Nice and easy: a leisurely cycle, with dog, along the final stage of the Tour de France

The riders won’t have time to take in the beauty of Nice’s Promenade des Anglais, but they’re missing two centuries of seaside architectural treasures

The Tour de France ends in Nice this Sunday – the first time the race will finish outside Paris since it started in 1903, and the first time since 1989 that the winner’s yellow jersey will be decided by a final-day time trial.

The Tour’s arrival in Nice also coincides with the 200th anniversary of the city’s Promenade des Anglais, the seafront walkway partly funded by English chaplain Lewis Way. The rest of the work on the paved Camin dei Ingles, as it was originally known, was paid for by Way’s congregation, and the first section was finished in 1824. Two hundred years on, I’m cycling along the rosé-coloured promenade with my dog Rio in the front basket, his ears fluttering in the sea breeze as we head for the Plage des Chiens, halfway to the airport.