We had spend the previous day at the beach and Colin had contracted a sunburn. He refused to come along for this gem of a hill run.
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Who knows who went over the edge here or succumbed to heat exhaustion.
Glad I did this early in the morning! |
I had reconnoitered the trail head for the Chemin Savaric on the previous night. I left Èze again along the Moyenne Corniche, direction Nice but continued for about 1 km past the viaduct and past the heavily fortified Savaric estate. I began the steep descent, first on a rocky path. As I descended past a shrine to the BVM, a back-country homestead complete with chickens and donkeys, the Chemin Savaric became smoother, with the addition of concrete.
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The trail head for the Chemin Frederic Nietzsche is fairly easy to find: it starts
across from the pedestrian bridge across the SNCF tracks. One caution: the
road closest to the highway is a driveway! |
Finally, I reached the upper reaches of Èze Bord-de-Mer and kept following the steep switchbacks of the town streets.
At the bottom, I followed the Basse Corniche, past the SNCF station to about where a pedestrian bridge crosses the rails. Here, I asked a street sweeper for the foot path back to Èze. One of the two paths was a drive way, the other one, the one on the left is the Chemin Frederic Nietzsche.
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Steep switchbacks most of the way up. |
Now that is a hill run. Steep switchbacks that seem to go on and on for ever. I quickly realized that I did not have the necessary stamina to cover the 300+ m of climb without stopping, so I made it an interval exercise: run for a few minutes, then rest and take a picture. That way I got to the top surprisingly fast.
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Beautiful vistas of the bay and some of the fabulous estates. |
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Soon, Èze Village seems within reach. |