Cycling the Côte d’Azur

We drove North out of Nice and within 20 kilometers we were in the heart of the marine Alps. We followed the river Var through incredible gorges gouged out of solid sandstone. The highway, a narrow gauge railway and the river swap sides of the canyon regularly. Many places the road is cut back into the vertical walls of the canyon to form a sort of half tunnel. Even though the car gave us effortless access to the winding and steep mountain roads, we found villages to explore that even the auto didn’t help. One such village was Entrevaux. This beautiful walled village is best explored on foot. We stretched our legs and stretched our imagination back over the centuries to when this city guarded the frontier between France and the kingdom of Savoy in the 18th century. On our way to Perpignon we also passed through the "Gorges de la Nesque." This wind and water sculpted gorge rivals our own Grand Canyon for grandeur.

The coast from St. Cyprien to Marseille beyond the Grand Rhone River is quite flat and easy riding. We found many places with bicycle lanes or bicycle paths. We were able to get almost a full day ahead of our rough itinerary. Our first big hill out of Marseille also coincided with a big wind storm in the region. We wound up walking Purple up one long switchback around a headland headed for Cassis. The wind gusts literally made the bicycle uncontrollable even though our granny gear was capable of pulling the 5% grade. In fact "granny" was up to just about everything we encountered until we rode into Eze, to the East of Nice. We expected to camp in the campground noted in the literature. We arrived just around 1:00 p.m. and as is the practice in the region everything was closed including the tourist office. No problem, Purple is patient and we needed to eat our lunch of fresh pears, bread and brie. When 2:00 p.m. arrived and our tourist office attendant didn’t we decided to do some searching on our own. We reread the literature again and decided that the campground must be further up the hill. We were in Eze-bord-de-mer on the N-98. Eze-le-Village was further up the hill on the busier N-7. We started up what we thought was a city street for about 200 meters before figuring out it was a driveway for two homes. Back to sea level again and a local stopped us as we were eying the 15% grade next to the driveway and instructed us to go two kilometers East and go up the crossover road to the N-7. I should point out that our French is a bit slim, so most of this conversation was done with finger pointing and one word sentences. It took us an hour to struggle up the 8 to 10% grade of the crossover with some riding and some walking, but we made it to the village. We purchased our evening meal groceries, canned veggies and two frozen hamburger patties, wonderful nectarines and a loaf of "pain cereal", a seven grain bread. We then asked, "where camping?" With more finger pointing and one word sentences we discovered to our dismay that it was one more level up on the N2564 in Col d’Eze. We arrived in the campground at 6:00 pm at 511 meters of elevation. A most interesting campground because it was terraced into the side of the mountain. Cars parked at the top and you carried your camping gear down to a suitable flat spot and set up your tent. The view, however, was stunning. We overlooked the peninsula of Cap Ferrat and the city of Villefranche-s-mer and the village of St. Jean-Cap-Ferrat. We could hear the music of the Disco’s drifting up to us on the evening breeze. Our real intention when we rode into town at 1:00 p.m. was to set up camp and ride our lightened tandem to Monaco and on to Menton on the Italian border. We were 13 km short when we started climbing toward the sun. We gave up on that worthy goal and cooked our supper, showered and fell into the sleeping bag. We had gone only 47 kilometers, less than thirty miles, but if felt like we had ridden a century.

One of our most memorable villages was Fos-s-mer, just 20 kilometers West of Merseille. It was in an unlikely place because this is a huge heavy duty industrial region with refineries and chemical processing plants all around. It was a convenient place for us to stop for the night. We rode from the camp ground into the village and looked up the Tourist office. They lady we met there spoke excellent English and was knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the history of her village. She sent us off to see the hilltop fortifications, church and museum of and about Fos-s-mer, a small city at the crossroads of trade for several centuries. The museum was in the church building that still has an active congregation. It was run by volunteers and did not charge for admission and would not take donations. The displays were well lit with modern lighting and they were well documented. What was missing was the tourist busses, the hordes of people and the tourist boutique shops filled with made in China junk that feed on the tourists.

One of the most memorable people we met was a fellow cyclist named Paul Aparicio. He passed us on the busy N-568 on our way from Fos-s-mer to Marseille. We exchanged "Bon joures" as he whisked past us on his sleek racing road bike. He paced us from in front for a bit and then dropped back and tried to strike up a conversation. Paul doesn’t speak much English and likewise we don’t speak much French but it seemed like he was trying to find out where we were heading. We stopped and pointed out our intended route in the map. Paul was trying to help us find the lesser traveled routes through this congested region so he motioned for us to follow him. We did this for perhaps five kilometers and we kept up fairly well since the road was flat and even a bit downhill. We then bottomed out and had to start pulling a very slight hill, perhaps one percent. Our speed immediately dropped from 30 kilometers per hour to fifteen kilometers per hour and after a couple of waves of his arm indicating we should keep up, Paul finally called a halt. He drew maps of the proper route complete with roundabouts and landmarks to help us find our way through Marseille. He also indicated that we needed to turn inland at the statue of David and made an appropriate gesture to indicate that this was "the" statue of David, a copy of Michalangelo’s David, and that we would recognize it by this one obvious characteristic. We had him write down his address, and we will write to assure him that we did indeed find David and turned at the correct place. Paul then rode off to finish his workout at a speed much more compatible with his vigor and performance style equipment. Paul definitely made a mark for international friendship. Thank you Paul.

We met and rode with other bicycle tourists as we journeyed across France. We even met a group of riders from England on tandems in Nice. They were headed West as we ended our ride East. Some of the other riders were using one of the commercial tour guide groups and riding without much baggage. Nearly everyone we met rode faster and further than we do. We had only a rough guide of how far to ride each day. We were thus able choose where we wanted to stop based on what there was to see in the area. Yes, at times the "where" was dictated more by where the camp grounds were. Even then, however, we had two options that we could play at any time. We could choose a hotel if the camping didn’t work out. We did that a couple times on Corsica and Sardinia, but that is a different story. As last resort we also had the option of  camping on a beach or other non-campground location. We planned to use that only if we were overtaken by night and couldn’t reach either a campground or hotel. We never had to play that card. The evening shower is always refreshing even though some were not very warm. By stopping early there were several evenings where we enjoyed taking only the bare essentials and valuables on Purple. We could then enjoy the lively response of the tandem without all of the luggage. We would tear up into the hills, or off to a nearby town to see the sights and enjoy a restaurant dinner for the evening. Battery powered lights and flashers helped us get back to camp and a GPS receiver made sure we could find it. We had phrase books and menu guides to help us over the language barrier. There were very few people that spoke English in the small villages, but we always found people to be friendly and willing to meet you half way. We avoided the heavy duty tourist locations like the plague. Many times we were pleasantly surprised by the small town museums in the out of the way villages. We particularly enjoyed village square flea markets or "lice" as they are called. The products were more likely to be from the region and designed for the European traveler, rather than the busloads of tourist shoppers. Will we do this again? Absolutely, every chance we get.
 

 Continue on to Corsica

 Return to Travel Archives Home Page