It's Saturday and we woke up early to make our way to the train station for our trip to Italy. Our destination was San Remo. The city of San Remo is home to just under 60'000 people a little bigger than our San Remo near Phillip island in Victoria.
We arrived at the station early to catch the 8.23am train, all going to plan until Hubby said "did you bring the passports?". Mmmm "no was i meant too?"! So we missed the train while he headed back to the apartment to collect them. He was back in time for us to catch the next train half an hour later. We probably did not need them but we were to afraid we would arrive and they would send us back to France...I think I have watched too many Airport shows!
Anyway the train trip was great it was really easy to buy tickets and find our way around the different train stations. The scenery was fantastic, the train snakes it's way along the coast through tunnels dug out of the mountains, rail tracks that are virtually just above the lapping ocean and through various French and Italian towns.
We arrived in San Remo - Italy and at once could see and sense a cultural difference to Nice/Canne/Monaco. We headed straight for the local Saturday market, which I had read on a website was worth visiting. I had not told Hubby my research for Sam Remo was based on some guy who had posted a comment on his experience from Nice to San Remo for a day on the site trip advisor.
As we realized we could not speak a word of Italian asking for directions was not easy but we did manage to get directions with lots of hand pointing and smiles. Great we found it! Hubby just looked at me and said why are we here and whats so good about this market....my reply "I don't know we need to experience it". Well it ended up being like a smaller version of Vic market which was not to hubbys taste. We then found the food hall which was air-conditioned and very clean now were talking! The fresh produce was amazing they of course had all their pastas, olive oils, sauces, lemon cello etc etc they also had delis, butchers and the fish market. We enjoyed wandering around in here watching the locals purchase their produce.
Lunch was also based on the strangers advice he suggested after the market have lunch at Il Profumo del Mosto in the Piazza the spaghetti carbonara is like no other, it was at this stage I did have to confess to hubby about where I sourced my info. I don't think he had much faith! We ended up having a beautiful lunch of entree and two mains. Entree was a plate of different hams with ricotta cheese which was amazing and two small wedges of tomato pizza. The main was the spaghetti carbonara and then a plate of scolloped chicken in a white wine sauce. It was all lovely and a risk well worth taking.
We then headed off for a walk around town, before we went to lunch we did notice we arrived on what was like mid year sales in Melbourne. Shops were full of people in queues waiting to purchase with massive discounts. After our lunch we headed back along the Mall by 2pm a lot of the shops had closed it was like years ago when on Saturday afternoon everything was shut. Some shops remained open and Daughter no 1 was lucky enough to find a pair of designer shorts and track pants.
We made our way towards the ocean where we ended up on a not so nice beach we continued our walk around to the Marina which housed the San Remo yacht club and lots of restaurants buzzing with people eating and talking.
We found a lovely beach with sand, sun lounges and a lovely restaurant over looking the ocean, we could have spent a happy day of beach bumming it on that there beach.
We then had one last thing to do.... the gelati bar also recommend by the stranger and well worth it the lovely man serving made Daughter no 2 and I a flower out of gelati sitting atop a cone. We were impressed and the gelati was yummy. The others had cups so no flower for them.
It was then time to return to France so we departed San Remo after a great day of experiencing the Italian culture.
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