It’s Friday! Unlike most of our Fridays on our trip so far, we are NOT doing Norwegian homework today. Instead, we are heading to Italy, and our first stop is Ventimiglia’s Friday market.
Our train leaves at 8.20am, so we are heading out early. Instead of me walking over to the baker to bring home breakfast, I have decided we are going to sit down and have a quick breakfast set right there at the bakery.
After breakfast came a brisk walk to the train station, the route takes 25 minutes, and we know it well by now. We pass familiar shops, buildings and eateries. When we get to the train station, we finally take a second to take a picture of this fellow:
Then, our train departs. This train ride takes us exactly the same way we travelled yesterday to Monaco, which is pretty much exactly half way from Nice to Ventimiglia. Again, the train windows have not been cleaned, and again, the views are spectacular.
Ventimiglia is famous for its Friday market, and that’s where we are headed now. We were worried (ok, maybe just Joe) that we wouldn’t get seats together on the train, battling all the local grandmothers heading to the market, but it was nice and calm. Lots of seats in all directions. Here at the market, however, people have come from all over to browse, shop, shoplift, sell legally, sell illegally, or like us – just curious. Once we see two sellers grab all their wares from the sheet on the ground and run with their long legs onto the beach to escape the carabinieri.
Halfway through the market, Maylin decided she needed a beach break. Seeing as the market stretches along most of the pebbly beach of Ventimiglia, we walked down towards the water to throw some rocks. The pebbles at Nice are much cleaners, this beach bears witness to having had one too many glass beer bottles smashed against the rocks.
Because we got here so early, we’re now in the awkward spot between breakfast and lunch, and we decide to have a quick snack. Joe has read about “coffee and a cornetto” being an Italian “must try”, so that’s on his mind. We find a café, and request a table inside.
As we are walking through the rest of the market, we look up train times. The next train isn’t for another 90 minutes! Why are there no trains this particular hour? In any case, it allows us to take our time walking through the market. Too bad we just had a snack, otherwise we’d eat lunch here before getting on the train!
Now we were in need of lunch. It’s 2pm, and we walk down towards the seaside. We first walk right, looking for pizza and pasta, we are in Italy after all! The first couple of places do not serve pizza and pasta, and before we know it, places have closed for their mid day break. Yes, it’s a thing. Not opening back up until 6pm. Restaurants boast of “continuous service” even in Nice, letting you know that you can have a meal at 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, even if it isn’t the local norm.
We start realizing that today is not a normal day. It dawns on me that of course, May 1st is European Labour Day! Many places are closed. We find some promising looking ones, but they are on the yacht and ocean side, and we are on the streets and buildings side. Between us there are long stretches of parking spots and tall fences. We joke more than once about “how do we get there? do we jump down?”. There is no way down.
By the time we are hungry and almost ready to give up or explode or whatever comes first, we find a playground, a restaurant and a bike rental. Joe and I sit down at a table for four, the girls are off to play at the playground. We order two dishes (we have had snacks and ice cream already, after all) to share, gnocchi for Joe and I, ravioli for the girls.
Then, after we leave our table to go inside and pay (it seems such a dangerous system), Joe’s ulterior motives come into play. We are renting a mega bike, the rental place calls it a “bike rickshaw”, for two people to pedal, a kid up front and a kid in between us. It’s a tight squeeze, and a heavy vehicle, but we make it work!
It’s super hard to pedal one of these things, and my admiration for my old boss increases. He, who was our General Manager, was the only person at the hotel strong enough to operate our actual rickshaw! At one point, Téa wants to pedal, so we stop along the side of the road and her and I switch seats. I get to relax, albeit in a super tight spot in the middle. Téa pedals as best she can, and of course the pedals go around, but she isn’t really helping her dad too much, so we switch back soon thereafter.
Once we’ve gone through the tunnel, we pull over and have a little bit of a break, stretch our legs, drink some water. Then, we turn the whole thing around, and bike back. What I thought would be a 30 minute adventure, Joe tought it would be an hour, ends up being about 45 minutes.
After we make it back to the bike rental, we have a decision to make. How late are we staying? We’ve had cornetto, gelato and pasta, but no pizza yet, so that’s still on our list of things we wanted to do while in Italy. We have a look at the train schedule, keeping in mind we first have to take the Italian train back to Ventimiglia, to switch over to the French train that will take us back to Nice. The whole journey will take about 90 minutes, city to city, not to mention that we also then have the 25 minute walk back home. We decide to go have some pizza, and aim for the 6.42pm train.
Now, the restaurant situation along the waterfront had not improved. We found more hopeful restaurants, and had no way to reach them. Then, we gave up on the waterfront location and looked further in. It was a bit of a walk, but we followed first the map, then the people. (The restaurant the map showed us was closed anyways. D’oh!) We found a lively street with restaurants, bars, shops and more restaurants! We sat down at one that promised pizzas, and ordered our dinner.
So you know how we are aiming for that 6.42pm train? Well, by the time we are all paid up and about to leave, it’s 6.20am, and now we have to run! Well, speed walk, I guess. We walk as fast as we can, all the way through the town, across roads and to the station. This station is special though, unlike all the other train stations we’ve been to this trip, this one is inside a mountain, so when we get to the entrance, we still have six moving walkways to run along, to even get to our track!
We make it to our track, with five minutes to spare. Phew! Then, our first train ride is only 15 minutes, and then we have a 10 minute wait in Ventimiglia. Luckily, our train originates there, so we can go on board and find our seats right away. 50 minutes later, we get off at the closer stop, Nice Riquier this time, not our usual Nice Ville. This means we get to walk new streets home tonight, and we discover a side of Nice we hadn’t seen yet, empty streets with nothing to note, and hopping busy areas with wall to wall restaurants.
We finally make it home, just before 9pm. We all have to shower the day off, and so the hair dryer runs until late. It’s been such a good, long and warm day, and it’s good to just sink into our mattresses (they are so soft, very much different from the ones in Asia) and fall asleep. What will we get up to tomorrow? Maybe something more relaxing? Are we capable of doing that?
Det er morsomt å se, at dere er på de samme stedene som Lise og jeg var i 1970! Vi var også i Canne, Antibe og St. Rafael. Dro med buss til Monaco og Ventimiglia (på markedet). Nydelig bilde av dere på sykkelen!
Å, så koselig! Ja da ble det vel noen gjensyn da? Det er jo et kjempedeilig område!
In Spain the Quattro Stagioni pizza is usually divided into quarters, too, and traditionally with an egg in the centre. I always found that part odd. The one you had looks very good.
I do love me an egg on all my food! Yes, this one was particularly good, I think an egg would have just made it that much better!