Parents

My parents are in town. They are going to be traveling around Europe for a month. I picked them up at the Aix train station a few days ago after they had missed their flight from Paris beause a women on their first flight had a heart attack. When I first saw them they were a little run down from crossing the atlantic but they seem to be in form now so I took them on a wine tasting tour around the town of Cassis. After driving the Route des Crêtes above the Soubeyran cliffs we dropped down into wine country. With a poor map we followed small roads through acres of farm land looking for wineries with an open cave for wine tasting. The wineries weren’t hard to find and it wasn’t long before the folks had tasted a number of whites, reds and roses.

PHOTOGRAPHY
- The french in general seem very open to picture taking and the owners of the wineries didn’t mind me taking photos at all. I have been in countries where you can have your throat cut for taking a photograph.

TRAVEL
- Cassis is a beautiful resort town just west of Marseille. Hemmed in by high cliffs, its modern development has been limited and it retains much of the charm lost by its more high-profile neighbours.

CLIMBING
- The Soubeyran cliffs overhang the Mediterranean Sea between La Ciotat and Cassis. Their impressive height (416 m) makes them the highest seaside cliffs in Europe. They can be accessed by the Route des Crêtes (17 km long). I haven’t had the chance to climb on them but it looks like loose, poorly protected sandstone — very exciting!