{"id":838,"date":"2025-06-21T10:40:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T10:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/?p=838"},"modified":"2025-06-21T16:35:30","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T16:35:30","slug":"walk-from-cirm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/?p=838","title":{"rendered":"Afternoon in the Calanques"},"content":{"rendered":"

From 12 to 16 May 2025 I attended the workshop Frieze patterns in algebra, combinatorics and geometry<\/a> at the Centre International de Rencontres Math\u00e9matiques in Luminy (near Marseille). I gave three talks on Frieze patterns and Farey complexes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CIRM is located in Parc national des Calanques, a low mountainous region with rich botany and plenty of walking trails. On Wednesday afternoon, when no lectures were held, I set off on a circular walk over Mont Puget \u2013 which towers over Luminy \u2013 then on to the Mediterranean Sea and back. Here’s the route I took (clockwise). <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

CIRM is marked with a red cross. I had lunch among flowers and scrub before reaching the foot of Mont Puget. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The steep path up the final ascent of Mont Puget was my favourite part, with beautiful views.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here’s another view; you can see some of the University of Aix-Marseille below, in which CIRM is based.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the top I was delighted to see a scarce swallowtail. Swallowtails (of a different type) are rare in England but they are far from scarce in France. Still, for me it was a treat; I hadn’t observed them thus far on the walk.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One last look west before heading on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I descended gradually towards the sea. There were flowers aplenty throughout the walk, such as love-in-a-mist.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Red valerian was in abundance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This one is Montpellier rock rose.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The image below is of thyme growing out of a rock face (near Morgiou).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lots more also \u2013 honeysuckle, hawkweed, cistaceae, and a purple flower we looked up called aphyllanthes, which is endemic to the region. I saw hundreds of lizards (which I couldn’t identify) and few birds. I heard serins in the trees and glimpsed them zipping around \u2013 again, these are rare in England. For butterflies, I recorded marbled whites, pale clouded yellows, painted ladies, and various others besides. Here’s a marbled white.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The path from Mont Puget headed east then south towards the sea, and then west. After a few kilometres I came to a gorgeous bay.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This bay is within relatively easy access of the Aix-Marseille campus, so it is frequented by students. I was tempted to stop, however, I’ve been there before, and I was keen to continue round the coast westwards towards the small village of Morgiou. There I finally got to have a swim in the small harbour.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Morgiou has a cafe\/restaurant which had been recommended to me. With company I would have stopped there; on my own I chose to press on up and over Col de Sugiton and back to CIRM. From the top of the Col I took this picture of CIRM.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From 12 to 16 May 2025 I attended the workshop Frieze patterns in algebra, combinatorics and geometry at the Centre International de Rencontres Math\u00e9matiques in Luminy (near Marseille). I gave three talks on Frieze patterns and Farey complexes. CIRM is located in Parc national des Calanques, a low mountainous region with rich botany and plenty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=838"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions\/865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}