Parc national des Calanques

This guide to the Parc national des Calanques follows Xavier Dechaux, a woodturner from Sisteron who by 1862 had buried his wife and all seven of his children. It traces the four years he spent wandering these hills above Marseille, sleeping rough and carving poems and prayers into the limestone instead of the furniture he once made, work you can still find at Marseilleveyre and beside the Fontaine de Voire. You'll hear how a valley deep in the massif came to be called the Vallon de l'Homme Mort. The route passes the cave the park now calls Grotte Dechaux, its twin mouths still visible in the rock.