Savannah, jungle, farmland: most landscapes on Planet Earth fall into one of these categories. They are quite frequently separated by dozens or even hundreds of kilometres
But on Mont Vinaigrier in the outskirts of Nice, you can visit all three of them within a couple of hours: arranged in a neat vertical stack and sprinkled with a distinct dose of Mediterranean flavours.
There are also some great Mediterranean views thrown in for good measure. What’s there not to like?
Walk on the Wild Side on this hike in Mont Vinaigrier
The Mont Vinaigrier is one of roughly a dozen nature reserves that are run by the Cote d’Azur’s district administration, but it is in many ways different from the other parcs departemental that we have visited.
It is, for one, the least well advertised: on the department‘s website, you get three nearly identical photos (showing a view of downtown Nice not unlike the one on top of this post) and a short description that gives you no better idea of what to expect.
Secondly, the Vinaigrier is also the most difficult of all the parks to reach – by which I do not mean the most remote, but the most poorly signposted.
You can easily find the park on any map of Nice, but there are no unambiguous indications of where the entrances may be, (and there is, suffice to say, no description on the website of how to get there either), so you have to make your own way through typical suburban streets …
… and then through dense bushwork, past traces of what must have been suburban streets 100 or 150 years ago.
The first confirmation that you are (at least) on the right way is the sign you see on entering the park.
Thirdly, the Mont Vinaigrier is the least well attended of all the department’s parks: the only one so far where we failed to meet a single soul. And this was a sunny day in early September, when Nice and the other resorts on the Riviera coast are still teeming with visitors.
It is a pity that so few of those visitors find their way here. Because the Vinaigrier is, finally, also – of all the parks around the littoral – the wildest and most attractive.
It is so wild that there is – in contrast to the park’s tamer cousins – no proper recommended “exploration trail“ for visitors: there is something that may have been intended as such …
… but nobody appears to have maintained the trail markers, so they drift in and out of sight while you are making your own route.
Which is probably the best way of experiencing the park anyway. Be courageous and take a walk on the wild side! Adventures beckon!
The Mont Vinaigrier is divided in three parts. On the lowest level, you can find the traces of a past civilization. Traces from the period before the French Riviera became the world’s first holiday hot spot, a period when the local inhabitants could not rely on a constant stream of tourists to provide them with means of survival.
In these dark days of hard work on farms and in fields, animals grazed on the “commons” around the slopes of Mont Vinaigrier and people came here to pick wild-growing fruit.
Above all, however, the land was used to build terraces for olive tree plantations.
You must climb one level up for the jungle. Behind the large plateau with olive trees (and the distant farm houses), turn right before looking for a way to cut sharply left and uphill. This is the only way up to the summit.
On your way there, you will encounter a dense forest, rocks that have tumbled down the slope, and paths that seem to lead nowhere. In many ways, this is the most exciting part of the park.
Finally, you will see the forest give way a little and rays of sunshine will fall through the bushes – before, at the mountain’s very top, you get an even better view over the other side of Nice from the parched grassland on the summit’s plateau.
You are now looking towards the east, with the Bay of Villefranche and the Saint Jean peninsula underneath you.
On your descent, two more surprises are waiting for you: first, more ruins from another ancient civilization. You see: the French Riviera was once firmly in the hands of a tribe called the Oligarchs.
You can still see some of them around, but in reality, they have been made to withdraw into a few gilded reservations on mountain tops and the barren rocks at the ends of the area’s peninsulas.
For a while, they pretty much owned the place, but there are reminders …
… that not all of their schemes worked out as anticipated. (There are not even “Keep Out” or “For Sale” signs here. You can walk around the property undisturbed. Just don’t try to use the swimming pool.)
And just after you have lost sight of the Villefranche Bay, on your descent back to modern civilization, it pops up again: and you will find that you seem to be walking straight into it.
In fact, you get a perfectly panoramic view of the entire area: the Saint Jean peninsula straight ahead, the city of Nice on your right. This is a truly great way of finishing the walk.
Finally, a few practical tips when you walk on the wild side. There are many ways to get to the Mont Vinaigrier, but since buses to the outskirts of Nice are so unreliable, we took Tramway Line 1 from the Central Station to Saint Roch.
From there, you will first need to manoeuvre a complicated sequence of side streets and stairways until you find the park itself. Look closely at your phone app while following a simple rule of thumb: when in doubt, keep walking uphill.
On your return, while descending down the slope, you may look for the Chemin du Vinaigrier. From this street, a bus (no. 84) will take you to either Beaulieu sur Mer or Nice Riquier, with excellent bus and train connections (bus no. 100 and local trains respectively) for your journey home. (From Nice Riquier, you can also walk to Nice Port and the Old Town in about 15 minutes.)
Buses arrive – for most of the day – in intervals of approx. 30 minutes, although you should not trust the exact times on the schedule.
