MONTE CARLO – THE END

BELOW SAN SIMEON – MONTE CARLO

VIA ALPINA DAY 73 – WEDNESDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 2026

DISTANCE HIKED:  21.45 km
ELEVATION GAIN: 926 m 

TOTAL DISTANCE HIKED: 1,932.38 km
TOTAL ELEVATION GAIN:  99, 225 m

This has been a surprisingly mosquito-free trail until today—and yet there is hardly any water around. Can’t complain though; one day out of 73 isn’t bad. I’ve got bites on only one arm, while Hammer can see the mozzies but hasn’t been bitten. Go figure.

Because the trail was in such poor condition, we waited until it started to get light before breaking camp. It felt unreal knowing that today was the final day.

The first village we passed, Peille, was perched dramatically on a cliff edge. Parts of the village date back to the Neolithic era—the late Stone Age. We descended hundreds of stairs through the village before leaving it behind and descending into a very dark forest, where we walked for over an hour with no end in sight. The trail was overgrown in parts. It was as if the creators of the Via Alpina path had painted a few yellow stripes on the trees and then walked away, leaving any further involvement to someone else.

The sound of heavy earth-moving machinery working in a huge quarry was a constant soundtrack to our walk through the dark forest.

To my mind, the forest had a smell vaguely reminiscent of cheap talcum powder. We couldn’t wait to get out.

Eventually, we emerged at another perched clifftop village, Peillon. We stopped for a break beside a water fountain. It was a tidy-looking village—much more alive and prosperous than what we had seen to date.
It was only mid-morning, but it was already very warm. It felt like we’d been thrown straight back into summer.

From Peillon we had a short, sharp ascent to Saint-Martin-de-Peille. Here, the trail was beautifully constructed, like climbing a giant staircase towards the villas tucked behind tall walls and gates. It felt as though we were entering the high mountain residential areas above Monaco. We could see the ocean, and the occasional waft of sea breeze was very welcomed.

We reached La Turbie, the last French village before descending to Monaco. By now we were impatient to reach sea level. But from the lookout, I could see that there was still a long way to descend.

The trail wound its way through the steep, narrow streets of La Turbie. As we walked through the village, an air-raid siren suddenly sounded. It was the monthly test, held at midday on the first Wednesday of every month, apparently throughout France.

We noticed that so many of the cars parked along the streets looked dirty. There were so many that it took us a while to realise it was probably a legacy of the recent heatwaves. We’d read reports about dust from the Sahara blanketing parts of Spain and France during the heatwaves, with high-altitude winds carrying fine sand particles across the Mediterranean.

Leaving La Turbie, we assumed we would be descending towards Monte Carlo through landscaped botanical gardens.

It was anything but.

Instead, we had more rough, overgrown, prickly and, in places, very steep trail to negotiate—all in the full midday sun. It was here that Hammer finally lost it, cussing and swearing, something he rarely ever does. That pretty much summed up this final stretch of the Via Alpina.

Eventually, the trail gave way to long sets of descending stairs, passing between high-rise buildings until, finally, we reached sea level.
We joined the long line of tourists heading up towards the Royal Palace. It was hot, and we saw quite a few people carrying little battery-operated fans to cool their faces. Maybe we were well acclimatised by now, because the heat didn’t bother us nearly as much as it seemed to bother everyone else.

We weaved our way around groups of people who were stopping to rest and take photos. Finally, we reached the courtyard in front of the palace, where we located a Via Alpina plaque on the wall.

I stopped the watch.

Took a photo.

And that was it.

Done.

–> 72.5 days—including three rest days.
–> 1,932 km total distance hiked.
–> 99,225 m of elevation gain—and probably a similar amount of elevation loss.

A short walk to the Monte Carlo train station and we were on our way to Nice.

It felt unreal that we were actually finished.  It will take a while to process all the emotions, the highs and lows, the exhaustion, the exhilaration and everything in between that came with this hike.

For now…

Let the recovery begin.