Thursday, 3 November 2022

Cassis Town

Wednesday 29 August 2007. We move away from the beach and into the town itself. The town of Cassis is quite busy this morning. There are market stalls set up, so perhaps it is market day.

A biscuit shop! There was such a wonderful smell coming from it that we had to go inside just to soak in the flavours. They obviously bake a lot of their stock themselves in the shop. Their way of selling was fun too. You could buy an empty decorative tin and cram as many biscuits as you could fit inside all for one price! We did!

We come out and of course have to immediately try one of the biscuits each! The market is a riot of colour and bustle. All sorts of food, meat, vegetables, breads, fruit and of course fish. But lots of other goods also from textiles to CDs.

Did I mention the hand-painted tiles, flowers and pot plants and rolls of linoleum floor covering? Well I have now! Not to mention tablecloths that come in a choice of rectangular, round or oval!

The pigeons on the ornamental fountain make a very appealing picture. Cassis (you do not pronounce the final 'S') is twinned with our own Burnham-on-Sea. The site was first occupied 600-500 BCE by the Ligures (the Italian Liguria region was named after them). I love a sentence from Wikipedia: "...Cassis could have been inhabited by the Greeks, though no proof has yet been found." Brilliant. It could also of course have been inhabited by a three-legged race of pygmies from Planet Bxsvi but strangely no proof of that has been found either...

It's time to walk back to the meeting spot and as we waited for the coach I took a photo of the expensive looking villa or hotel high up on the cliff.

We got back from Cassis to the Island Star and found our favourite spot by the pool. I'd got through the Bernard Cornwell book and was starting Bill Bryson's "The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid" and so was chortling happily when a look of concern came over Fran's face. Cissie and Ada were struggling to the table. Cissie was bent over to the right and Ada was holding onto her as they crawled over. I went over to help.
"What on earth have you done?"
"It's only my back, it's gone!"

We got her sat down - lucky I was there otherwise she'd have done a sideways somersault over the arm of the chair... I'm still not sure exactly what she'd done but: "Heineken Light - two for one!" she hailed a passing waiter. After half an hour she was as right as rain. It really must reach the parts other beers can't...

"Are you going on the talent show?" asked Ada. I was a day late in asking if I was going to and I wasn't all that bothered anyway.
"Is it..." Cissie leaned over, either because of her back or to look into my eyes in a vague hope of reading my mind "...Grumbleweeds?"

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