Grande Corniche

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Nice

   Nice rises from a wide bay of pebbles and blue water, with a ridge of hills behind it, and it has been a seaside resort since the English began wintering here in the eighteenth century. The Promenade des Anglais, the seafront boulevard they paid for, still runs for several kilometres along the shore, lined with palms, pale hotels and deckchairs, and the old town, Vieux Nice, behind the Cours Saleya flower market, is a tangle of ochre and pink houses with laundry hanging out of windows. Castle Hill, a wooded bluff at the eastern end of the bay, gives a view over the whole sweep of the coast. Italian influence is strong, as the city only became French in 1860, and the food shows it. Try socca, a chickpea pancake, a pan bagnat sandwich or a proper salade niçoise.

   Read the complete Nice write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Nice is where the day begins. Next is Eze.

2. 2. Eze

   Èze is a village built like an eagle's nest, perched on a sharp rock about four hundred and twenty metres above the Mediterranean, with the sea spread out below on three sides. A tangle of stone lanes, stepped passages and vaulted alleys climbs the rock to the summit, where the ruins of a medieval castle have been turned into an exotic garden full of cacti and succulents, with views that stretch along the coast from Cap Ferrat to the mountains of Italy on a clear day.

   Read the complete Èze write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Eze comes up about 12 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Turbie.

3. 3. La Turbie

   Look up at La Turbie and you see a ruin standing over Monaco like a broken tooth. It is the Trophée des Alpes, a huge monument built by the Roman emperor Augustus in 6 BC to celebrate the conquest of the Alpine tribes, and it stands at the highest point of the Via Julia Augusta, the Roman road that connected Italy with Gaul. Once crowned with a statue of the emperor and inscribed with the names of the defeated peoples, the monument was partly dismantled and later used as a fortress and quarry, and what you see today was largely reconstructed in the twentieth century with funds from an American donor.

   Read the complete La Turbie write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 19 km into the recorded legs you reach La Turbie. Next is Monaco.

4. 4. Monaco

   Monaco is small enough to fit inside a large park, and it has packed into two square kilometres more than most countries manage in two thousand. The rock above the harbour has been held by the Grimaldi family since 1297, when Francesco Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, took the fortress by surprise, and the same dynasty still rules the principality. The Prince's Palace stands on the rock, with a changing of the guard at midday, and the old town around it is a tangle of lanes. Across the harbour, the Monte-Carlo Casino, built in the 1860s and finished by the architect of the Paris Opera, Charles Garnier, is a wedding cake of a building that still draws high rollers and sightseers.

   Read the complete Monaco write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Monaco closes the day.