Èze

Where it sits. Èze is stacked on a cone of limestone 427 metres above the Mediterranean, roughly halfway between Nice and Monaco on the stretch of coast where the Alps meet the sea almost without a coastal plain. The commune runs from the waterline to the ridge, so it holds three separate settlements: Èze-sur-Mer down on the shore with its station and small beach, Èze-Bord-de-Mer along the lower road, and the medieval Èze Village on the summit rock. That rock is the reason the place exists — a natural watchtower with a clear line of sight from Cap-Ferrat in the west to Bordighera in Italy in the east, and a defensible single approach from the north.

Three roads, one hillside. The corniches that make this coast famous all pass Èze, and knowing which is which changes how you plan a day. The Basse Corniche, now the D6098, runs at sea level and was cut in the 1860s; it is the slow, congested one that threads through every waterfront town. The Moyenne Corniche, the D6007, was built between 1910 and 1928 to relieve that congestion and runs at roughly 200 metres, curving along the flank of the hill directly beneath Èze Village with a series of long, banked sweeps and short tunnels. The Grande Corniche, the D2564, climbs to about 450 metres and follows the line of the Roman Via Julia Augusta; Napoleon ordered it rebuilt in 1806. Of the three, the Moyenne is the one with the cinematic curves and the parapets that open straight onto air.

On screen. Alfred Hitchcock filmed the driving sequences of To Catch a Thief (1955) on these roads. The picnic where Frances Stevens, played by Grace Kelly, pulls her Sunbeam off the road and asks Cary Grant whether he wants a leg or a breast, and the earlier pursuit with the police car, both use the Moyenne and Grande Corniches between Èze and the approach to Monaco. Hitchcock's second unit shot the road plates here while much of the dialogue was recorded against rear projection at Paramount, which is why the driving looks weightless in close-up and utterly real in the wide shots. John Robie's villa in the film is not at Èze — it stood in the hills near Saint-Jeannet, inland behind Nice — and the flower market where Grant is chased is the Cours Saleya in Nice. What Èze supplies is the road itself: the guardrail, the drop, the Mediterranean 300 metres below the wheels. Producers have returned to the same asphalt for four decades of chase sequences, and the Monaco-bound stretch is among the most filmed roads in Europe.

What you actually see today. The village is entered through a fourteenth-century double gate and is entirely pedestrian — vaulted passages, staircases cut into rock, and lanes barely wide enough for two people. Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, built between 1764 and 1778 by Antonio Spinelli, is neoclassical and surprisingly plain outside; the Chapelle des Pénitents Blancs of 1306 near the gate is older and darker. At the summit is the Jardin Exotique, laid out in 1949 by Jean Gastaud on the rubble of the castle that Louis XIV had razed in 1706: agaves, aloes and columnar cacti planted in terraces around modern female figures by Jean-Philippe Richard, with a 360-degree view that on a clear winter morning reaches Corsica. Two perfume houses, Fragonard and Galimard, run free tours at the foot of the village, and the Château de la Chèvre d'Or occupies a good part of the lanes as a hotel.

The Nietzsche path. The old mule track between the shore and the village drops 430 metres in about 1.6 kilometres of steep, rocky switchbacks through Aleppo pine and scrub. Friedrich Nietzsche stayed at Èze in the winter of 1883–84 and said that the third part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra came to him while climbing it; the path has carried his name since. Going down takes forty minutes, going up takes ninety and demands real shoes and water. It links the village directly to Èze-sur-Mer station, which is the cheapest way to reach the summit without a car.

Getting there and timing. Bus 82 and 112 climb from Nice; the 82 runs to the village, the 112 takes the Moyenne Corniche and is one of the best-value scenic rides in France. Trains stop at Èze-sur-Mer on the Nice–Ventimiglia line. Parking on the Moyenne Corniche below the village is limited and expensive. Arrive before ten or after five: between eleven and four the lanes carry cruise excursions shoulder to shoulder, and the same alley that feels medieval at eight in the morning feels like a queue at noon.