From June onwards, the train from Marseille to Cassis is packed. Those in the know are heading to a fishing port with its beautiful light, pine trees and the Calanques, narrow limestone inlets of clear azure water surrounded by rugged cliffs. The author Virginia Woolf and her artist sister Vanessa Bell spent a happy summer in Cassis and called it "Bloomsbury-on-Méditerrané”, while Nobel laureate Frederic Mistral (nothing to do with the savage wind of the same name) wrote that “he who has seen Paris but not Cassis has seen nothing.” When Winston Churchill came to paint he stayed at Les Roches Blanches, which is named after the area’s limestone rocks. The hotel was built as a private home in 1887 and is in a prime spot, perched on a headland between two beaches and looking out on the orangey pink Cap Canaille, the highest sea cliff in France. The buzzy port is just a 15 minute stroll away but the hotel is far enough away to be peaceful at night. … [Read more...] about Hotel of the Week: Les Roches Blanches Cassis