Following the shoreline south, we pass a mosaic of timeless, postmodern, and modern architecture that does not make any sense. Squinting we can see the charmingly worn out Rococo garden at Vacation home Santa Lucia up in the hills of Roucas Blanc, its sequence of terraces toppling towards the sea. Eventually we pertain to the roundabout with the Statue of David. It’s not the real deal, just a reproduction gifted to the city in 1903 that for some factor took practically 50 years to place. If we were to take a left, which we aren’t on this journey, we could catch a glimpse of La Cité Radieuse by Corbusier, a presumed effort to bring his individual brand of order to a city whose motor appears to run on sustained low-grade chaos.
Above: Bougainvillea, oleander and tamarisk spill over fences in Malmousque. For our trip we are headed straight with the windows down, even more into the stretching 8th arrondissement: past the long stretch of boardwalk, beyond Librairie MiMA, where I’m always tempted to buy a lovely essay whose captions I can not check out to browse at the beach, but just after a satisfyingly oily burger at Cabanon de Paulette. Finally we get here in the postage-stamp-sized area of Samena. It’s here where my hubby and I remain every year, at Villa d’Orient: a small, plain bed and breakfast in a tiered Deco building with stained-glass windows and a stony yard filled with cycads and agave. Run by our friends Pascal and Jean-Marie, it makes me sad to say that it is up for sale, and my self-centered side is yelling at me not to write about it even as I share it with you now. In the evenings, you can walk up the big flight of concrete steps at the end of the street and look out at the vast expanse of mountains and sea. The busy two-lane road here leads down to stylish Les Goudes, its sheer edges set against a horizon so orange it virtually tastes tangerine.
The area sits at the entryway of Parc National des Calanques, which has a few of the most lovely beaches and punishing walkings that I have experienced. The calanques themselves are little bays that have been gouged into the limestone cliffs over time, and even though it’s possible to take your vehicle inside several if you book in advance, it’s best to journey on foot. It’s the only way to experience the smell of juniper baking in the sun and the pulsating rhythm of cicadas. Sometimes, you may stop to marvel at a native artemisia, or just take in the view, or exchange courteous words with other hikers sipping water and suffering through it. Ultimately the course becomes a descent, and the beach is exposed.
Above: Sailboats dot the coastline along a hike to a remote little calanque(that I will not reveal the name of)on the National forest’s southern shoreline. A lot of the bigger calanques– Morgiou, Sormiou– have little restaurants where ice is limited and utensils are even scarcer, forcing us to gulp ice cream down in a way that gives us each a brain freeze however likewise brings a stunning clearness to the day. Sometimes there are pets lollygagging around in the water that make me miss my own. Beachgoers set their blankets down anywhere there is a decent quantity of horizontal space, and the people-watching is bar none: females in burkinis next to Eastern European men in speedos; muscular teens with hardly there peachfuzz moustaches; young children supervised by trios of women clearly gossiping in languages we can’t comprehend; French grannies; Algerian grandfathers. A lot humankind stuffed into one location at a time when it’s tough not to feel that it is seeping from this world. This is why I keep returning. I actually ought to book my flight.
N.B.: Photography by Nick Spain. And for more of Marseille’s lively style scene, see:
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