Cycling Nice to Bordighera

Day 3 was adventure day. I would cycle 50km through three countries on my way to Bordighera, Italy. I enjoyed my last bike trip, 100km over three days along Portugal’s south coast. I got poured on that entire trip, but still loved the activity of riding from place to place. Europe has great railway connections, and taking the train from point A to point B is both quicker and cheaper than renting a bike and cycling. It’s also more relaxing. You can sit back, put on a podcast, close your eyes, and catch some much needed z’s that were missed from the night before. But you miss out on so much of what our planet has to offer. When you travel by bike, you notice all the bumps in the pavement, you see each individual flower swaying on the side of the road. You taste the wet, salty breeze off the ocean as it plays the leaves of the trees as if they were an instrument. There’s something so satisfying about cycling from one place to another. A sense of accomplishment that you miss out on when you take the train.

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There are three cycling routes connecting Nice to Bordighera, all running parallel to the coastline. The Basse Corniche stays flat at sea-level, hugging the coast as it winds around beach-front villages. This route has the least climbing, but the longest distance to travel and is often quite busy with car traffic. The Grande Corniche climbs straight up the mountains from Nice, and rides high over the Riviera towns below. This route is said to have the most stunning views from the peaks of the Alpes-Maritimes, but also has a ton of climbing. Lastly, the Goldilocks route: The Moyenne Corniche. The Moyenne Corniche rises a few hundred meters above sea level, offering exceptional views from the mountainside without the steep climb of The Grande Corniche and less car traffic than The Basse Corniche. Guess which one I chose.

I split my trip up along The Moyenne Corniche into three segments. The first was a 10km stretch that crawled uphill, where the medieval mountaintop village of Eze sat waiting, 427m above the Mediterranean. Immediately after leaving Nice, the road hair-pinned up the mountainside, each switchback seemingly leading to an impossibly steeper climb. I got about 30 minutes into the ride and hit a wall. It was 32° at 10:00am, I was hauling an extra 25 pounds of luggage attached to my bike, and my sweat-soaked shirt must’ve already gained an extra five pounds! I was starting to get a pretty bad headache and my body was angrily reminding me that I had done very little physical preparation for this ride.

I got to the point where I was slightly worried that heat stroke would find me at some point in the next five hours on my bike, and I considered turning back down the hill to take the train to Bordighera instead. I didn’t. Instead, I stopped at a roadside gas station, bought a 1L bottled smoothie, sat in the shade and chugged it down in about 10 seconds, then hopped back on the saddle and hit the road! I couldn’t believe it. That five-minute pitstop gave me what I needed to get through the rest of the ride - from that point on, I was good!

It was another 45 minutes of slowly fighting uphill, but the occasional plateau offered reprieve from the climb, and the vistas over the water to my right, left me more breathless than the climb itself. The azure blue of the Mediterranean Sea seemed to fall off the end of the Earth, while little seafront villages rested along the coast below. A kaleidoscope of vibrant flowers, fuchsia, sapphire and pearl-white, lined the street-side fences that periodically blocked my view from the sea beyond; It was very clear why this site was chosen for the Grande Départ of the 2020 Tour de France!

By the time I reached the summit at the medieval fortress of Eze, I was ready for a water break and a banana. I found a park bench that overlooked the Med below, and the 14th century castle above. The first chunk of my ride was done, and the most aggressive climb was behind me.

I hit the road again, this time with my sights set on Menton, the last village along the French coast before crossing the border into Italy. The middle section of my ride was a gentle downhill cruise - a comfortable decline with smooth, wide roads and few junctions to slow me down. The route meandered along steep cliffs, winding through humble villages and coastal mansion estates. It swept through perpetually green vegetation and over antiquated cobblestone bridges. Down below, the towns of Cap d’Ail, Monte-Carlo and Roquebrune-Cap-Martin sailed by as I sat back on my bike and let gravity pull me downhill.

The road here was quiet. Most of the rental cars and foreign license plates terminated in Eze. The occasional vespa whizzed by, but aside from that, the road was mine. This was paradise. It felt like I was in a movie. Hollywood directors have chosen this charming coastal highway to film a number of notable scenes, from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 “To Catch a Thief” to the 1995 James Bond "GoldenEye."

Pastel houses stacked one on top of the other, painted brilliant colours of primrose, peach and terracotta welcomed me to the sea-front promenade in Menton. The Côte d’Azur region was part of Italy for 500 years, until 1860 when France claimed the region in the Second Italian War of Independence. The Italian influence has remained in the region over the past 200 years, and Menton is a prime example of this. Menton is a tiny, Amalfi Coast-like town that sits just west of the Italian border. Had my prior research not told me I was still in France, I would’ve believed I was in Italy.

After a pint and pizza pitstop in Menton, it was a two-minute ride to the Italian border, where I cycled through the gate into my 18th country. An hour remained until my bike would drop me off at my final destination, Bordighera. Now I was really in Italy. It wasn’t poor, but the money that came along with the tourism in the French Riviera quickly vanished as the SS1 carried me into the Italian country-side. Compared to the pristinely-maintained French villages of the Côte d’Azur, the paint here was slightly more faded, the wooden shutters framing the windows had one or two more splinters, and the road beneath me was slightly more worn.

This wasn’t bad though. Its actually part of why I wanted to get into the Ligurian coast of Italy; It's said to be just as beautiful as the Amalfi Coast or Cinque Terre, but smaller, less-touristy, and benefiting from a more authentic Italian feel. I cycled along an old railway track that had been paved over and converted into a coastal causeway. The streets here became mildly more congested as they ran through one small town after another. On this particular Monday afternoon, as I’m sure is always the case in Liguria, no one was in a hurry. I managed to pass most of the cars anyways as they waited at the one red light while I weaved my way through ‘traffic.’ This was a nice flat ride, and such a treat to get the real, Italian-village feel as I rode through Latte, Ventimiglia and Vallecrosia.

When I finally arrived in Bordighera I was disgusting. Sweaty, stinky, soaking wet. A movie-like old Italian lady greeted me with a motherly ‘Bonjourno!’ and showed me to my room. As soon as I threw my bags on my bed, I made a sprint for the beach and dove straight into the water. Aaah, relief. After tasting the salt from the sweat dripping off my nose all day, it was a treat to choke on the salt of the Mediterranean Sea instead. I floated in the crystal-clear water for what felt like hours while the afternoon sun refused to fall lower in the sky.

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Italians are, objectively, gorgeous human beings. In the evening, I found a sanctuary along the sea; I don’t know how I got so lucky to stumble upon it. Tucked behind the Church Sant’Ampelio, hiding from the main beach-side promenade, sandstone boulders peppered the coastline. Something told me it was one of those real local hang-outs. I sat there, sipping on my bottle of Italian red, and watched as schoolmates gathered, diving from larger boulders into the sea, casting lines into the open water hoping for a fresh catch. Way-too-young teenagers met up with friends here, expertly rolling their own cigarettes, then passed them around, smoking them while gossiping in lazy Italian.

At one point in the evening, a group of four mates set up shop a boulder or two away from me. They lit cigarettes and let each one burn, taking long, slow drags. They circulated a harmonica and worked on a light melody, playfully jousting one another if they hit the wrong note. To the harmony of the crashing waves, the peaceful hum of the harmonica and the friendly Italian banter, the smell of sea salt and tobacco and my Rosatello Rosso, the sun painted gentle hues of amber and lilac across the sky as it got heavier. In this very moment, it felt as though this was the only place on the entire planet. I was 100% present. In the here and the now - like I'd never experienced before. There was no work to rush home to, no lesson planning or grading, no bills to be paid or bathrooms to be cleaned. This was one of the coolest moments of my travels - ever. I felt true peace. That made me happy. That filled my cup.

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Day 4 brought with it another ride, only this time much shorter. On the recommendation from the bike rental place guy, I added an extra last-minute stop to my trip. I cycled another 12km east into Sanremo, one of the 'larger' towns on the Ligurian coast. The road followed a historic railway line along the mountain’s edge. The temperature was much more ‘mild’ today, a cool 27°. There was a little climb to start out with (oh boy not this again, I thought), but luckily it was a gentle downhill the rest of the way. It was much the same as yesterday, lush roadside foliage, gorgeous views out over the Med, a pleasant seaside breeze and more small town charm.

I arrived in Sanremo with just enough time to buy a grocery store sandwich and hop on the train back to Nice.

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In hindsight, instead of spending my first two days in Nice and heading out from there, I would've replicated my four-stop trip to Portugal. I would've departed from Nice right away, and continued along the Italian coast to the city of Genoa, stopping in different villages each night to cool down in the sea, sample diverse local cuisine, and absorb the casual variations in each community. But I now have this knowledge, and am already excited to plan my next cycling trip, finding a new corner of the Earth to explore, slowly.