Sospel lies in the deep valley of the Bévéra, a small river that cuts through limestone mountains about twelve kilometres inland from Menton, and it feels like a different country from the coast. The air is cooler, the light is softer, and the town has a pleasant, slightly sleepy character with colonnaded squares and painted houses. Its medieval bridge, the Pont-Vieux, carries a tower that was once used to collect tolls from the traders, and although it was blown up in the Second World War and rebuilt, it remains the town's postcard image. Rows of pale and ochre buildings crowd along the river.
For riders Sospel is a crossroads of famous roads. To the west the road climbs to the Col de Braus, a little over a thousand metres, in a long series of hairpins. To the north, the Col de Turini, at over sixteen hundred metres, is the legendary rally stage of Monte Carlo, with miles of tight bends through pine forest. To the east, the road drops along the Roya valley toward Breil-sur-Roya and Italy, passing small villages perched on rock. With about three thousand people, Sospel has fuel stations, bakeries, cafés and small supermarkets, so it is the natural place to fill the tank before heading into the high country.
The history is layered. The town was part of the County of Nice and later the Kingdom of Sardinia before joining France in 1860, and the baroque church of Saint-Michel with its arcaded square testifies to the wealth of the old trade routes. Above the valley, the Fort Saint-Roch, part of the Maginot Line of the 1930s, is now a museum and shows how this frontier was prepared for war. Menton, the nearest large town, is famed for its lemons and holds a lemon festival each winter.
Eat on the main square if the weather is fine, where plane trees give shade and the fountain adds a little noise. Because this is both start and finish for the loop, the evening is the better time to enjoy it, when the light fades on the valley walls and the day's riders gather over a beer. Winter can bring ice to the passes, so check conditions before committing to the high roads.