mini adventure - epic hike on st patty's day

wednesday brought another cote d'azur adventure with the same lovely ladies. 

hiking to the village of eze.

we got a late start, but took the train to the eze station, and decided to take our chances on the looming grey skies and do the hike to the village at the top of the mountain.  tour books say the hike takes 60-90 minutes.  we were trying to make the last bus, which would leave from the top in under an hour.

here's the view after 20 minutes:

yes we started at the train tracks along the sea.  most of the path looked like this:

mixed with many steep sets of stairs that could easily be hundreds of years old.  but! no time to stop and take pictures! ha ha  (i snuck some when we stopped for water, but i will return with a longer afternoon ahead of me the next time)

apparently if you go on a clear day, you can see as far as corsica. 

finally we reached the top.  and thankfully decided to wander for a bit instead of just racing for the bus.  we needed something to reward the effort!

we ended up having to take a bus in the opposite direction - to monaco - to catch the train back to nice where we had dinner.  monaco is gorgeous at night.

nice is pretty too!

more pics here.

sweaty me, at the top!

(i'm happy to report, that even though i imagined i wouldn't be able to walk the next day, my muscles weren't even sore - only the shoulder that carried the camera bag. whoo hoo)