An ancient salt trading route, the Pagarine Route is a new 159km walking path from the French Riviera up into the Italian hills that's now welcoming hikers. I was standing on the lively Plage des Ponchettes beach at the eastern end of Nice's Promenade des Anglais, the large pebbles massaging my feet as I inhaled the salty whiff in the air and watched the early-morning swimmers hobble over the stones to the sea. The hum of traffic on the coastal road was broken momentarily by the squawk of a gull as it launched itself from the shore into the blue sky, narrowly missing a small group of runners.
It was busy that day, but Nice's city beach has been full of activity for hundreds of years. The city was an important hub for the salt trade in the Middle Ages and the salt was brought ashore on Plage des Ponchettes in small wooden row boats before being taxed in nearby Cours Saleya , Nice’s centuries-old marketplace, and taken by mule on a gruelling journey to Italy where it was traded for use in the mountains and further north. Today, Plage des Ponchettes is the starting point for the Pagarine Route , a new 159km hiking path between Nice and the Italian city of Cuneo that traces the steps of these medieval salt traders.
As sustainable tourism officer for Nice Côte d'Azur, Sophie Spillaiert has been working on this EU-funded, cross-border sustainable tourism project since 2019. "There was a lot of salt production near here and it was all brought to Nice to be unloaded on the beach .