Back to our trip in the south and that short stay in Italy...

I touched on our short stay in Italy in a previous post - it should have been straightforward enough through the border with a few stops en route.  

We had a few stops within Italy itself where we picked up some new passengers including a group of four men who at first seemed to be together but sat in separate seats throughout the bus.

The short trip through Italy was interesting.

Just after crossing the border back into France the bus was pulled in by the Gendarmerie and we all had to show our I.D. the group of four were treated with some suspicion and one of them who had failed to produce I.D. was removed from the bus. The other three got off the bus together in the first town after the incident.

Interestingly on the way back into France and Menton at Ventimiglia our I.D. was checked again.

More images from our recent sojourn in the south...part III - life goes on in Dulceacqua .

More images from the little village of Dulceacqua  in Italy.

  

  

  

Visiting Italy for the day...

On Thursday with our host we popped over to Italy to visit the pretty village of Dulceacqua 

The French impressionist Claude Monet stayed nearby in 1884 and often took trips in this area and visited the village twice to paint,once with Renoir. He was enchanted with the village and immortalized its bridge in one of his paintings.

As you can see Dolceacqua hasn’t changed much since his visits...which is a big part of its charm.

It has a beautiful church

Its narrow streets leading up to the old castle are a delight... 

and the views from the top are spectacular!

The way back down .

After exploring the village we headed over to the market in nearby Ventimiglia  where we also enjoyed a good lunch...

where we were trated to pizza alfresco plus these yummy pastries for desert, the one on the right is called 'ugly but good' I can confirm both adjectives describe it perfectly!

An Italian church for Sunday...Saint Anthony the Abbot in Dolceacqua

On our second day in Menton our very generous hostess took us over to Italy for lunch (as you do). We stopped over in the  pretty village of Dolceacqua - this is the village church...the Italians sure kow how to do churches. More on the actual village later.