Tete de Chien

The good weather has finally arrived on the Cote d’Azur, so we figured it was time for a hike – it’s been a while since the last one, so… (if we leave out our raquettes adventure in the Quyeras!). After some deliberation, we decided upon a walk from Cap d’Ail up to the Tete de Chien. Tete de Chien, kind of appropriate, considering we ate Merda di Can last night ;-).

We arrived in Cap d’Ail at a relatively early hour, and set off towards the “Dog’s head”. It’s quite an impressive little hilltop – looking higher than its 550 meters, due to a rather dramatic ascent and its proximity to the sea. As if though the ascent wasn’t steep enough, we went a bit off-piste after a wrong turn, and ended up climbing through some pretty thick bush up to the Moyenne Corniche. And to make matters worse, we even had to re-descend to rejoin the main hiking path. Oh well, we do this hiking stuff to get fit, right? So no harm in a bit of extra exercise ;-).


As we climbed further up, we passed by a “modelism race track” (a bit small to replace the Monaco Grand Prix perhaps, but quite a funny sight, perched as it is on the edge of a cliff – unforgiving one might say?) and quite a few rock climbers – no wonder considering the dramatic cliffs of the Tete de Chien. Much to our dismay, there was a big parking lot near the top of the hike (I suppose to make life easier for all those rock climbers) – all that hiking for nothing eh? Up at the top, it was time to enjoy our picnick and take in the stunning views. And stunning they are… Towards Nice, the panorama takes in the rugged coast all the way to Cap Ferrat and Villefranche-sur-Mer.

And the view the other way is equally, if not more, stunning, with glamorous Monaco and its old port just beneath the hilltop. I would almost go as far as to say it’s the best view of Monaco I’ve had.

Having taken in the views (and, I must admit, a fair few photos in my case), we carried on with the walk. The footpath took us rapidly downwards towards Monaco, from where we then headed back towards Cap d’Ail. Again, amazing views, all the way to Italy, with a prime spot to take in Monaco. The memory card was rapidly filling up…

All in all, I must say this was a really great walk. Scenery-wise, possible the nicest coastal walk I’ve done so far… And this being the Cote d’Azur, that’s saying something! We really must get back into the habit of doing these walks more often, we’ve been a bit lazy in that department over the last few months…