Nice Going

Last day in Nice. I’m going to miss France; but not le smoking or the merde de chien…

Another stunning Cote d’Azur October day. A tad hazier than yesterday but plenty warm, 22 plus humidity. Wanted to enjoy the weather, without intent, so in the morning, from the hotel, wandered through city streets, into the old town, over to Port Lympia.

450 Euro jeans. 455 Euro shoes. 1050 Euro vase. The south of France takes a bite…

I have no idea what this is. But they were advertising something. Isn’t advertising supposed to invoke desire?

Father smoking with his two-year-old. Ah, le smoking.

The St. Francis tower, completed 1841, towers over the old town. You can apparently climb it. One more tourist thing I didn’t do.

From an aimless wander, on a whim, headed east to the next city over, Villefranche. I walked east on the road (or the “upper route”), which clings to the cliffside with gorgeous views up and down the coastline.

So you’d have to enlarge this, and even then it might be puzzling, but there’s about 11 tiny dots in the ocean, humans swimming, and they are way out there, like really, really far from shore. And there’s no lifeguards.

Views down, alongside the road, are awe inspiring with just a touch of vertigo thrown in

The beach on the right is plage de passable, the end of the Cap Ferrat hike yesterday

Beginning the descent down into Villefranche-sur-Mer

For the return route I took the seaside path. Web resource All Trails designates it “moderately challenging” to which I would say it’s tricky, arduous, and very exposed. Of all the walks and hikes over the last week this was definitely the most arduous. It was up and down, stairs and hills, narrow, at times the foliage was overgrown, but a wonderful diversion and hugely rewarding.

OMG so many stairs on the coastal path today…

The path returning to Nice starts out innocently enough. Not like a hike at all…

The path ends, partially, about halfway to Nice, where you need to climb back up to the road, skirt an old villa, the Maeterlinck mansion (now a block of apartments) and then you can climb back down to the coastal path. All told about 12 kms return but that doesn’t account for stairs!

This is the hill, midway, you have to climb up to get to the road

I counted 305 steps total, although there were sections of incline without steps. What a slog!

Afterwards did some more sightseeing through various neighbourhoods before it was dinner and, unfortunately, time to pack.

The food vendors had cleared out midday, but the flower market was still going strong when I got back from Villefranche

Week in Nice Recap

Wednesday: 17,950 steps or 9.4 miles
Thursday: 20,984, 11.3
Friday: 21,186, 11.8
Saturday: 22,365, 11
Sunday: 15,262, 8.6
Monday: 24,653 (banner day!), 12.4
Tuesday: 22,728, 13.2

So a pretty active week, over 145,000 steps, over 125 kms or, as I prefer to keep track, just under 80 miles.

Miles are so much more rewarding. The Proclaimers never sung they would walk just over 804 kilometres, and then they’d walk just over 804 more; nor did they sing they’d walk 804.672. But 500 miles. That’s an achievement. Yeah, so nearly 80 miles.

Wednesday was early checkout for an early flight; midday on British to Heathrow. Adieu Cote d’Azur.