#25 One of the highest cliffs in Europe

November 23-25, 2021: La Ciotat

J. Between Cassis and La Ciotat, there is a beautiful coastal road called Route des Crêtes, which has been recommended to us multiple times. It passes through the highest cliffs in France (Cap Canaille: 362m) and is therefore quite dangerous. We had heard somewhere that it is supposedly the most dangerous road in France. It is regularly closed due to very strong winds. Because of our small difficulties in the Black Forest, Florian had stomachaches for two days, wondering if we would really make it to the cliff with our car. I was more worried about the wind, as our van is quite susceptible to it. But it was easy to go up (probably because of the new turbo hose) and the raised barriers and signs told us that the road was open today. When we reached the top, it was almost windless and we were rewarded with magnificent views of Cassis and the coastline. There was a small parking lot at almost every curve, and we stopped at almost every one to have a different view of the coast and to walk along the hiking trail for a bit.

At one of these stops, we first wondered about the many construction and fire trucks, and then encountered some firefighters on the hiking trail. At first, we thought they were doing a height rescue exercise, but apparently they were in the process of recovering a car with several trained climbers and quite a few firefighters. Unfortunately, we couldn't look down the cliff and see where they had to recover the items from, we only observed how they pulled up some very rusty car parts. Unfortunately, we also didn't find out how (and when) the car got down there.

At the end of the coastal/cliff road, it did get a bit windy, but we went back down to La Ciotat. It certainly wasn't the most dangerous road in France.

In La Ciotat, we parked in a small parking lot right behind the big harbor and could walk around the huge harbor area and admire the fancy yachts. There is a shipyard here where apparently many yachts are overhauled/upgraded/repaired in the winter. Among other things, we saw the 136m long "Flying Fox" being surface finished or gilded (the employees of the company later parked their camper next to ours on the campsite). Next to the shipyard, like in most coastal towns here, there is an old harbor with sailboats and fishing boats and a few small alleys in the old town.

Rain and storms were forecasted for the next two days, so we retreated to the only open campsite in the region, right by the sea. We watched the waves, windsurfers, and surfers, did some household chores, and took advantage of the campsite's pretty good internet connection.

Day 40 - Total tour 3,012 km

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