Nice - Col de la Madone - Menton - Nice
June 11, 2005

Description

Click here for the full profile of the ride.

Photos

	Medium Large	Villefranche sur mer, which is the first town east of Nice.
	Medium Large	Cap Ferrat
	Medium Large	Eze, a pretty neat but unfortunately tourist-swarmed village perched on a hill.
	Medium Large	The village of la Turbie, and behind it the cloud capped mountians that I'm biking to.
	Medium Large	The (drinkable) water fountian in the center of la Turbie, which is a common stopping point for bikers. The road to the Col de la Madone starts just down the road from here.
	Medium Large	Monaco, as seen on the way out of la Turbie.
	Medium Large	Mountians! The white dot on the hill in the middle is the main dome of the Observatoire de Nice.
	Medium Large	The village of Peille.
	Medium Large	The road heading to Col de la Madone. It's narrow and there's no guardrail, but there's very little traffic (more bikes than cars). This photo actually made it into a display on the history of Trek Bikes at a small museum in Wisconsin (slide here).
	Medium Large	Lots of little tunnels along the way.
	Medium Large	The Col! It's at 925 meters above sea level, and hence about 925 meters higher than where I started.
	Medium Large	Combats de l'homme eclats d'obus desormais ne soyez plus que la Madone de la paix (Battles of man, fragments of shells, from now on you will be no more than the Madonna of peace)
	Medium Large	The road down the other side.
	Medium Large	More mountians. It's easy to forget that you're less than 10 km from the Medeterranian!
	Medium Large	The village of St. Agnes, which (according to my sources) is the highest coastal village in Europe at over 600 m elevation.
	Medium Large	The road down to the coast.
	Medium Large	Looking back at the city of Menton, and the weather that was creeping in just as I left the mountians.
	Medium Large	The Monte-Carlo Casino. Since I only had a Bianchi and not a Ferrari, I wasn't allowed inside.
	Medium Large	Road along the port of Monaco, which was actually part of the racetrack for the Monaco Grand Prix about three weeks before and clearly hasn't been returned to its original state. It was pretty cool to bike along a Formula 1 racetrack!
	Medium Large	Looking back at the village of Eze perched above the coast.
	Medium Large	Villefrance sur mer, as seen from the coast.
	Medium Large	Nice. Almost home!