Pilgrim's Progress – Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK

Who bravely dares, must sometimes risk a fall.

Tobias Smollett

At 3pm I left Grasse and embarked on the GR4. Five hours later I reached the Lavande gite at Cipières. You couldn’t imagine two more different places. Chalk and cheese!

I spent the night at the Foyer Côte d’Azur a sort of religious retirement home that also accommodate pilgrims on the GR653A as well as short respite breaks for groups of handicapped children.

I got chatting to some of the friendly residents over supper and breakfast. Essentially their retirement revolves around living in the community at the Foyer, and attending daily Mass. But apart from that they are free to lead a fairly independent life much as anybody else who is retired. You have to enjoy the communal life.

A charming lady, who must have been in her 70s, told me about life in the area which is rich in cultural sites and museums. These include a hotel called La Colombe d’Or at St Paul-Vence which I had passed through the previous day. The proprietor who ran the hotel from the 1920s  welcomed some of the great Europeanpainters of the era to stay. Think Picasso, Chagall etc. Some of them were so impoverished that they could only pay by donating a sketch or a painting. Many of these still hang on the walls of the guest bedrooms and the restaurant which is one of the most famous in France and welcomes over 100,000 guests each year.

There had been heavy overnight rain. Thankfully the clouds had cleared by the time I set off but the walking on narrow paths through wooded valleys was treacherous and I had to take extra care navigating the treacherous inclines and descents.

After leaving the wooded valley I entered the suburbs of Mouan-Sartoux, replete with iron gates and video surveillance cameras! I didn’t see any actual people except for delivery drivers trying to get access to some of the properties. It was my idea of hell on earth but the Côte d’Azur remains home to some of the wealthiest people in Europe who prefer living in gated isolation than sharing the communsl life.

At Mouan-Sartoux I left the GR653 and made my way along a busy highway towards Grasse. The 7km sttetch of road was lined with every type of concession imaginable as well as bumper to bumper traffic. Where was everybody going on a midweek lunchtime I wondered.

Among the many parts of the world where Victorians settled, the French Riviera attracted so many British people that, at one stage, there were 20,000 British residents living between Menton and Hyères, which meant that this part of eastern Provence was almost an informal colony of the Empire.

Since it’s discovery by the author Tobias Smollett in the late 18th century, the Côte d’Azur became an area for the British aristocracy to spend the winter months. Due to it’s mild and salubrious climate, Grasse became a popular health retreat in the 19th century for people suffering from a host of maladirs inclufing TB and depression. Grasse reschef its apogee in 1891 when Queen Victoria came to stay.

Nowadays, apart from a couple of famous parfumiers, Grasse has little to recommend it. Apart from a few narrow streets lined with shops and an impressive esplanade with panoramic views towards the Med, Grssse didn’t have anything that took my fancy. The esplanade had been tsken over by an outside market with hip hop music blazing away and crowds of bored school children glued to their mobile phones. Queen Victoria would mot have been amused by the cutrent state of Grasse.

Reaching the start of the GR4 on the outskirts of Grasse proved something of a challenge. There werw no signs to locate it from the centre of Grasse so I had to navigate my way there with the help of Google and didn’t get there until 3pm!

The start of the GR4, one of France’s great long distance footpaths that runs nearly 2,000km to the Atlantic coast was distinctly underwhelming! There was a padel court next to the start sign with a couple kids idly batting a ball around.

As I started off towards the Col de Clapier, I got the distinct impression that I wasn’t going to meet many other walkers on the GR4!

The next five hours walking were a revelation. Some of the best panoramic views that I can remember on any of my previous French walks. Cuckood singing, orchids in abundance and not another soul in sight!

The ascent to the Col de Clapier took me a couple of hours, but when I got thete, the views were breathtaking.

I passed through the small hamlet of Coussols at 6pm. It had a small shop selling bakeries so I treated myself to a carb heavy slab of pizza that would fuel the final 3 hour stretch of the walk to Cipières.

I finally reached Cipières shortly after 8pm and ensconced myself in the gite. The village of Cipières eas perched on a rocky outcrop with an impressive chateau but didn’t appear to have any shops or facilities to speak of. It didn’t matter. It felt like a million miles away from the gated communities of the Côte d’Azur. Two parallel universes, as similar to each other as  chalk and cheese.