End of the Line

If you drew a line starting in Fethiye in southern Turkey, and traced it around the coast of the northern Mediterranean for about 8500 nautical miles, that line would pass along the coasts of Turkey, Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia,  Slovenia, Italy and France. It would end around Marseille in France, and that's the end of the line. Its also the end of the line for us, give or take a few more miles. We are approaching the end of our voyage, at least in its present form.

The coast approaching Marseille is gorgeous, and it is probably the most scenic coast in the south of France.  After leaving Toulon, we skipped down the coast to La Ciotat, a lovely town with a long boat building history. The naval boat building has long ago died, but the old cranes and waterfront factories are now building super yachts for the immensely wealthy, and high tech carbon fibre racing boats for the extreme sports community. We saw a foiling trimaran there that was just super fast.

Pavlov on the dock at La Ciotat

The cranes of La Ciotat

Beautiful historic vessels

'Boff Boats'

On the dock, we met an English gentleman who said he was on a Bentley car rally. He offered to show us some of the cars on the rally. The basement car park was filled with 42 pristine vintage cars from 1928 to 1981. Our friend had two vintage Bentley's, he was taking his 'new' one for a run, a lovely sky blue model from 1981. We asked if there was much competition between Bentley and Rolls owners, and he promptly told us that he owned a vintage Rolls as well, so that he could belong to both clubs!

Some vintage Bentley's from the english rally

The distinctive eagle-like headland at La Ciotat

Classic french lugger boats

After La Ciotat, the geology turns to limestone cliffs. At points, these cliffs are eroded by water to form fjords that the French call calanques. We took the boat into several of these, and they were beautiful and naturalistic places.

Morgiou calanque

The calanque at Port Miou 

An overhead view of Port Miou 

We anchored off the beach at Cassis and Bandol, and enjoyed visiting those two small coastal towns.

Cassis

Waterfront at Cassis

Meagan about in Cassis

West from Cassis, there is a National Park with jagged limestone islands lying just off the coast. We explored the islands and a few more calanques. There is such natural beauty in this coastline, the stark limestone islands, the blues of the sky and water, it was all very beautiful.

Limestone cliffs of the area

Ile Riou, just off the coast

Entering the  calanque Port Le Pins

Looking down the calanque

Calanque Sormiou

Finally, we spent a night in the lovely small islands Iles de Frioles, just outside of Marseille.

Sunset at Ile de Friole

The lunar landscape, Ile de Friole

Dusk

Next stop is Marseille, the last major port and city that we will visit with Pavlov. We plan to meet our great friends Eric and Hanife, who we met initially in Lefkada, Greece. We also want to catch up with some Australian friends, Chris and Kim, who have been on Pavlov 3 times, so they are repeat offenders! See you then.