In Menton: day three

May 4, 2025

The weather situation continues its gradual deterioration and today definitely looks like it will come with rain, possibly heavy at times. This morning looks fair though, so we plan an early start hoping we'll get our walk and ride in by noon when we plan to meet for lunch at a creperie in the old city at noon.

Dawn gives us the best look of the sky that we'll see all day.

For a few minutes the sun broke above the clouds and highlighted Rachael's perfect placement.

We totally ace the Exit the Apartment Challenge this morning, and are on the sidewalk with all we need by just past eight. Rachael starts out on the route I drew up for her - this one snaking up through the staircases and tunnels of the old city, past the basilica and cemetery, and above the A4 to a trail that eventually connects to one of the Grand Routes up the spine of the Alps.

In what seems to be a recurring theme though the walk doesn't go as planned, as she informs me before long with a call to let me know her Garmin gets confused by the maze of stairways and alleys below the basilica and has led her to a dead end. So she backs up, improvises, and finds a paved route to the basilica and above, but then calls to let me know she's heading back down because one, she's come to a road too busy to safely walk on; and two, it's starting to rain. She's turning back, and ends up walking along the coast down to Cap Martin and back, stopping for shelter from the rain here and there.

So she gets in the nine miles she planned on this morning, but not on the nine miles she planned to walk them.

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My experience doesn't go to script either; it's just one of those days. First though, let's go back to the mystery of my invalid Garmin route from two days back, the one that refused to navigate me up to the high corniche (did I already explain what happened here? I forget.). It turns out the route was correct after all, but somehow I had in my head that I was going to ride in the other direction and up toward Sospel and the beginning of the Route of the Grand Alpes. You'd think that since the route was named High Corniche and I was thinking High Corniche and that the distance was correct I could have figured that out. But you'd be wrong. I blame it on the fact that we were rushed for time and I didn't get my second cup of coffee.

So today's plan really is to take that climb toward Sospel, though I'm uncertain how far I'll get. There's the threat of rain that might turn me back early, and there's the question of whether I'm really up for back-to-back climbs yet.

But it's neither of these that thwarts me this time. It's the Garmin. And this time it's a real problem, not an imagined one. It won't start the route. No matter what I do it leaves me standing at the apartment with zero distance traveled and zero elevation gained. Rachael and I both puzzle over this without success, comparing settings on our devices and phones, but eventually give up because we don't want to risk losing any more of our window.

So I set off biking with no real plan and with difficulty navigating because the map won't advance on the Garmin. It really isn't easy so I decide to just bike east along the coast and back to Ventimiglia on the known route we biked into Menton on three days go, thinking I can at least do some bird watching at the mouth of the river below old Ventimiglia. It's not a great ride to be honest, taking me through three tunnels that I know I'll have to navigate on the way back - this is the same stretch Rachael and I swore we'd never bike gain three days go, and here I'm doing it again - both ways.

But first, I take some time to slow pedal along the waterfront, enjoying the ambience of the quiet, somewhat moody morning.

Sunday market. Reminds me of a Bruegel painting.

I was startled to look back to see what the staircase looked like seven years ago before it got a fresh coat. It's brilliant now, but it's lost some character.

So I make it to the river, pull out the Canon to check out the birdlife, and after quickly concluding it's still the same yellow-legged gull convention holding court here I look up across the river and decide it's time to finally check out old Ventimiglia, a town we've biked past several times now but never entered.

I came to this point to stop for a better look at the birds on the river, but it's still just the same crowd of yellow-legged gulls. The old city definitely looks like a temptation though.

And it's terrific. I enter through the lower gate and exit through the upper one, stopping often to admire the weathered, unrestored monuments and surfaces and the narrow alleys and tunnels that radiate off either side of the main street through town. I'm really glad I made it out here, and was sorry I didn't have time to dig even deeper. I doubt we'd ever bike here again but it looks like it would be well worth an overnight stop after arriving by train.

The bells of Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta were chiming loudly when I arrived at ten. I wish I'd had more time and trusted the weather enough to explore its Romanesque interior.

Looking across the Piazza della Cattedrale.

The Nizaa Gate, at the upper entrance to the town.

Porta Canarda, the 13th century Genoan guard tower built to protect the western approach to the city.

Here's the biking route, the one I took getting out here and we took three days ago. This bit isn't bad but it gets busier at the top of the climb when it merges with SS1 and its three tunnels.

I'm standing on the belvedere in front of the upper gate admiring the views when Rachael calls again. She wants to know how far away I am and advises me to hurry because it's raining where she is. As it turns out, it was lucky that neither of us made it up high into the hills like we had planned, because we might have drowned.

I don't drown, but I get wet enough in the next three miles as the showers begin and I try to keep pace with the other riders racing for shelter. After that though I'm back in tunnel-land where the main issue is steering a safe course between the traffic and wall while staring into the bright headlights that are a problem foe me now. But at least it's dry.

And when I pop out the other side I'm relieved to find that the showers have stopped temporarily; and fifteen minutes later Rachael and I find each other (not easy, since I can't locate her on the phone or Garmin and she has her own difficulty with directions), and when I see her walking up toward me through a crowd I tell her in the phone to look up for a hand waving at her a block away.

We're a half hour early and the creperie isn't open yet, but that's no problem in the old town - it's awash in places to eat and it doesn't take us long to find a restaurant that will seat us and offer a relatively dry spot for my bike. And twenty minutes later a real downpour hits and we sit inside listening to the rain hammering on the canvas above and the streams of people hurriedly popping out umbrellas or rushing for shelter and considering ourselves very lucky.

I'm pretty damp sitting there - my sandals are pretty soaked especially - but it's not particularly cold or windy. It's been a good day in spite of it all. Like I always say, if you never get wet you're not getting out enough and are missing some good riding.

There's definitely a different look in Menton today. I'm lucky to be arriving at a relatively dry moment.

My shoes and jacket are damp but it gives us a smug, cozy feeling to be inside when a cloudburst hammers on the canvas above and all the umbrellas suddenly pop open.

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Today's ride: 16 miles (26 km)
Total: 496 miles (798 km)

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