Day 3: Ventimiglia and Bordighera

It was a beautiful bright sunny day when we woke up in Menton this morning.

After breakfast on our balcony, we decided to walk into the centre of town and explore a bit more.

We walked down to the beach. It was pebbly, but perhaps less so than in Nice.

The views of the old town were spectacular with the blue sky behind them.

In the other direction we were looking towards Italy, which is where we were planning to go later in the day.

Menton turned out to be quite busy today, with a Sunday market clogging up the streets. We stopped for a coffee, then walked along some quieter streets towards the town hall.

From there we passed through some pretty gardens, on our way to the train station.

Menton is only a few miles away from the Italian border and the trains which come from the direction of Nice terminate not in Menton but in Ventimiglia, the first town on the Italian side of the border. Knowing that we were so close to Italy, we couldn't resist the temptation to pay it a quick visit  

The train journey to Ventimiglia only took around 10 minutes, barely enough time to get used to the idea of being in a different country.

Ventimiglia maybe wasn't quite as well-kept as Menton, but it was still a pretty little place.

We enjoyed the views in the local park...

...and were able to look back down the coast towards where we'd just come from in France.

Then we found a very scenic spot to sit outside and have lunch

Ventimiglia wasn't actually our final destination. Once we've finished eating, we headed back to the train station and caught another train a couple of stops down the line to a town called Bordighera, which we'd read was worth a visit.

When we arrived in Bordighera, first impressions was that everywhere was rather wet!

It seemed to have been raining quite heavily here. Luckily, things soon brightened up

I'd never heard of Bordighera before I started planning this trip, but Tim was familiar with it because it used to be home to a man called Clarence Bicknell.

Although a street in Bordighera has probably been named after him because he was a famous botanist, Clarence Bicknell was also a well-known early speaker of Esperanto. The Clarence Bicknell museum in Bordighera doesn't open on Sundays, so we didn't get to see if there were any mentions of Esperanto inside.

That didn't matter though, because Bordighera turned out to be a really pretty place.

We followed signs towards the old town, climbing upwards.

There were some beautiful views. I've been surprised at how mountainous this part of France/Italy is.

The route towards the old town led through these shady gardens.

I love walking along and seeing cactuses growing by the side of the path

We enjoyed the views out to sea...

...then carried on through the woods towards the old town.

It turned out to be tiny...

...but a really pretty place nonetheless.

We walked back downhill towards the newer part of Bordighera and attempted to have a walk by the sea, but unfortunately the clouds had converged again and we got caught in a rain shower. Luckily we were quite close to the station, so we were able to jump on a train and head back to France and Menton. We can't complain; most of the day has been beautifully sunny and we've visited some amazing places