You might not associate the
building of 300,000-tonne oil and gas tankers with the pleasures of a
Mediterranean resort. But it is one of the surprising charms of LA CIOTAT that the Vieux Port
, below a golden stone old town, shelters the dramatic massive cranes
and derricks of the former shipyards as well as the fishing fleet and
the odd yacht or two. La Ciotat is not a town for keyed-up museum or
monument motivation. It's a relaxing place with excellent beaches to loaf on and little glamour glitter.
In 1895, August and Louis Lumière
filmed the first ever moving pictures here, including the arrival of a
train at the gare SNCF , which had people jumping out of their seats in
fright. The town celebrates its relatively unknown status as the cradle
of cinema with an annual film festival (in mid-June) using the world's oldest movie house, the Eden Cinema
, on the corner of boulevard A.-France and boulevard Jean-Jaurès. The
brothers are commemorated by a solid 1950s monument on plage Lumière
and in a mural on the covered market halls that house the modern
cinema, visible as you walk up rue Regnier from boulevard Guérin north
of the port.
The streets of the old town, apart
from rue Poilus, are uneventful and a bit run-down. If you feel the
need to do something constructive you can take a boat trip out to the
tiny offshore Île Verte from the quai de Gaulle
(departures every 20min; journey time 15min; tel 04.42.40.83.50), and
to a number of nearby calanques from quai Ganteaume (tel
04.42.83.54.50). Alternatively, take a walk through the Parc du Mugel
(daily: June-Sept 8am-8pm; rest of year 9am-6pm; free; bus #3 to La
Garde, stop "Mugel"), with its strange cluster of rock formations on
the promontory beyond the shipyards. A path leads up through overgrown
vegetation to a narrow terrace overlooking the sea. Here, the cliff
face looks like the habitat of some gravity-defying, burrowing beast
rather than the erosions of wind and sea. If you continue on bus #3 to
Figuerolles you can reach the Anse de Figuerolles calanque down the avenue of the same name, and its neighbour, the Gameau.
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