Okay, so no racing, boo, and onward to Italy, yay. All the Italians here said “don’t waste your time with Ventemigila (first city on Italian side of border), continue on to Sanremo”. So … I taxied to Sanremo.
And found … nothing! I knew about Sanremo from the annual Milan-Sanremo cycling race – it looks nice from TV helicopter shots – but to be there, meh. Okay, I stopped at a little bar next to the harbor, but it was nothing special, and the environment did not look promising. So…
Headed back along the coast – beautiful! – and stopped at the Grand Hotel del Mare in Bordighera for a drink. Dated and kitschy, but in a neat way. Time to kill before dinner, and a nice drink with a nice view is always … nice 🙂
the patina of a bygone era
And then back to Ventemiglia! And it was cute. And nice. And interesting. Cooler than Sanremo, by far. Moral: people don’t realize how nice they have it 🙂
After a bit of tooling around, I ended up at a restaurant called Balzi Rossi, which is just – just! – the Italian side of the border. (I mean, you can literally see the French border from the windows.). Nice view of the water – nice view of Menton, where I was yesterday – and a beautiful seafood dinner.
I think this makes (counts on fingers) five great dinners in a row? Wow.
So not a lost day, at all, but let’s hope for enough wind to go sailing tomorrow!
How did I get here 