Friday 22 September 2023
| Distance (km) | 14 kms | |||
| Distance (time) | 4 hrs | |||
| Climb / Descent | 240m / 750m | |||
| Hard / Soft surface | 40% / 60% | |||
| Landscape |
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| Weather |
 →  28° 1 Bft
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Today is the day, the day we will finish the GR5. I don't know, should we be ecstatic, jumping up and down, smiling the whole day? Somehow it
feels like just a walking day. We plan to leave 10 in the morning to arrive at 13:00 at the Maison de l'Environment in Nice, the official end point of the GR5.
Of course in reality everybody walks on until the beach to have really walked from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and so will we.
Why would we like to be in Nice at 13:00 you may wonder? Well, because we agreed to meet our good friend Raymond Koome, also owner of the outdoor website
hiking-site.nl to come over all the way from Barcelona to take some pictures of us and of course celebrate with us we made it. Today was supposed to be sunny all day, but in the morning when we wake up it is actually overcast. After checking out, driving to Aspremont and finding two parking spaces there (not an easy task) we check the weather forecast again and suprise, suprise, it now claims there will be some showers here the next hours. But for Nice they say it will be fine. So too bad, then we'll just have to start in the rain. And so we do, we leave at 10am, about 5 minutes after it started raining. But apart from a short piece along the road we have to immediately climb up to Mont Chauve it's actually kind of refreshing to have some rain. After 20 minutes or so the rain stops while the climb goes on and so wet from the rain slowly changes in wet from sweating. For an hour it keeps climbing to reach today's highest point: a nameless collet that is actually the last "mountain pass" (from geographical point of view) of the GR5 at 680m altitude. From here the descent starts and this should be one hour as well to the first houses of Nice. Well, apart from the fact that the descent is really gradual and therefore really long - a lot longer than we thought - the rain also made everything slippery. The rocky surface more and more becomes a reddish brown mud that sticks to the shoes and makes them about twice the size and weight. So now stepping onto rocks has become slippery too. The last bit to the outskirts of Nice has a seriously steep descent where sometimes very deep steps must be taken. It would be utterly stupid to injure ourselves so close to finishing, so we go down slowly and carefully. So by the time we reach the first houses of Nice we're half an hour delayed. We end up in a little park and suddenly I see somebody half behind a tree taking pictures. Assuming it is not a local paparazzo because somebody rich and famous is aroun, it must be Raymond. And indeed, he decided to drive up as far as he could get by car to welcome us. Yesterday in the hotel we were discussing when was the last time we saw Raymond live rather than by whatsapp or email and we came to the staggering discovery that was almost 10 years ago. So it is really nice to see him again. We agree to meet again at the sign where we enter the city of Nice (we are now still in a suburb that is a different municipality) and so he takes of by car while we descend on foot. The first couple of streets are quite steep and have a lot more traffic than we thought. We don't really know where we will enter Nice, but when we cross over the A8 motorway we spot Raymond again before even spotting the sign Nice that is a bit hidden behind a tree. So we pose again underneath the sign, check! Next stop is the Maison de l'Environnement, which is another 20-25 minutes walking. We are now seriously in the city: no more descending, almost flat. We pass the Place Alexandre Medecin, until 2010 the end point of the GR5. On the nortwest corner with Avenue Henry Dunant there used to be a green plate indicating so on the wall of what is now a real estate agent (Cabinet Loquis). If you look carefully you can still see the rectangular shape of where the plate used to be. But not anymore, we have to cross the square follow Rue Paul Bounin to the end and then left on the large Boulevard Gorbella until we can turn right into Rue de Castellane. At the end of this street is the Maison de l'Environnement. Lupita starts looking on her cellphone to find the appropriate music as she is determined to arrive with the music of Chariots of Fire. We turn into the parc surrounding the Maison de l'Environnement and we see the sign marking the end. Lupita starts her music and some little yoga class next to the sign look a bit disturbed. So what? Did you walk 10 years to get here? Ah, by the way, where is Raymond? We're about to send him a message when he comes walking up the access road...parking problems. So he takes some pictures of us at the sign and when we find the entrance of the building we go in. The lady at the reception gives us the book (livre d'or) to sign, which we do, and we both receive a certificate that we made it. I know, anybody just walking in with a backpack can get that certificate, but we did it so we deserve it. Now from here it is still 45 minutes walking to the see, and it is also after 13:30. So maybe first lunch? We find a burger place close by and indulge ourselves with a burger and fries before we agree to meet each other at the beach again. The non-official end point according to the guide of the French Federation for Hiking is at the monument "Neuf lignes obliques", so that is where we will go. But somehow I have the wrong GPS track and since we're on the unofficial part now there are also no markings anymore. So we walk down the large Boulevard de Cessole and pass underneath the railroad. Somewhere here we should have turned left, but I didn'realize that so we walk down Boulevard Gambetta until we see the see a few blocks in front of us. But that is not correct, we should have ended up on the Promenade du Paillon and pass the fountain and statue of Neptune. So we turn left to walk parallel to the beach until we reach the fountain with Neptune, from where we turn into the Rue Jacques Medecin and cross the tiny park to end up at the monument. Well, actually I have to put my hat away, because there is a seriously strong wind along the sea and we can see breaking crests. We cross the road and we don't see Raymond yet, so we walk all the way to the railing to stare over the sea. Then when we turn around Raymond is there taking pictures of us. He just came out of the parking garage, we clearly giving him a hard time going around the city and parking. And now of course the final moment: feet in the sea. We go down the stairs to the beach (which, by the way, is not sand here but pebbles). We take off our shoes and socks and zip off our pants and put on flipflops to walk over the pebbles. The waves are considerable, so one moment we can see our feet and the next moment we have the waves splashing our butts. Raymond tries to take a close up picture but has to run back to stay dry a few times. It is fun, and all the people on the beach that are just looking at us as if we're aliens of course make it only better. But that's it, we made it, nothing left to walk. We put on our shoes again and have a stroll along the promenade before heading for the hotel to have a shower. We will stay here tonight (after having a good dinner) and tomorrow head back home. We walked on when I had a severe pelvis injury (that required surgery in the end) and we didn't stop when Covid limited our possibilities. We were twice considering giving up because we found it too hard to continue, but in the end our determination to make it to Nice won. And now....we're not going to walk for a while. Maybe just some holidays to relax and read a book or so. But no walking. |
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