Cime de Baudon

Since the weather was pretty much perfect today, we (or more like I, perhaps...) decided it was a perfect day for a hike. We picked a hike near Peille this time, that goes up the Cime de Baudon, at a rather respectable altitude of 1264 meters (not bad, considering it's only about 20 kilometres from the sea.

Before embarking on the hike, we decided to have lunch in the village. Peille is one of our favourite villages on the Cote d'Azur. Perched on its hilltop, it sits on a superb site, with nice views on surrounding peaks and the valley beneath. The village itself is a prototype of what Provencal villages should be like, with narrow cobble-stone streets going up and down, charming stone houses, cool little courtyards sheltered from the sun. And perhaps best of all, very few tourists, surprising considering the proximity to Nice and the coastline (the advantage of living in a region where almost much each town/village has an old town worthy of being a tourist attraction). We lunched in a charming little restaurant, on one of those sheltered little courtyards.

We then set out on the hike, which took us along the valley on a footpath, with nice views back to wards the village. Towards the end, things got a bit sporty and steep, some scrambling was even required from time to time. We even got off the footpath a couple of time (well, there wasn't much of a footpath to speak about, actually... As an added bonus, we came across a herd of sheep at one point, seemingly untended. Time to take out the camera...

After a bit more sweat, blood 'n tears, we reached the summit. We were, unsurprisingly, greeted with some pretty stunning views back towards the sea, but also towards the Mercantour national park (where, thanks to a rather funny year weather-wise, the snow was still well present on the higher peaks - rather unusual for this time of the year). That brought an end to a sweaty, but rewarding afternoon hike! The hike back to the village was pretty easy going...