Corniche Superieur Cycle Ride

Wednesday 23 April 2014

 We cycle down the Peillon hairpins, turn left at the bottom in Le Moulins and follow the road to La Trinite where we did our shopping the other day. There a sunny pavement offers us a second breakfast, after which Jim skilfully navigates the narrow back street to find the way onto the steep and twisted land leading to the Corniche Superior. This is a high road looking down on the sea. There are 3 parallel corniche roads, and this is the highest of them from where we gaze down on the ocean so blue and so far away and the miniature harbours encrusted with white yachting ware twinkling in the haze. When we stop in a layby, we find gold wrapped Easter Eggs lying there for us to eat.

 The road rises gently to a couple of cols, the final one at Eze where we can look over towards the medieval perched town down by the coast. Today the sky is blue, and cloudless and it is hot in the sun. everything looks wonderful in this light. The road section we are doing ends at La Turbie, a place we have considered in the past for a holiday, to climb at the nearby crags.

Here we find the recommended café de la Fontaine, have a coffee while we wait for tables to be set, then enjoy a great lunch with regional speciality lemon tart to follow. The rest of the ride takes us up the pleasant road to Peille, ascending gently for a quick visit only to find our narrow street blocked by a taxi  The ascent of our hair pinned hill back to our village takes 30 minutes.

In the evening darkness we walk into the village and find more alleys and dark place unvisiteed last time. We explore the lower end which is the area where the tall houses start going down the hill and  find strange deep tunnels behind the houses, dark, dusty and derelict, and quite scary. On the other side of these some of the houses have ladders access to the front doors.