Nice to Ville-France-sur-Mer Hike

 First thoughts of today are Happy Birthday to Dad as today is Dads birthday. Still miss and think of him so often.

Today is Joeys last day so give her the choice of visiting another small medieval village or another walk along the Mediterranean, no surprise when she picks another walk along the Mediterranean. We have seen different distances depending on the directions you look at. One thing we have seen is lots of steps at one point, so discuss whether to leave from Nice or from VilleFranche-Sur-Mer, finally decide we (Wendy) can just do the steps slowly and we will leave from Nice and then have a meal in VilleFranche-Sur-Mer, though Joey and I (Wendy) will not be ordering little fish there again.

We walk from our apartment to the port and then find the pathway along the coast from there. It is a beautiful day and a beautiful walk, see quite a few people out walking. When we get to the point where there are all the stairs at the top we walk along the road from about 1km, but this gives us a chance to really see how the other half live, wow what amazing homes. I thought we would be walking the road the rest of the way but we come across stairs going back down to the oceanfront. This part of the walk is a little rougher and less manicured. We are walking through little bits of green here, some cactus areas and again fantastic views of the water. We did get passed by a few runners here, no idea how they run on this terrain. We are actually passed by lots of people, except for the one mother and daughter that we caught up to (Wendy keeps us moving slowly to enjoy the scenery).

We reach VilleFranche-Sur-Mer at just after 1PM and we left home at 9:30AM, so we have had a great walk. Joey picks the spot for lunch, a beautiful setting right on the water, left of us is the beautiful little town, right of us is the water, a picture perfect town. Gnocchi with ratatouille sauce is the special today, enough that we will not need much for supper again tonight. This is actually our third time to this town, who knows we may be back in the next few days we have left here.

Get the bus back to Nice and get off in the square to go for ice cream at the 96 flavour place, can't believe this is only our second visit here. Next we head back to the apartment for much needed showers and change of clothes before we head out for happy hour. Once last happy hour at the place that makes floral gin and tonics, yum. One last walk for a sunset view from Promenade des Anglais and then home for snacks for supper. We have lots of different cheeses (why does France have so many beautiful cheeses to choose from and so few kinds of crackers?)

A few last games of cards then off to bed, Joey has a 4;30 AM taxi pickup booked to go to the airport, unfortunately public transit does not go 24 hours a day so her transportation costs take a hit.

A great final day for Joey, we will miss her.

Total steps today 27,000 or 17.2 km, will add floors today 59 floors (lots of steps)

At the entrance of the hotel

Chamber of commerce, pretty nice

We have seen many small theatres

The mega yacht has not moved in 3 weeks

At the start of our hike, we walked along the road

The first bit was not very exciting

But then it got more natural

We then had to go up many step, one man keep running up and down

A very very fancy place

View of part of it

Back down to see level

Lots of ups and down on the second half, more rustic steps as well

The Russian used to have a navy base here, not sure if this was part of it or for the city itself or just some rich people for somewhere to change

Almost in VilleFranche-Sur-mer

Along the citadel

Spritz time

Back in old town

The rocks are burying the steps

The girls keep retuning to this spot for a floral gin & tonic

The are bringing truckloads of stones to cover the sandy beach