Èze hangs on a cone of rock between Nice and Monaco, four hundred and twenty metres straight above the sea. There are no streets a car could use — only stone stairs, vaulted passages and a single way up that spirals to a ruined castle at the summit. From the bottom it looks less like a village than a swallow’s nest.
I. The climb through the village
Enter under the fourteenth-century gate and climb. The lanes coil between honey-coloured houses, artisans’ workshops and the small Église Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, until the rock runs out and there is nothing above you but sky. Come early: by mid-morning the coaches from the coast fill the stairs.
“There is no level ground in Èze — you are always climbing toward the sea or the sky.”
II. The garden at the summit
Where the castle once stood, the Jardin Exotique now spills cactus and agave down the rock, set with stone figures looking out to sea. The view runs the whole arc of the coast — Cap Ferrat below, the Estérel hazy to the west, and on a clear day Corsica a shadow on the horizon.
III. The path Nietzsche walked
From the village a steep track drops to the shore at Èze-sur-Mer. This is the Chemin de Nietzsche, named for the philosopher who climbed it while composing part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It is a stiff forty-five minutes up through pine and broom, and the best free view on this stretch of coast.
