June 26, 2025
Sospel to Menton
Today’s ride was by far the easiest of the tour, with just 22.5 km and 339 metres elevation gain recorded by my Garmin; RWGPS predicted 425 metres but perhaps it didn’t account for the tunnel.
Knowing this, plus that it was going to be hot and that we’d be able to get in to our apartment to drop our bikes and bags at noon, we got underway at 9 and started climbing right away. No cooling downhill to start :-( this time. Consequently we were soon soaked with sweat.
Al was far ahead when a young border collie peeled out at me from below a steel barrier. I greeted him and the next thing I knew he was easily loping beside me, looking over as if to say, “let’s speed it up, okay?” He continued to run ahead, look back, wait until I passed, and run beside me again for a few hundred metres. A very friendly dog, he made my morning.
As I neared the col, the sky clouded over and the mountain tops were hidden in clouds. It looked like it might rain.
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Just as I was stopping to take my col photo, I got a text from Al to say he’d been waiting at the other end of the tunnel but was moving on to find shade. Sure enough, I rode through the short tunnel and popped out the other side into sunshine. I soon found Al and we continued the descent together.
We both noticed this:
I took the photo above having just passed under a similar, but straight, viaduct. I wondered if the train went this way, having crossed a railway track both entering and leaving Sospel.
But no. The straight one is the Viaduc du Caréï and the curved one on the hillside is the Viaduc du Caramel. Both were part of the former tramway between Menton and Sospel. More information (in English) here.
The last part of the ride was on am increasingly busy highway that fed into busy city streets. We arrived outside the apartment an hour before noon and waited at the coffee shop across the narrows pedestrian street. We had Jamaican ginger beer, made in Barcelona. It was already far too hot for coffee.
Elena arrived at noon as promised and let us in as she began her cleaning. We carried our bikes and bags up to the third floor, changed into our swimsuits under shorts and tees, and headed to the beach, carrying a backpack with towels, sunscreen, and swim goggles, plus beach mats and an umbrella provided for guest use. Except we decided it was far too hot for an unshaded beach before we got there—which wasn’t far, maybe 150 m. We decided to get lunch instead and wandered around until we settled on a sandwich place with some shaded tables.
Still lugging our beach equipment, we wandered around checking out the restaurants and souvenir shops here in tourist central. When we judged it was time (Elena said she’d need two hours), we found a Spar and got a few groceries then returned to the apartment.
I’d made a point of booking a place with AC but I’d forgotten or didn’t realize it had a washing machine. I made another trip yo the Casino around the corner to get laundry detergent. It took a while because there were all sorts of different products from categories I’d never seen or heard of. I finally made my selection and got some raspberry sorbet too. Might as well have dessert while we waited for the first load!
The washer manual was provided and I looked at the different washing options. The cycle durations were listed too: almost every wash cycle took 120 or 180 minutes! The “normal” wash cycle on my machine at home takes 43 minutes and I wonder why European washers are so slow. I chose the “quick wash” because it only took half an hour and woukd do a better job than we’ve been doing in the shower.
We are finally ready to venture out of our air conditioning in the early evening. We walked up and down the beach promenade before deciding on a beachside restaurant. The meal was okay but the location was lovely.
Today's ride: 23 km (14 miles)
Total: 1,272 km (790 miles)
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