Uh-oh

 

We popped over to Italy yesterday morning.

I wasn't thinking much of it. The idea itself was novel; that one could get on a train and go to a whole different country with an entirely different language and culture and come home at our leisure like we were going to a suburban mall for an afternoon. And yes, there was the largest market in Italy on Fridays in this Italian border town of Ventimiglia, but I know what those markets are like with their 90% women's fashion and assorted dubious "fell of the back of the truck" items. So while I was interested, my expectations were modest.

But after half an hour in the Riviera river city of Ventimiglia we were painfully wondering: Did we move to the wrong place?

Fortunately the answer to that is no. The density and grand beauty of our city, with its New York City intensity and density genetically spliced into a Cote D'Azur vacation beach town, is too perfect for us on a day to day level to dismiss like that. But oh Ventimiglia!

Do you know what France is like here? It is like Italy with a light washing and a coat of varnish. I think after almost four months in this country it was a bit of a relief to see a place with its guard down, having a little fun with it. 

Also the people are kind of nicer.

But crucially I just loved that city with a glorious river running through the center of it and spilling onto its wide open beaches. I love a river delta, with swans and glowing horizons. The modern town was good and not all that modern, though busy and active. The market was as I anticipated except in its magnitude. It was gigantic. The food market, a separate entity, was great too, and it felt real and rich with some actual local products and bargains, including curoiously massive piles of artichokes. The coffee, our one abiding reason for dreaming of the place, was a letdown, though there was much to choose from and perhaps we would have found our spots with better luck. And then across the river, steeply climbing the cliff, was the old town, scrappy, ancient, perhaps a bit too sleepy and without enough shops, it was nevertheless the most wonderful old town I have seen, with its endlessly winding and climbing paths too small for cars, and with its countless bridges and tunnels climbing up and through the rock.

I am working on the many pictures I took of this place, feeling that the out of the camera ones, while satisfying, deserve deeper layers of work and finishing to bring out my feelings on Ventimiglia. There will be more to show and talk about in the days to come. Also I am aware there is a thrill to the new and in the triumphs of risk in travel that is modified with familiarity.

But for now I will just say:

I got a chunk of good Parmesean the size of a cinder block.