It was so hard to wake up this morning, after sleeping on a nice and comfortable bed with nothing to stress about. But we did, cooked our muesli over the camp stove, hoping not to set the smoke alarm off.
We departed Nice and had a lovely morning, with several climbs up over headlands and with views over the Mediterranean and the fancy Côte d’Azur yachts and houses. A few hours in, there was a diversion, which we didn’t heed, and came across a serious crash between a car and bus. We not-so-discretely walked through the crowd, with the police actually escorting us through, in order to continue in our desired direction.
We had been looking forward to reaching Monaco, our third country of the trip, and held out on morning coffee, hoping to have it in Monaco. Unfortunately, Monaco was very overwhelming on a bike, built into a hillside, with skyscrapers everywhere and the roads often running underground, including roundabouts. Viki was turning red in the face saying she wanted her coffee, but unfortunately, it was not to be, as we couldn’t find a coffee shop.
We did have a pain au chocolate and almond croissant before leaving France, and then, very excitedly, entered Italy, doing a fist pump as we simultaneously crossed the border. We finally had coffee after noon in Ventimiglia and quickly decided to upgrade to the coffee+pasta option for EUR 7.50. We had a delicious fresh pasta lunch, sharing the ragú and the quatro formagio.
After lunch, and with (very) full bellies, we continued on, entering a ~25km stretch of dedicated bike path right next to the sea. It was perfectly marked and even included dedicated tunnels just for bikers, with lit informational placards about the history of the winners of the Tour de Italia.
By early evening we made it to Imperia and celebrated with a gelato and trip to the grocery store. We then began our climb away (for good) from the Mediterranean Sea and into the Italian mountains. We made it as far as Chiusanico, a tiny village ~300m above sea level. I was roughly able to communicate in Spanish to some villagers and was given their blessing to camp by the village hall.
We cooked gnocchi with pesto and fuet (a Spanish salami given to us by Imma’s mum, back in Spain). It was delicious. We’ve just heard the church bell (nearly directly above us) chime 10pm and are wondering whether this will continue every hour through the night. We’ll let you know tomorrow. Although tomorrow sounds like it’s going to be a rather horrendous day of climbing, as we ascend the mountains towards Cuneo.
