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Above: In the Alpes-Maritimes, with the road enlarged from this image at the bottom of this page. Right: Overlooking Monaco and other southern French towns: an astonishing view from the Alpine route.

 

The best view, a jogger told me as I U-turned out of a dead-end road on the Alpine route, happened to be from a military installation and the public wasn't allowed there.

 

 

Locating L’Escarène
Finding the D2204 is relatively simple. If coming from Italy, choose the Route Nationale (N7) into Nice (there'll be signs to the Moyenne Corniche). There is a turn-off to the D2204 on the right before the Moyenne Corniche. These towns—Blausasc, L’Escarène—are along the route. The route also goes down into Nice.

 

Finding tranquillity

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Booked through United Travel Kilbirnie

 

 BID FAREWELL to the familiarity and comfort of Monaco. The buzz and the vibrancy are a strong draw but I knew I had to move on. There had to be another part of France where I could have a mixture of the cosmopolitan (I do not believe in cellphones, so I needed a place with a proper phone line) and the Frenchness, and I had spied the Maritime Alpine route where the Rallye des Alpes turned off. The mission: to get to the top of the mountains overlooking the Côté d’Azur.
   It turned out to be an impossibility without a French Ministry of Defence pass. The best view, a jogger told me as I U-turned out of a dead-end road on the Alpine route, happened to be from a military installation and the public wasn't allowed there. But there were other towns further up and I decided to continue to test their vibe. L'Escarène was a delightful enough place but the traffic seemed too crowded, with holidaymakers avoiding the autoroutes using it as a thoroughfare to get to Monaco. It was not the first time people used the town as a thoroughfare: armies throughout the ages have stopped there, including the Napoléonienne troops. A strategic point on the salt route half an hour from Italy—indeed, it is very Italianate—and 90 minutes from ski fields, L'Escarène had been there for 600 years and would outlast any form of traffic that passed through.
   I could have stayed there myself, but narrower lanes further up beckoned, challenging that masculine drive of finding harmony between man and machine. If I had more time, I would have seen a potential hike and camping ground. For now, I accepted the motorists’ challenge, knowing that I would find one of the most fun routes in France.

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