After a little trying, we found the walking trail up to La Turbie. The views down to Monaco and up-down the coast were spectacular. I realized that we don't read about hiking above Monaco, because unlike Cinque Terre, they don't need mortals like us. At 600m on the hilltop of La Turbie stands the remains of the 6BCE Trophy of Augustus commemorating Caesar's conquering the people of Gaul. Designed to overlook the Mediterranean and face the Alps, it epitomizes Roman exploitation and arrogance.
From La Turbie, we headed to Fort de la Revere through the Grand Corniche Park with more great views to the Alps. At La Simboula the views are towards Nice. At the Fort, we ate the second half of our lunch, then headed straight down to Eze Village, another perched hilltown. Since we missed bus #82 by 6 minutes and didn't plan or desire to go down to the water on the Nietzsche Trail, we toured around the village instead. Eze turned out to be everything we expected, tiny size, over-popular with tourists, and more picturesque viewed afar than inside.
When we were up in the village, we noticed there were already about 30 people waiting at the bus #98 stop. John had the brilliant idea of walking to the previous bus stop, which is only 600m on the Moyenne Corniche. There were five of us at the stop. When the bus arrived,, it was standing room only. Amazingly, quite a few people got off at Eze and we scored a window seat on the left side of the bus for our only ride on the Moyenne Corniche. Our bus pulled away from the Eze stop with a dozen people still standing at the curb. It's a consolation the next bus is 35 minutes later vs the 100 minutes gap for our bus, also this was a Saturday. I hate to think what summer is like....
On the articulated bus #100 to Monaco.
Our first view of Monaco as we walk up the ramp to the Royal Palace.
Looking down to the port and Grand Prix circuit.
The Royal Palace.
The Prince is an environmentalist, thus the EV charging station in front of the palace.
Tomb of Princess Grace in the Monaco Cathedral.
The Oceanographic Museum seems to be the tallest building in the Old Town.
Viewpoint.
While looking for the trail blazes up to La Turbie, we had to detour around what appeared to be new construction on the Jardin Exotique de Monaco.
Found it! Now up, up, up.
Lunch spot with a view towards Italy.
Most of Monaco is spread out below. The Royal Palace is on the fortified hill on the right.
Our first view of the Trophy of Augustus.
La Turbie is a quiet town adjacent to The Trophy.
View to the Alps.
View back to The Trophy which towers over the nearby church.
We see a few cyclists as we walk about 500 hundred meters on the Grand Corniche (High Road) before picking up the trail to Fort Revere.
The Alps ring the horizon behind Sun-Ling.
As we approach the Fort we cross over the ridge and can see Cap Ferrat and the Nice Airport in the distance.
And then Eze Village below.
Before walking over to the Fort we ate the 2nd half of our lunch here. Nice view. It was not easy to get going again.
Fort Revere at 700 meters elevation. Nice looking fort!
Amazing views from the Fort. We walked up from Monaco, but one can also drive up. We were not alone. There is even a bike path along the ridge in front of the Fort.
The walk down to Eze was kinda easy but still a bit jarring as it's long and steep.
Typical scenes in tiny Eze.
More great views from almost anywhere in Eze.
A finally, our view from the bus stop. First of a random walker, then of me. ;-)
Hmm, I don't see distance on those signposts!
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