If you love to drive, you’ll love the road to Madone d'Utelle

Madone d'Utelle is a high mountain sanctuary at an elevation of 1.177m (3,861ft) above the sea level, located in the Alpes-Maritimes department in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in France.

Madone d'Utelle

Tucked away in southeastern France, the road to the summit is paved but extremely narrow so proceed cautiously and hope no other vehicles come from the other direction. Not recommended if you don't know how to reverse. It’s called M132. The road is also a real goody for motor bikers: the M32 and M132 have lots of hairpin bends, is a steep, bad and a tight road and until you reach the village of Utelle there is also a lot of traffic.

The road has been featured in the Paris-Nice race.The road to the summit is very steep, hitting a 14% of maximum gradient through some of the ramps. Starting at M32 road, the ascent is 5.6 km long. Over this distance the elevation gain is 357 meters. The average gradient is 6.37%.

Arrived in front of the sanctuary, the road can continue up to 800m further, even narrower, to the orientation table (1,194m) and the TDF antenna. At the summit you have a fantastic view towards the surrounding mountains and also towards Nice and the sea.
Road suggested by: Michael Spannlang