Maritime Alps Tour Day 2: Vievola -> Gias de Peirefique

A bit of an adventure running around Nice trying to find a gas bottle, and then a very fast walk to the train station, two minutes wait, and we're on our train. Onwards to Ventimiglia where we change to the next train with a 20 minute delay and then onwards into the mountains. We start hiking from Vievola at around 14:00.

The first 20 minutes of uphill (Andrea special?) lead to some wonderings about fitness with the big packs on (damn are these packs heavy), but we eventually find our pace and everything starts to flow. Up we go through fields and woods on a quite nice path, ever upwards until we hit the river that we'll be following the rest of the way. Too bad for us the river is dry. Huh, that's not so nice since we aren't carrying much water and had planned to pump. Onwards we go past a patch of blackberries... blackberries!?!? quick blackberry break! After a bit we follow a plastic water pipe to a spring and pump some water. Relief!

Onwards and upwards through the forest, past a patch of raspberries... raspberries!?!? quick raspberry break! Onwards to a lunch break in a broad open field, then up more steeply until we get to the Gias de Peirefique. A bit further up, past the alp, we find a good tent spot with a little spring nearby and some shelter, pitch the tent, and settle in for the evening.
It's been cloudless all day, but as evening sets in we get clouds and wind.

Tent site with evening clouds

There's a light rain during the night, but nothing particularly serious.

Dinner: Soup: potato leek enriched with dumpling powder (stirred in as a paste during the soup cooking instead of made into dumplings). Main: mashed potatoes with sauteed salami and dried green beans (soaked ~20 minutes in warm water first).

Approximate stats: 6.6 km, 1015m up, 30m down