Boondock Puffins

Unless you want to swim in the sea without losing your toes to frost bite that is…!

Driving into La Ciotat, you catch glimpses of the sea every now and again until you finally arrive at the beautiful old harbour filled with quintessential boats intermingled with some more flashy looking day cruisers. In the boatyard there are some massive yachts that look like they might feature ‘Below Deck’.

Arriving late into the afternoon, we checked into our AirBnB with our friends – a tiny little flat in a building that blended into the rest of the quaintly French street, and was located up some impressively windy stairs. The flat was advertised as “2 bedrooms” but actually had one and an added glass walled cubby hole in the kitchen/living room. This made for some entertaining schedules for getting changed etc but was ultimately totally fine… although it has made us suspicious of future 2 roomed Airbnbs!

We went back to the harbour to hunt down some dinner. La Ciotat has some amazing restaurants, with particularly awesome seafood (and cheap wine). It’s worth doing some research to see where is actually good or not – as is frequently the case, location often bumps prices, rather than genuinely good food, but there are some gems here so don’t give up!

The top restaurants we’d recommend are:

– (La Ciotat) Sloop
– Les 3 Secs
– La Grotte
– La Barque
– Kitch and Cook
– Pizza di Napoli (great takeaway pizza!)
– Hemingway’s (a bar, but still great)

But there are loads of others, we were only there a few days so only went to where was easy, open and where we walked past! There were also many boulangeries that provided delicious baguette and croissants each morning, only a few minutes walk out our door.

La Ciotat is also famed for its proximity to the Calanques National Park. Are they really worth the faff?

Considering Eliza managed an hour hike with a sprained ankle down a shaley, steep path and still felt like it was worth it, the answer is probably yes! However, if the hike isn’t your thing (or if you need rescuing from your own stubbornness once your ankle swell to include a tennis ball sized lump) it’s worth knowing that you can actually drive to many calanques, including La Calanque de Sormiou which we’d hiked down to, although it’s worth planning ahead if you are heading here as you may need to be able to prove a reservation at the restaurant (which also only take cash, we discovered as we managed to scrounge together €12.50 which was enough for 3 beers and a cup of left over lemonade!).

There are also many beaches that are much closer to La Ciotat that require little to no hiking. There are also many little restaurants and bars along the beach, complete with some weirdly raked rectangles of sand with spaced out deckchairs and loungers that you can rent for the day for €20! Needless to say that a towel on the sand sufficed, until we decided to have a drink and then we were allowed to use the deckchairs for free.

Just down the coast, there is another small French town, Cassis. It’s certainly worth a trip to see and enjoy, but it is indeed more expensive. It has a lovely promenade, a reasonable beach (Plage La Grande Mer) and an excellent place to have a drink or a mega ice cream or milkshake (Le Perroquet). We were only here for a brief stop in the afternoon so I’m sure there is much more to explore.

All in all, La Ciotat has awesome food and drinks, golf only half an hour away (at Fregate) if you are so inclined, botanical gardens, shopping, beaches and scenery. If you are looking for a south of France get away (particularly if you can go out of peak season), then you can’t go too far wrong with this charming town.