Sunday 27 April
We arise at 5 to enjoy cycling in the early morning quietness of normally hectic roads down into Nice. Reluctantly I get ready and when everything is by the door ready to go we find that it is raining hard.
It just begins as we step out. We go back to bed for a while with all our clothes on, in ready to go when it stops. We hear the rain beating down, and a roll of thunder or two and the heavy rain continues for hours.
Consultation of timetables gives us a new plan – to run down to the station, take the trains to Nice then to Cap Ferrat and walk around the peninsula. We get soaked walking down the path in spite of my super-tight over trousers (brought the wrong ones – the children’s size for super light backpacking emergencies.) In the station a group of young people are gathered in the waiting room, as if after a night of partying.
At Cap Ferrat we walk via an intriguing snicket des moulins up towards the Rothschild House. The gardens are great, especially the cactus garden and house full of interesting things. Lunch is in the plush conservatory, before walking round the Cap Ferrat peninsula on a path built right along the cliff below the great millionaires piles up high on the cliffs, protected by CCTVs, accessed by steps and funiculars and shut off from us by iron gates, spikes, wire, like prisons.
not at home 