’re going to hike, bike, paddle and swim our way around the
charming village of Cassis. We’ll bike through vineyards, have cocktails
overlooking a medieval castle, hike through some glorious cliffs and
kayak our way around the stunning Calanques, this amazing town that
captured my heart and restored my soul. I’m delighted to share with you
this incredible find that the little charming town of Cassis so totally
captured my heart. By the time you finish exploring Cassis, you’ll have
no choice but to agree with Frederic Mistral that unless you’ve seen
Cassis, you’ve seen nothing at all.

Before we get to Cassis, I want to tell you a backstory about how I got
there. My beloved husband, Bill, died of cancer in 2014. The next couple
of years are pretty much of a blur to me, and close to the two-year
anniversary of his death, I realized I had to figure out what I want to
do with the rest of my life. He and I had built a small business that
had lost its luster for me. After his death, I was just going through
the motions. I’d always dreamed of traveling more, but our business
always seemed to anchor us. I even had a dream of chucking it all and
traveling long-term. Since I turned 50, I also discovered hiking and it
has become a real passion for me. I love getting out in nature and
listening to the birds, the rustling of the trees, breathe the clean air
and have time to think. I love climbing mountains to catch the view that
truly, when you think about it, even knowing the most popular parks and
places in the world, still only a small percentage of the people get to
see.

Why I Chose France And Cassis

In February of 2016, even though I had no idea how I was going to be
able to pull it off, I bought a round-trip ticket to Paris, departing in
late August and returning in the middle of October. I figured that would
be long enough for me to figure out if I like doing long-term travel,
which turns out I’m happy to say that I do. I chose France because I
don’t speak French and I’d only spent an afternoon and an evening there,
so everything was going to be foreign to me. Much like adventure travel,
I want to challenge and test myself. Outside of meeting and spending
some time with a British friend I had met in Iceland that year and also
an American couple who were also going to be in France around the same
time, the trip was going to be unscripted after the first three days. I
wanted to go where I felt like going, do what I felt like doing and move
on when I felt like it. This was both terrifying and exciting all at the
same time. I did eventually make up some rules, such as I had to know
exactly where I was going to sleep by 2:00 that afternoon and I had to
get there before dark.

For the most part, I just lived moment by moment. It’s an extraordinary
way to travel, but you do sacrifice efficiency because you’d spend a lot
of time trying to figure out logistics and planning out how you’re going
to get where and where you’re going to go. You wouldn’t have that issue
if you planned ahead of time. To figure out the travel, I used two free
apps: Rome2rio and GoEuro. With both of these, you plug in your starting
point and your destination and then they give you your option and your
prices. This town so captured my heart. I took so many photos and I had
a difficult time trying to narrow it down, so I’ve got an abundance of
photos. If you never go to my website, this is the episode you want to
go to my website to see. I’ve got videos. This was the first time I
learned how to use the video app on the camera and you’ll see that when
I go do it sideways. Nonetheless, great photos, and it will give you a
real taste of what this region is like.

I chose Cassis because I saw on a map that the Calanques National Park
is adjacent and was on the water, so that sounded pretty good to me. I
did know what a calanque was, but I know that countries always highlight
their greatest landscapes by designating them as a national park. Off
the Cassis I went in search of a good hike. I went by bus, trains. The
public transport in France is excellent so it’s very easy to get around.
I’m going to try to describe a calanque to you. Put your hand out in
front of you and then spread your fingers. Now imagine that each of your
fingers are very tall isolated cliff. Now imagine the gaps between your
fingers as the Mediterranean Sea. You are in Provence in the south of
France. The water is turquoise, the light is amazing and it’s in Cassis
that I finally found some peace after all the turmoil the last few
years.

Why Cassis Is My Favorite Place In France

Calanques are found on the Mediterranean coast and they’re made of these
steep rock inlets and valleys in the water. They are caused by glacial
erosion or from the top of a large cave that collapsed down and then
became partially submerged by a rise in the sea level. The calanques are
stunning. When I arrived in Cassis, I was immediately smitten and it
quickly became and remains my favorite place in all of France. It has it
all. Beautiful waterfront, check. Vineyards, check. Quaint fishing
village with real people and not at all stuffy or pretentious, check. A
castle on the cliff, check. Great restaurants, check. Vibrant market,
check. Culture, check. Friendly locals, check. Great food, check. Great
hiking, paddling and cycling, check.

If you’re a little nervous about trying Adventure Travel in a foreign
country, I could not more highly recommend getting your butt over to
Cassis and using it as a base for day trips. The Calanques National Park
was only established a few years ago and has over 200 square miles which
is about 500 square kilometers. There are multiple hiking trails in the
area, none of which I found to be overly difficult. Although to get to
this one quiet beach between the cliffs, you did have to mantle to a
rock scramble but nothing was too hard or dangerous. Be sure to wear
your bathing suit if you’re hiking in the park because you can enjoy a
lovely refreshing swim in the private cove that few make the effort to
get to. I’m not sure if I was lucky or not because it made me nervous,
but it was cool to watch these two guys free climbing one of the cliffs
in the calanque at one of these coves. They were up several hundred feet
in the air. They had no rope support and they appeared to know what they
were doing, but one mistake and they were doomed because that limestone
cliff is a straight shot down to the shore. Watching them made me
nervous for them, but they also entertained the small gathering at the
beach. Happily, I saw no mishaps before I headed back.

Getting Around The Park

To find your way around the park, you can pick up a map at the well-run
Tourist Information Office located right in the downtown harbor front.
The staff speaks English and I imagine other common languages in
addition to their native French. They were very helpful and justifiably
proud of their amazing home. If you’re in Cassis during the summer
wildfire season, the calanques may only be accessible by boat or kayak.
It’s a good idea to check with the Visitors Center before you head out
to find out what the conditions are that day. There are a few roads in
the park and most of the roads are often poor, jammed and parking is
always nonexistent unless you have a reservation at one of the
restaurants. Personally, I would recommend either hiking or kayaking to
avoid all the hassle. The park is literally just outside of the town of
Cassis so it’s an easy walk.

One evening, I was sitting at a restaurant overlooking the harbor and on
the other side of the national park is a massive cliff called Cap
Canaille. This is the tallest coastal cliff in all of Europe. Watching
the sunset turn the cliff red, I told the waiter I’m going to climb that
in the morning. He laughed at me as if I couldn’t do it. I know I don’t
look the part, but I was determined. The reason he laughed is because
the grade is super steep. It’s not that far of a hike to get up to the
top, but you sure need good lungs. If you hike a little later in the
day, you pass a vineyard that’s open for wine tastings, which would make
a nice reward on the way back down. When I reached the top, the view was
magnificent, although a little hazy the day I was there. You can see for
miles and miles and I felt like a speck on this incredible landscape. I
decided to try to use the video feature of my iPhone for the first time.
Apparently, you have to hold it in a certain direction. If you turn your
head, you’ll get a taste of the view along with some, that I finally
figured out how to use it.

There are lots of trails up there and while I didn’t see anybody at that
time of day I was there, I did, unfortunately, see signs that people had
been there before. Please bring a baggie with you when you hike and put
your toilet paper in it if nature calls. It must not rain up there very
much, so I saw some littered toilet paper along the trail, which is
disgusting. How disrespectful of the beauty that these folks came up to
witness. Litter aside, it was one of my more worthwhile climbs. The view
was absolutely amazing. I should note that you’re also able to drive up
there and much of the hike is on the road. There’re also tons of other
trails up in the area. There are three and four-hour hikes that are
available. It’s such a great base town for you to do all sorts of
outdoor adventures. If you need a break from hiking, you can always rent
a kayak or a boat and explore the calanques that way. This and all the
activities can be arranged at the Visitors Center, either before your
trip or I found it just as convenient to do it that morning once I saw
the weather.

Whether you rent a kayak or not, take the time out to take one of the
guided boat tours of the calanques, so you can get that perspective from
the water. They offer several tours depending on how many of the
calanques that you want to visit. They each had their own personalities.
Each cove and cliff look completely different and just when you think
one can’t get any prettier, the next one surprises you. In addition to
kayaking, you can snorkel, scuba dive, wind surf or rent a boat. Imagine
rolling vineyards in France and that’s what the Cassis’ surroundings
look like. Picturesque, quaint and inviting. My tour had two guides and
I was the only non-French speaking guest. I was a little annoyed that
while both guides spoke English, they hardly translated anything for me.
Fortunately, a kind Swiss woman took over that job and explained what
the guides were telling us whenever we would stop at some historic or
otherwise notable place. One interesting story is that a long time ago,
at one of the coves we stopped, pirates would use lanterns to trick
passing ships into thinking the cove was safe and when the ships crashed
against the rocks, out of plundering they would go.

Tasty Food In Cassis

You can get in a good hike just wandering around the charming streets of
Cassis. Artifacts indicate that the harbor area was settled in the
beginning of the fifth or sixth centuries. You can get a taste of the
history by visiting the free Communal Oven called the Le Four Banal,
which was built in the seventeenth century and just excavated this
century. There’s also a nice Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions
that’s worth checking out. When I get to a new town, I mostly wander
around and get lost. The curved streets can be a bit of a maze, but if
you get really lost in Cassis, just head downhill and you will
eventually reach the harbor, so no worries. You can pick up a map at the
Visitors Center. I also ate well in Cassis. My favorite meal was a
shrimp pasta with an exquisite sauce I would marry if that were
possible. The portion was overly generous and, as I had a refrigerator
back at the room, I asked for a to-go box. To-go boxes aren’t common in
Europe and they didn’t have anything. They were also somewhat amused
that I would eat leftovers. Using my butchered French combined with my
pantomime, I explained that it was my favorite dish so far in France so
there was absolutely no way I would allow such a dish to go into the
trashcan. They finally relented and cleaned out an ice cream container
to put my dinner remains in, and we all laughed.

That reminds me of a night I took my Scottish friend, Jamie, out to
dinner for his birthday in Glasgow. We went to a tapas restaurant and
way over ordered. Easily more than half of our delicious dishes
remained. Jamie is a single guy and I told him he should take it home so
he wouldn’t have to cook the next day. He explained that they don’t do
that there. I insisted and the restaurant wrapped the dishes up for us.
About ten days later at the end of my trip after my long-distance hike,
I went out for my final dinner with Jamie and his mom. At the end of the
meal, they asked for a to-go box for the leftovers. I laughed thinking
that perhaps I started a trend in Europe. I have this cute picture of
Jamie holding his very first to-go box in front of one of those cute
little red phone booths they use in Scotland.

I fell in love with Cassis the moment I saw the harbor. The colorful
fishing boats line the shore and they match the charm of the harbor
front shops with all their gaiety. What I really liked is that these are
real people, doing real work and going about the business of life. I had
arrived in Cassis from Antibe, a very upscale town where the
uber-wealthy park their massive yachts when playing in Monte Carlo. It’s
a lovely town and certainly worth a visit, but Antibe to me is comprised
of the rich, the workers or the tourists. Whereas in Cassis, I got the
feeling that Cassis would continue to go about its business whether or
not any tourists showed up. In fact, most of the tourists seem to be day
trippers taking the 25-minute ride in from Marseille. Most were French,
and I never met an American my entire visit. Cassis is a place that I
could call home. I even put the Cassis weather on my phone so I can
check it out during the year. It can get cold in the winter and they
even create a public ice-skating rink for everyone to use from the end
of December through January. I’m determined to live there for at least a
month or two one day. My Swiss translator friend from the bike ride
offered to let me light her apartment as her family only uses it a few
times a year.

Stay At Chateau de Cassis And Other Charming Accommodations

If I was smitten when I arrived, watching the sun go down and light up
the massive cliff Cap Canaille got me serious about the town, then I
fully fell in love once I saw Cassis at night. While you can’t miss
seeing the castle on the cliff during the day, Cassis comes into its own
at night. The owners of this now-privately held castle light it up after
dark, and it’s so breathtaking. I was there during a full moon as well,
and the water was rough, so the moonlight was highlighting the crashing
waves along the beach. The harbor front shop lights combined with
moonlight to bounce light upon the ripples of the cove alongside the
fishing boats and the castle was absolutely dazzling. When I returned to
the hostel that night, I told my host I would be extending my stay until
further notice. Let me tell you about the castle. It’s called the
Chateau de Cassis. It began as a watch tower in the fifth century.
Eventually, the castle and the walls were built and that started
somewhere around the eighth century. In the seventeenth century, the
castle was all but abandoned when most of the remaining residents moved
down to the village of Cassis.

The castle became private property in the 1800’s and remains so today.
It has been lovingly renovated and now you can rent a suite and stay
there if you want. Staying at the castle is justifiably more expensive
than a typical hotel, but I didn’t find the price unreasonable. I plan
to stay there myself for a night or two on my next visit. On this trip,
I stayed in my inexpensive hostel where I met this cool Moroccan woman
named Malek, who I still keep up with on Facebook and a Parisian named
Solveig with whom I reconnected and met for drinks with in Paris several
weeks later on my trip. Solveig is a castle lover and I have invited her
to come visit me in North Carolina so she can see the Biltmore Castle in
Asheville. As an aside, you can rent this castle for an event. If you
know someone looking for a super-cool venue for a destination wedding,
you ought to forward this show to them so they can check it out. I’m
sure it’s going to be expensive, but what a venue.

I’m very grateful to Cassis. It was here that I finally started feeling
like my old self again after Bill’s passing. It was in Cassis that I
began to believe that my life could be wonderful again, even though it
was going to look so different without Bill. I believe that somewhere,
Bill is smiling, watching me stretch my wings and tackle ever more
interesting trips outside of my comfort zone. While he personally
wouldn’t want to go on the types of adventures that I’ve been taking, he
would’ve been the first to encourage me to go. It’s obvious I’ve fallen
in love with Cassis and I almost hate sharing it because I’d hate to see
it get too touristy and spoiled. When I looked back over my trips and I
wanted to try to figure out which trip would I recommend if you wanted
to get your feet wet in foreign adventure travel, I couldn’t think of
any better place than Cassis. It truly has it all and it could be
tailored as inexpensively or as luxurious as you want, plus you have
that ever-helpful Visitors Center there to guide you as you need.

Using the village as a base camp, you can decide each day what you feel
like doing, depending on how your muscles feel and what the weather is
like. The Visitors Center can make any arrangements that you need and if
you like to plan in advance, their website can help you do that as well.
There’s an abundance of outdoor adventure activities all set in one of
the most charming places that has ever touched my heart. There are many
places that I have loved, but as the saying goes, I wouldn’t want to
live there. I can’t say that about Cassis. I would definitely want to
live there, certainly for the short-term and quite possibly longer.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour of Cassis. I’d give this a difficulty
rating of two to three depending on the difficulty of the hikes that you
do. The best time to go is in the late spring and early fall to get the
best weather and to avoid the crowds. Like always, I’ve put together a
free travel planner that you can automatically get when you join our
monthly newsletter and community or you can download it off the website
if you should need it sooner. I want to thank all of you for supporting
me and encouraging me. Your emails have been so encouraging. I want to
give a shout out to a fellow North Carolinian named Dennis. I’ve got an
upcoming episode about biking and cruising the Danube, so hopefully, I
can get a hold of him and he can give us some insights as well. I also
see that the episode on Nicaragua seems to have sparked some interest in
that lovely and often overlooked country. Laurie from Colorado is adding
it to her bucket list, as is Kai from Washington who is adding both
Nicaragua and Sweden to her list.

I want to ask you something too. Nobody has listened to the episode on
Australia, which is odd. You’ve got the Great Barrier Reef and
Whitewater Rafting in Tully. It seems odd to me, so I don’t know if I’ve
done something technically wrong or nobody is interested in it. If
anybody has any clue, please pop me an email and give me some
suggestions on that. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong there. Please
keep the emails coming. You can always reach me at
Kit@ActiveTravelAdventures.com or click on the connect buttons on the
website. Did you know that I’ve made it really easy for you to find a
cool trip? You can use the search features on the website to check out
all the adventures we’ve covered to date. I categorized each trip by the
difficulty rating, the location, the activity, the accommodations, who
it’s good for like solo, couple, family, friends or custom. Whether you
should use a guide or not and what kind of budget you can expect plus
much more.

If you’ve just found the Active Travel Adventures podcast, you can go to
ActiveTravelAdventures.com and click on the podcast directory to see a
list of all the previous episodes. At the top of each episode page is a
podcast player. This is also great if you know somebody who would be
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You can also share any episode by clicking the box with the arrow on
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Parks, so hopefully I’ll get to see it to thank you. If you’re enjoying
this episode, please share it one person. Word of mouth is the best way
for people to find ATA among a sea of hundreds of thousands of podcasts.
Thanks, in advance. I’ll be back and we’ll be rafting the Colorado River
to the Grand Canyon and you won’t want to miss it. Until then, adventure
on.

Important Links:

Tour du Mont Blanc – previous episode Rome2rio GoEuro Chateau de Cassis
Visitors Center ActiveTravelAdventures.com Nicaragua – previous episode
Australia – previous episode Kit@ActiveTravelAdventures.com Love the
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