The descent from the Maritime Alps into southern France was the best 30 kilometres of the entire trip. Everything that had been hard and heavy on the way up — the weight, the altitude, the loose rock — turned into pure momentum going down. The air got warmer with every metre lost. The vegetation shifted: pine trees, then Mediterranean scrub, then the first palm trees appearing alongside the road. The sea was somewhere ahead.
The Côte d'Azur hit differently after ten days on a bicycle. Nice felt enormous. The Promenade des Anglais was everything you've seen in photographs, and somehow still surprising in person. I sat on the beach for a while with the bike lying beside me in the sand and tried to process the fact that I had cycled here from Lake Constance.
The final stretch from Nice to Cannes runs along the coast — sun, traffic, blue water, the kind of scenery that cyclists post on social media. I barely noticed it. The legs had stopped sending updates somewhere around kilometre 850 and I was running entirely on momentum and the knowledge that a friend was waiting at the end.
And then — a Lidl parking lot, somewhere in the south of France. A Vermont touring bike leaning against a tree. A helmet hanging off the handlebars. A bag of chips on the rear rack because priorities. Green mountains still visible in the background, unimpressed. That's the photo. That's the finish line. No fanfare, no ceremony — just a bike that made it, and a person who made it too.
- Date July 1, 2025
- Final destination Cannes, France 🇫🇷
- Total distance ~900 km
- Duration 10 days · 4 countries
- The bike Vermont touring · Still intact
- Prior experience None
