From Fréjus, St. Raphaël, or La Napoule, or even Cannes, one may enter the Estérel and lose himself to the world, if he likes, for a matter of a week, or ten days, or a fortnight, and never so much as have a suspicion of the conventional Riviera gaieties which are going on so close at hand. The “Corniche d’Or” of the Estérel, as the coast road is known, was only completed in 1893, and as a piece of modern roadway-making is the peer of any of its class elsewhere. The record of its building, and the public-spirited assistance which was given the project on all sides, would, or should, put to shame those road-building organizations of England and America which for the most part have aided the good-roads movement with merely an unlimited supply of talk about what was going to be done. As a roadway of scenic surprises the “Corniche d’Or” of the Estérel is the peer of the better known rival beyond Nice, though it has nothing to excel that superb half-dozen kilometres just before, and after, Monte Carlo and Monaco. The interior route of the Estérel, the Route d’Italie, mounts to an altitude of three hundred metres, while the “Corniche” is practically level, with no hills which would tire the least muscular cyclist or the weakest-powered automobile. [Illustration: _On the Corniche d’Or_] Since the beginning of the transformation of the Estérel two hundred and forty kilometres of new roadways have been laid out. After this great work was finished came the question of erecting sign-boards along the various _routes_ and _chemins_ and _carrefours_ and _bifurcations_, and the work was not treated in a parsimonious fashion. Within the first year of the completion of the road-building over two hundred important and legible signs were erected by the efforts of a wealthy resident of St. Raphaël, with the result that the value of the Estérel as a great “_parc nationale_” became apparent to many who had previously never even heard of it. This delightful tract of unspoiled wildwood is bounded on the north by the Route d’Italie, while the ingeniously planned “Corniche” follows the coast-line all the way to Cannes, which is really the door by which one enters the Riviera of the guide-books and the winter tourists. The “Corniche d’Or,” its inception and construction, was really due to the efforts of the omnific “Touring Club de France.” Formerly the way by the coast was but a narrow track, or a “_Sentier de Douane_.” To-day it is an ample roadway along its whole length, on which one has little fear of speeding automobiles for the simple reason that the jutting capes and promontories of porphyry rock are death-dealing in their abruptness and frequency, and no automobilist who is sane--let it be here emphasized--takes such dangerous risks.