One of my “must do” target activities was the Col de Turini, part of a rally stage made famous by its use on the Monte Carlo Rally. I really fancied driving on some of the stage miles as well, albeit in the summer and not in the snow !
Luckily, my rather silly proclivities were well catered for, as some bright spark had sorted out a circular route which included stage miles and the Col. Magic !
So it was a quick 2 hour “dash” along the coast to Sospel (up near the Italian border) – or so I thought. The idea was to drive towards Monte Carlo – real tourist stuff – to include La Napoule, Juan Les Pins, Cannes, Antibes, etc. Weather was a bit poor (eg English !) so did not expect to to be that busy. Wrong ! It was the day after the end of the annual Cannes Film Festival, so absolute chaos with stage dismantling crews and associated vehicles all over the place.
Plenty of gross yachts in the harbour though. It must’ve been a busy week for the mega-rich, as it was just after the Monaco F1 Grand Prix as well ! I decided after a while to seek shelter on the A8 autoroute above it all. What a fantastic road – bridge/tunnel/bridge/tunnel one after the other. All done with a passing resemblance to a switch back in both planes – very clever and impressive civil engineering.
Sospel was the beginning of the REALLY twisty narrow roads up to the Col de Turini, the majority of which was used as some of the Rally special stage mileage. Fun driving ! Absolutely stunning mountain scenery (Alps-Maritime after all) but not really too many places to stop and gawp.
Then the run up to the Col itself, which is part of the Route Des Grande Alpes. I can do no better in describing it than including this video below of a madman cycling to the summit. The scenery was truly spectacular, although I was a bit busy negotiating all the chicanes, but stopped wherever it was possible – not too often. An epic stretch of road.
What got me were some cyclists doing the same route on the same day – 25 odd km of continuous UP, with many, many hairpin bends, etc. Turned out to be 3/4 Belgian guys complete with support van. Insanity ! It was bad enough driving up. I stopped several times to check my directions (good old Google maps) and they continued relentlessly. So I kept on overtaking them – as they didn’t stop !
You can see from my own somewhat poorer video, it was a bit misty at the top. Still, great to be at such an iconic spot – for me anyway. I guess it doesn’t look much at this time of the year, but during the Rally the place is jumping !
Having once more admired these loonies who cycle up things like the Turini, it was time to descend back to sea level. The road down from Turini to Le Puey and the Vesubie River is, to say, the least, a bit twisty – see map below. It is used as a stage on the Rally, so a bit of fun to drive…..
Just as well it was all downhill (through even more fantastic gorge type scenery, but no places to stop) as I was getting very, very low on fuel – bit of a miscalculation somewhere. Luckily, just as the mountain road hit the river valley, there was one of those rural self service petrol stations, much to my relief ! The mad Belgians left about the same time on the same road down to the coast. I never caught up with them……
I now have a somewhat enhanced view on how brave (or stupidly insane) professional rally drivers are – and they have snow to contend with as well !
One bonus going back down to Nice were the Gorges de Vestubie. Not quite as big as the Gorges du Tarn, but certainly as spectacular. Using the Route de Vestubie down to the coast, it was back to Nice, along the autoroute (lesson learnt !) back to the campsite.
Not everybody’s cup of tea, I know, but for me it was a fantastic trip out. Another box ticked.
After all that driving, I treated myself to a meal at the on-site restaurant. Just as I sat down, it started to rain – I mean torrential biblical level stuff. Sun, where was the sun ?