Natural Crafts France

Four beautiful beaches are accessible on foot from the centre of the village: Arène beach, Corton beach, Grand Mer beach on pier, and finally the smallest, a little way away, the Bestouan beach. The calanques massif is famous all over the world. Classified, its vulnerability imposes a strict regulations that often prohibit access in summer except on foot or by boat. The easiest way to visit, summer and winter, the main ones among them - the most beautiful is En-Vau - is to go aboard one of the boats for a guided tour: tickets to be taken at the small yellow kiosk on the boules game place on the port. Information: Les Bateliers de Cassis at 04 42 01 90 83. One of the jewels between Marseille and Cassis is undoubtedly the Cosquer cave. Located in cap Morgiou, this site is unique in the world. Therefore, this underwater cave houses dozens of works painted and engraved about 27 000 and 19 000 years ago. Discovered in 1985 by a cassidian diver, it took years to mention the colourful paintings covering its walls: horses, seabirds, deer, wild cats, bison have remained in an exceptional state. Protected and for security reasons, it can't be visited. You can console yourself by buying books and photos in the village shops, or by taking a virtual tour on the website www.culture.gouv.fr

Designed by Pierre-Paul Riquet (1609-1680) and motivated by the wheat trade, Canal du Midi was shaped by the hand of man. It began the era of the Industrial Revolution by allowing to rally, by its 240 kilometers, the Atlantic Ocean, via the Garonne, to the Mediterranean Sea. Its journey begins in Toulouse and ends in Marseillan - the other part connecting the Atlantic begins in Toulouse and ends in Castets-en-Dorthe (Canal de Garonne). It was made between 1667 and 1694 and two thousand workers were hired from January 1667. This number rose to twelve thousand, including six hundred women, to alleviate the shortage of men. The work was carried out in three major projects: the first from Toulouse to Trèbes (east of Carcassonne) which includes the basins and water supply systems, the second towards the south of Trèbes to the pond of Thau, and the third that was the construction of the harbour of Sète. To address the problem of leveling throughout the course, more than 60 locks had to be built, Riquet was perfectly conscious of helping to forge a symbol of the power of the 17th-century France, while giving the country a functional communication channel. He thus particularly made sure that the quality of the canal's architecture is worthy of this function. The bridges, the locks and the structures associated with them, as well as the tunnel entrances were designed and drawn with a great sense of aesthetic combined with technical constraints, the whole includes no less than 328 works of art and 63 locks. He was also extremely conscious of the impact of his work on the landscape and took great care to ensure that it was properly bordered by trees and by vegetation in harmony with the landscapes crossed. Since 1996, this performance has rightly been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Having the width of 10 to 20 meters and deep of about 2 meters, the canal passes to its highest point at the threshold of Naurouze, at the border of the department of Aude and Haute Garonne in the Lauragais. Its history with Carcassonne was quite complex since, at the completion of the first route, the canal was 2 kilometers from the city. A link between the city and the canal was suggested in 1686 by Vauban but it was only a century later, in 1787, that the construction of a new route was ordered and was completed in 1810 and that wouldl definitely set the canal in its current configuration.

La Bastide de Valx is the flagship of the park, as it provides you with numerous books and information sheets. With its 1,000 km of hiking trails (including the famous Blanc-Martel trail), the landscape of the Verdon Regional Nature Park opens up like a picture book in a tormented relief, and tells 250 million years of geological history. The Verdon River, the backbone of the territory, has shaped its identity. The deep cuts of the Grand Canyon rub shoulders with the fullness of the Sainte-Croix and Esparron lakes and the vast lavender plateaus of the Pays de Valensole as well as the hills of the Haut-Var. Five artificial reservoirs, the lakes of Castillon, Chaudane, Sainte-Croix, Quinson and Esparron de Verdon, contribute to the beauty of this land. Visit its beautiful website, an almost inexhaustible source of information and images of splendid landscapes that will give you, no doubt, the desire to go there to admire these unique territories and so rich naturally, with your own eyes! And for the lovers of preserved nature, let's remember that they will be able to observe or to be next to a third of the French flora, so much its floristic wealth is unique. And the richness of its fauna is not in rest. The Great Bustard, the Griffon Vulture, the Ocellated Lizard (the largest in Europe) and 22 species of bats (out of the 32 listed in France) are an example of the animal diversity present.