Day 2151 (Saturday) 29th April 2023

Today’s beautiful photos

This is Cascade de Gairaut above Nice

And this is Villefranche-sur-Mer

 

It was quite cloudy this morning and it stayed that way all day. We did some household chores and then went to see the classic cars, some of which were just cars with a number on the side.

9 - April 30

It

This is La Turbie

 

As part of Rade Classique 2023, this second edition will partially follow the route of the famous La Turbie Hill Climb, which was the first hill climb race in the world.

This event will take place as a historical demonstration under the auspices of the FFVE.

The La Turbie Hill Climb was the first unmissable event of international meetings and hill climb races between the two World Wars. 

The climb is organised in the heights of Villefranche-sur-Mer, 2.7km on the M2564 road of the Grande Corniche.

Villefranche-sur-Mer, nestled at the bottom of its bay, enjoys a very mild climate: High cliffs shelter it from east, west, and north winds. The south, open to the sea, is nevertheless protected by the narrowness of the bay, except during rare but spectacular gusts of wind that periodically batter poorly moored boats in winter.

Separated from Nice, to which it is adjacent, by Mount Boron, Mount Alban, and Mount Vinaigrier and located about 10km from Monaco, the city spreads out in tiers on the slopes of Villefranche Bay, one of the deepest natural anchorages in the Western Mediterranean.

This is from another website…

This new edition of the Course de Côte de la Turbie will open the weekend of the Rade Classique by bringing together more than one hundred and twenty vintage and modern vehicles, but also its enthusiasts to create one of the biggest automotive events on the Côte d'Azur. 'Azure.

Spectators are therefore welcome to come and participate in this gathering where spaces will be specially dedicated to them.

A village with exhibitions and demonstrations from our partners such as Alpine or Aston Martin will be present, enlivened by games and activities during the day.

During this day in the city of Villefranche sur mer, more than 120 sports and historic vehicles including prestigious models such as Porsche RSR Martini edition, Audi quattro group 4 rally type, R5 Turbo, Aston Martin DB5 from 1964 and many others others.

So come and meet us to spend a day rich in mechanics but also full of sharing and conviviality, for a show that will definitely be worth the detour!

We watched some of the cars leaving the car park and heading off to La Turbie , a lovely little town above Monaco…

 

La Turbie (French pronunciation: ​[la tyʁbi]; Occitan: A Torbia; Italian: Turbia) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.

History

La Turbie was famous in Roman times for the large monument, the Trophy of Augustus, that Augustus made to celebrate his victory over the Ligurian tribes of the area. During the Middle Ages, the village (called then Turbia) was mainly under the dominion of the Republic of Genoa. Dante wrote in his Divina Commedia that Turbia was the western limit of the Italian Liguria.

It was alternatively part of Savoy or the Principality of Monaco, from where the population of Turbia has assimilated the dialect Monegasque, even if the local Ligurian dialect has maintained some characteristics of the nearby Niçois of Nice. Actually the local dialect is nearly extinct, mainly after the 1860 inclusion of the Sardinian County of Nice in France.

La Turbie is the cradle of automobile mountain races. On 31st January 1897, the last stage of the Marseilles-Nice race was a 17 km hillclimb between Nice and La Turbie; André Michelin, at the wheel of a De Dion powered by a steam engine, won the race at the incredible average speed of 31.8 km per h. On 30th March 1900, German driver Wilhelm Bauer crashed and died, being the first driver killed during a hillclimb speed event. On 1st April 1903, William Eliot Morris Zborowski, Count de Montsaulvain, died at the wheel of his Mercedes nearly at the same place as Bauer. As reported in The New York Times, 2nd April 1903, the French Minister of the Interior ordered the Prefect of Alpes-Maritimes to "stop the further use of the Nice-La Turbie course for automobiles." The race organiser, the Nice Automobile Club, obtained the lift of the ban in 1909 and the race resumed.

From 1968 to 1995, nearly the same route was used for the last stage of the cyclist race Paris-Nice (excepting 1977). This time trial often decided the final winner of Paris-Nice. In 1972, Raymond Poulidor defeated Eddy Merckx, who had defeated Jacques Anquetil three years before. Sean Kelly, seven-time winner of Paris-Nice (1981-1988), won the La Turbie hillclimb five times.

On 13th September 1982, Princess Grace de Monaco was killed in a car accident at Cap-d'Ail, near La Turbie, but on a road called "Route de la Turbie".

The commune formerly included the communes of Beausoleil and Cap-d'Ail, which was disestablished at the beginning of the 20th century. Only the old main town, around the remaining structure of the Roman Trophy of Augustus, forms the current commune.

Geography

The boundaries of La Turbie were formerly more extensive and included the territory now contained in the town of Beausoleil, formerly known as Haut-Monte-Carlo, owing to its proximity to Monaco. The commune of La Turbie retains a smaller, common boundary with part of the Principality.

La Turbie can be reached either from Cap-d'Ail on the coast or the Grand Corniche. Within the town is the Trophy of Augustus, also known as the Trophée des Alpes.

Sights

A limestone outcrop above La Turbie is called the Tête de Chien ("head of dog"), a folk etymology deriving from its former name, Testa de camp ("head of (military) camp").

La Turbie is built, partly, with old stones recovered from the ruins of the Trophy of the Alpes (Trophy of Augustus), a Roman monument built by the Emperor Augustus to celebrate his victory over the Ligurian tribes which lived in the mountains of the area and attacked the merchants plying the Roman trade routes.

The association football club AS Monaco FC have their training ground in La Turbie since 1981. The training center is located in an old quarry and has 2 natural grass pitches as well as an artificial turf "small pitch".

We then saw Pat, Dee and Kevin having lunch in Seb’s new place so we stopped and had a coffee with them.

This is Badger fast asleep on my shawl 

 the Turbie coast race

As part of Rade Classique 2023, this second edition will par

 tially follow the route of the famous La Turbie Hill Climb, which was the first hill climb race in the world.

This event will take place as a historical demonstration under the auspices of the FFVE.

The La Turbie Hill Climb was the first unmissable event of international meetings and hill climb races between the two World Wars. More information and results can be found on the Wikipedia page.

The climb is organized in the heights of Villefranche-sur-Mer, 2.7km on the M2564 road of the Grande Corniche.

Villefranche-sur-Mer, nestled at the bottom of its bay, enjoys a very mild climate: High cliffs shelter it from east, west, and north winds. The south, open to the sea, is nevertheless protected by the narrowness of the bay, except during rare but other spectacular gusts of wind that periodically batter poorly moored boats in winter.

Separated from Nice, to which it is adjacent, by Mount Boron, Mount Alban, and Mount Vinaigrier and located about 10km from Monaco, the city spreads out in tiers on the slopes of Villefranche Bay, one of the deepest natural anchorages in the Western Mediterranean.