If the French Mediterranean coast was a string of pearls, first you would have Marseilles, an interesting and eclectic port city, but also gritty, bustling, and hard to navigate. In total contrast, the next town of size you come to is Cassis, almost hidden between a rugged national park and an equally inaccessible cliff-like coastline. If you continue the journey east you would come to the French Riviera, first St. Tropez, followed by Cannes, Antibes, and finally Nice, each more glamorous than the next. These towns are all breathtakingly beautiful, but when our car rounded a curve in the road and the picturesque town of Cassis with its small U-shaped harbor was laid out before us, I felt like I was driving back in time to an era when towns like this still remained undiscovered and uncrowded. It seemed too unspoiled for modern day living.
Photo from www.PlanetProvence.com
Cassis is separated from Marseilles by Calanques National Park, a 520 kilometer protected land and marine area which is absolutely stunning in its beauty. One can take a cruise to view the hidden coves or the more intrepid can hike into the area, but there is little access by roads. To the east of Cassis is Cap Canaille, the highest maritime cliffs in Europe which make for a stunning drive, and where I took the top photo with its view of Cassis.
The Calanques. www.LifeInRiviera.com
North of the town are a small number of vineyards producing the renowned Cassis wine, and the even more well-known Bandol wine region is only a short drive away. The town is very walkable and easy to explore with narrow twisting lanes dotted by shops, restaurants, and living accommodation.
www.SoloSophie.com
It was on one of those strolls that I came across a perfume store featuring a name with which I was not familiar, L'Eau de Cassis.
I went in to discover more about this perfumery, which dates its first creation back to 1851 when Lorenzo Salvaire created L'Eau de Cassis for a distinguished lady visiting from Marseilles. Today it is the great-great-grandson, Fabrice Cicot, who carries on the family tradition of creating perfumes in the little town of Cassis. The business was trademarked and reborn in 2005.
There are four shops in Cassis, and also storefronts in Marseilles, Bordeaux, Paris, and Grasse. At the moment the brand is only in France although it can be mail ordered. They have a fairly large offering which includes perfumes, fragrance waters, ambiance perfumes, and candles. I was very interested in the Fragrance Waters, many of which featured the word "Cassis" in their names, such as Weekend in Cassis or Miss Cassis. There were far too many to try in one go but I really liked the perfumes I smelled and wanted to leave with a memory of this little jewel of a town. I settled on Baie de Cassis, which translates to Bay of Cassis.
Baie de Cassis starts with an invigorating pucker of grapefruit, fresh like a breeze from the sea. Notes of blackberry and black currant give a dry, fruity aspect to the scent and remind me of the delicious wines I tasted in this place. The invigorating berry and grapefruit notes hold up for some time and make this a fresh and energizing perfume. Eventually notes of raspberry and rose will come into play and provide a soft, but not too floral, landing for the perfume. These fruit notes are not sweet; in fact you could classify them as tart. I am finding this to be a wonderful perfume to wear in the transitional season into autumn. I would loved to have had time to sample more perfumes from this line, as all the ones I tried I found appealing.
By chance, later in the trip when we were staying in Paris, I happened upon the store in the Marais. There I met Luca, the son of the perfumer Fabrice Cicot, but it was my last night of the trip and somehow I managed to lose both my notes and photos I took of him. Fortunately my recording was still findable. I found Luca to be, as so many perfume people are, passionate about his family's business. He said he loves Cassis but stated, "I don't want our perfumes to be a souvenir object. I want for us the notoriety of a perfumer." Luca said that the family is dedicated to making perfumes that represent the Mediterranean area they call home. It is his father who is the perfumer, and the line has grown from 25 in 2005 to over 40 perfumes today.
Another appealing feature of the perfumes is the price. The 40 ml cylindrical bottles which come stored in a cigar-like tube are 40 Euro, and the 100 ml bottles retail for 59 Euro. Luca said, "For me niche perfume has become so luxurious in terms of price. I don't want to see our perfume become too expensive." He stated that having the perfume strictly in France for the moment has helped keep costs down.
Although this isn't the most easily attainable perfume for those of us not in France, if you ever make your way there keep a lookout for the L'Eau de Cassis Parfumeur. I found many beautiful scents to explore at a very fair price.
View of Cassis harbor from our humble but well-located hotel .
To read more about my French perfumed travels, go to Part One.
All photos not labeled are my own. Perfume is my own purchase.
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