Circuit de la Forna

1st of May is quite a special holiday in Finland - it's an excuse for everybody to dress up in funny ways and get totally hammered during 2 days... Alas, France being a civilized country, we decided to get up to some more healthy stuff and go hiking. After all, the weather was simply brilliant today (a nice change after a decidedly un-Cote d'Azurish winter and spring...), and we've been a bit lazy on the hiking front lately...

After consulting our hiking guides, we decided upon the Circuit de la Forna, a nice and easy little coastal hike near Le Turbie (a pretty little village located west of Nice, overlooking Monaco). We started off after parking near the village, climbing up for a bit and then following a footpath that was more or less following the A8 motorway, with some rather nice views towards the Mercantour national park.

We then got onto a road which took us up towards Fort de la Revere, a military fortress constructed in the 19th century. From there, we were more or less following the coastline back towards La Turbie. The culminating point of the hike was the Simboula, at a rather respectable altitude of 675 meters. The views from there towards Eze and Cap Ferrat were simply stunning - classic Cote d'Azur landscapes. The sea, the mountains and a pretty little mountain village - some of the elements that make life on the Cote d'Azur great, were there in perfect harmony (along with quite a few swimming pools and fancy villas...). As a nice bonus, we checked out some cows on the way back...

Pretty much a perfect way to get back to reality after our wonderful holiday to Japan, one could say...