Day 4: Beaulieu-sur-Mer

It was another bright sunny day when we woke up in Menton this morning. We packed up our things, had a quick breakfast of coffee and pastries in our hotel, then just had time for a final glimpse of the view before we set off to the nearest train station of Menton Garavan.

Our plan for today was to catch the train to a town called Beaulieu-sur-Mer. Beaulieu is situated on the coast, most of the way back to Nice, so we had a journey of around 30 minutes on the train to get there.  We arrived just after 10am and walked through the town in the direction of the sea.

The beach here looked a little bit less stony than the beaches around Nice, although still not great.

The reason I chose Beaulieu as today's destination is that it is the nearest train station to the peninsula, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. We could see the peninsula sticking out into the sea.

The Nice/Monaco guidebook which we had recommended the peninsula as a scenic place to walk around.

We certainly couldn't complain about the quality of the views as we left Beaulieu behind. It's a really spectacular coastline here.

And the sea was a gorgeous shade of blue today.

We followed an easy promenade path in the direction of the peninsula.

It took us past various little beaches and I was very impressed by these large cactuses!

We reached the centre of the peninsula's small town, which was very picturesque.

There were some incredible views of the sea here

We climbed down to a small beach.

Again, there were quite a lot of pebbles!

From here the coastal path was a bit narrower, just a small strip alongside the sea.

There were some more fantastic shades of blue...

...but also some concentration on the path required at times  

These cactuses were my absolute favourites!

The path ultimately leads around the entire peninsula. 

We didn't have time to do it all today, but the bit we did do was really gorgeous.

We were following a path around the edge of a small bit of the peninsula, kind of like a sub-peninsula, which sticks out into the sea on the eastern side of the main peninsula, ultimately allowing us to loop round in a circle back towards our starting point.

We'd been walking in the sunshine for a couple of hours at this point, so were glad to get back to the town and the opportunity to find some refreshments.

We found a restaurant with a beautiful location where we could sit outside and enjoy the views

Once we'd eaten, it was time to start the walk back towards Beaulieu and catch the train onwards to Nice.

We made it to Nice in good time and caught a tram to the airport which, happily, has Wi-Fi so it's been possible to update the blog before we fly home. We've had a lovely day walking by the coast today and a really lovely trip away overall. I'm glad we finally succeeded in having this holiday, even if it has taken place a few years later than originally expected