Day trip to Sanremo

If you happen to follow my blog regularly, you've probably noticed that both me and Mathilde are what one could call big fans of Italy. This year, we've not made it across the border that many times though, so we decided now would be a good time as any to enjoy a day on the Italian Riviera - especially since the weather forecast was promising a nice, sunny, autumn day.

We've actually done most of the touristy stuff on the Italian side of the Riviera (the part that's close to France, anyway) already during our numerous excursions, but after some research on the internet, we finally decided to head to Sanremo - the "cultural excuse" for our trip being Villa Nobel (where Alfred Nobel spent the last years of his life).

It was indeed a nice day to be in Italy. The sun was out, and plenty of folks were walking around, enjoying the nice weather, shopping, and so forth. We started off with Alfred Nobel's villa. It was pretty interesting stuff - plenty of information about Nobel's life, the inventions he came up with, and of course that famous testament, which dictated that a part of his vast fortune (which he mostly made from manufacturing dynamite!) should be given each year to the finest and brightest of mankind. The fact that a lot of the texts were only in Italian gave us a good opportunity to practice our Italian as well ;-).

The cultural bit done, we walked around Sanremo, and then headed off for lunch. We'd done a bit of research in France beforehand, and ended up in a place called B. Bros & Co. Not particuarly Italian-sounding, perhaps, but the food was certainly Italian - and top-notch as well! A real culinary pleasure!
We naturally stopped at Grom's for a delicious naturally flavoured ice creams (cost a lot less than an industrial ice cream full of dodgy stuff would in France, too!).

After enjoying the sun by the sea side for a bit, we jumped in the car and headed back to France. Not before stopping over for a bit of grocery shopping on the I
talian side of the border though - always good fun!