Our new goal for the day was to go to places we hadn't been before that were easily accessible by major highways (to be safer in the rain). No little windy back roads allowed on this outing! We chose the A8, a straight, lovely-to-drive, autoroute, and east as our direction. First stop, Frejus, where only Dom had been before. We found a sweet, little town, busy even in all the rain, complete with roman ruins incliding an aqueduct and an ancient amphitheatre. We also visited an interesting, DRY and WARM museum of antiquities. As our stomachs announced lunch hour was approaching, we decided to drive another 30 minutes east to Cannes, somewhere no one knew well and I had never been.
After a driving tour of the ville(much more civilized than walking in the rain) we managed to find a restaurant mentioned in our guide book. The "Le Monaco Restaurant" was now the "New Monaco Restaurant" but the meal we had was well worth the 30 minutes wait to get in and completely lived up to the review in the book. Located between the train station and the 'red carpet, film festival' center, this cozy spot served an excellent, very well priced meal. it appeared to be a popular spot with the locals and we were clearly the only "out of towners". The fact that we were able to converse with everyone in french helped us fit in right away. After our 'entrees' and a glass of wine, Hilary raised her glass and said "I've got an idea! Let's go to Italy for the night!!". After an initial bout of laughter, we all sort of looked at each other and Nick said "I'd consider that!" Having nothing in the way of overnight bags, Hil and I decided that if we could at least find some tacky "I Love Italy" t-shirts and a toothbrush, we were in. The rest of lunch was spent pondering the next chapter of our adventure.
Back on the road again, we kept driving east passing by Nice and Monte Carlo and just before the Italian border we took the last exit to go to Menton. Every time we've driven to Italy we always comment on this picturesque town as we drive past it, but we'd never taken the time to get off the autoroute and go visit. Today was that day and we were so glad we did. Only minutes after we arrived at the waterfront, the sun came out and a beautiful arc en ciel(rainbow) touched down on the blue water toward Italy. We walked along the quay and admired (and dissed) the yachts tied up there. After enjoying the sunshine and the view, it was back on the road again....next stop; Italy!
Ventimiglia is the first town you come to after crossing the border. The rain had found us again but we wandered the town, dodging puddles and searching the shops for those tacky t-shirts but instead found bottles of Limoncello, Prosecco, unique. specialty pastas and huge jars of pesto. All we needed then was a kitchen and we could have made our own dinner in Italy! Although the overnight idea began to fade, we still wanted to introduce Hil and Dom to a special little town we'd discovered on a prior trip to this area.
Dolceaqua is situated inland from Ventimiglia by about 8km. This medieval town of 2,000 inhabitants can trace it's roots back to the Iron Age! You can visit the ruins of a castle, built in 1151, perched atop a rocky spur at the top of the village. When we arrived it was early evening so there wasn't much daylight left. We explored the hillside village walking up the steep, stone walkways to the ruins. It was wet and very slippery and we wondered what they do when it snows?? It was too dark to take any photos while we were there, but I really want you to get a feel for this wonderful spot so I've used photos from a website listed below.
After making our tour of the medieval village we crossed over a beautiful, single-arched bridge to the "new" part of the town (it was settled in the 15thc!.
Right at the foot of the bridge, we found a quaint pottery shop. Being dark, cold and wet, we were surprised to find it open.
We visited with the owner for a while talking about the town and ogling at the lovely hand made potslining the shelves. As we couldn’t figure out how to get any of the ones we liked back to Duxbury unbroken, we bought an indestructible olive wood bowl and pestle instead. We followed her directions to a suggested restaurant and once there settled in for a nice 'light' supper of salad and pizza and to sample the special local wine, Vini Rossese. We started out sharing two pizzas, but they were so delicious and the crust so thin we ended up ordering a second round!
After dinner, we went outside and looked up at the starry, starry night and our chauffeur said “Let’s go to Aix” so off we went. Nick got us safely home shortly after midnight. Who wouldn’t want to live in this delightful part of the world where you can have lunch in France, dinner in Italy and still be home in your own cozy bed for the night!?!
A la prochaine!
More information:
New Monaco Restaurant, 15, Rue 24 Août 06400 Cannes, France+33 4 93 38 37 7
La Rampa, Via Barberis Colomba, 18035 Dolceaqua 01 84 20 61 98
Dolceaqua:http://www.villageterraneo.org/an/dolceacqua.htm
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