Cassis - Day Six

I woke up at David's house:

Yeah, it's that awesome. He lives about 100 meters from the beach.

Yeah, that beach. Unbelievable. As you can see we are dressed to expend some energy. We drove to the Calanque's near Cassis to hike out to the point and have a picnic. We had made lunch before we left the house, packed it, took off and hiked way out to the tip of the Calanque de Port Pin.

Here is the view at the beginning of the hike.

And as we make the trek...

The city in the background to the right of that Calanque is Cassis.

All of us were not sure what this was:

I said that it was a port to collect things from ships back in the day. David didn't agree as he thought that from the porthole to the water was too far to work for ships. When we got back to his house, we found out that I was basically correct:
              You can still see ancient stone structures that were once used to load the tartins, sailing ships that transported the stone.

Here is where we stopped for our picnic:

Awesome, right?

And then on our way back, we stopped at an inlet and took a nap.

Then we headed back...

Yep, I'm a dork. Once we got back, we drove to the highest cliffs in France, overlooking Cassis and where we ate lunch. Hopefully this can give you some perspective.

We started the hike on the other side of the water, directly behind us in the picture above. Then we walked all the way out the the point on the far left of the picture. It was about 5 miles round trip. This is what we saw up on top of these cliffs:

 That is Cassis

From the cliffs, we took the back road down the cliff, to David's house and then David and Rachel made dinner. This is Escargo.

We also had a rotisserie chicken, hung out, had some wine, ate some food and then crashed as we had to get up early in the AM to catch the train to Marseilles and then a plane from there to Barcelona.

I have to say, this part of the trip with Rachel was wonderful. This day was actually my favorite of the trip as without Rachel and David, we would not have gone to the Calanques, or seen what we saw. It was super awesome and I am very thankful and grateful for their hospitality.




 

Marseille - Day Five

Day five in France. We are still in Marseille and woke up a bit late, probably because Rachel and I stayed up so late chit chatting. Regardless, we are on vacation and so it really didn't matter than much. We did some super awesome things this day. It was super fantastic since we had a tour guide to show us around. The first thing that we did was walk to a local street market. There were a ton of vendors and people shopping.

After 'window' (without the window) shopping, we took off to the oldest soap maker in Marseille. It was a small little store with a ton of soap. We bought some and it is super wonderful. According to Rachel, it lasts forever. From there we headed down to the water and saw an awesome church and took the following pictures in front of the doors.

 From here, we took a short walk and this was the view:

How awesome is that view. It is quite a port, with Notre Dame de La Guarde in the background. This is a closer view of the church:

 From here, we ate lunch overlooking the water, walked down to the port and jumped on a boat and went out the Les Iles, an island just outside of Marseille. It was really very cool. See for yourself:

We took some time on the island and just hung out. It was so relaxing and wonderful. From the island we headed back and Rachel's boyfriend picked us up in his VW and drove us back to Rachel's apartment. We changed, packed (cause we weren't staying there that night) and took off to dinner. Rachel and David had booked a very 'Marseilles' dinner for us as one of the most well known restaurants in the city called Le Rhul. Marseilles is well known for their bouillabaisse (fish soup) and seafood. It is on the Mediterranean after all. Here is the view from the restaurant and us:

I felt that it was necessary to order the bouillabaisse. They gave me a bib:

 Interestingly enough, they gave Rachel and David a bib because of their messy meals:

And Nicole got salt crusted fish:

And then we hit the highway and fell asleep at David's.

It's a.....

....boy! Yes, we found out just the other day that we are having a BOY! Everything in the womb looks to be normal. All the measurements are correct, he is the correct size and everything is moving along correctly. Here is his profile

And in case there were any doubts, my son is certainly going to be a ladies man! Just look at that:

Now, I know for some people the 3D images are kind of creepy, but I really enjoy them and think that they are super awesome! Here are some looks at him with a face and hands and a nose and an open mouth:

I think that these are super cool. He is just growing and growing and growing. Only a little over four months to go!