Retour en France, retour à Cassis

Recipe for a perfect welcome back weekend to France, after 10 weeks in the States:

1) find the perfect new apartment in the "city" (Valence) after being disappointingly stood up by the landlord of what we were hoping would be out new home. Things happen for a reason: our new place will have 4 - FOUR! - built-in closets, a (relatively) huge balcony, 2 private parking spots with 1-car garage, and basement storage! Woo hooo for the small things!

2) Go running to stave off the jetlag

Calanque d'en Vau, beautiful turquoise waters

Port Pin

Cap Canaille

3) Go camping'n'kayaking in Cassis, duh! We only spent 1 night bc we seem to have lousy luck with weather, but it was still a great trip. Monday we literally baked in the hot sun all afternoon, but the water was so cold that I only ventured in twice, for a total of about 7 minutes, and only up to my shoulders. Never mind that, napping under the cloudless sky was the perfect antidote to my crazy travel itinerary a few days earlier. We indulged in copious amounts of ice cream and pizza, not feeling guilty for a minute, since the campsite is 1-mile form the center of town atop a pretty steep hill.

3b) Sea kayaking: possibly a new favorite activity. We awoke to thunder and lightning and the possibility of having lost the 50€ spent to reserve our kayaks online. Broke down the campsite...well, folded up the pop-up tent and sat in the car to wait out the rain, more like. Camping might be a new activity, too, but we'll need to better equip ourselves next time, with a table and chairs and cooking gadgets. Anyway, we were put off by the storm and the online weather forecast that had changed overnight from lovely to ominous; then the sun started to peak out from the clouds, so we paid up and headed out to the calanques with a picnic lunch in tow. As beautiful as the weather was from 12h - 14h, at 14h when we were in the boats, the weather was turning again, and we were cautioned not to go out too far. Having reserved the kayaks for 4 hours, we had ample time to paddle out into the sea and around 3 calanques : Port Miou, lined with boat docks, Port Pin, and Calanque d'en Vau, by far the most striking of the 3. We had been cautioned against pulling the kayaks onto the beaches/shores (against the law, heavily fined), and since the sun had slipped back behind a thick layer of clouds, it was easy not to be tempted to swim - although next, if the weather's better, I'd sure love to test out those waters! http://goo.gl/maps/tRHyl