Italy´s San Remo and Ventimiglia.

On the 29th June, we set sail the 16NM’s to Italy’s San Remo, in a north 4 gusting 5, sails reefed for the most part, and 3 hours later, managed to grab one of the only 3 available transit free spots in the old harbour, we are sure things would have been a little more salubrious in the marina, certainly with power and water which were not available on the quay but at 3 figures per night, the harbour suited us just fine, besides it was a much shorter walk into town!

A couple of hours later we were joined by a Catamaran called Popucu and its Austrian family, Jakob, Marija, with 2 tiny blonde tots Ludowika and Dorothea. who will definitely be breaking their father´s heart at some point!

We spent 2 days, (the max we were allowed) here in San Remo, popping in for a walkabout in search of our favourite ice cream, chocolate fondente and Italian coffee, so much nicer than french and at half the price…not to mention the football!

San Remo

We walked the entire city and got thoroughly lost in the very very very old towns alleys trying to get up to the old church. Unlike Cannes and the other old town we have seen this summer, these were very much residential, and quite dark in places we were quite relieved to get up to the top to the 12th-century San Siro Cathedral and into the sunlight again!

The Views across the city were spectacular…

We then headed back down into its “downtown” area where we came across San Remo’s Casino with its own red carpet, and the Russian Orthodox Church built at the end of the 19th century, with its 3 domes reaching 50 meters high and gilded shining with Russian three arms crosses on top of them, reminiscent of St Basils in Red Square Moscow.

and finally down to the beach where we had a chuckle over the 2 sides…

That evening, having returned to the boat, showered (which brought about a new issue with the yacht, the shower pump wasn’t pumping.. a problem for the morning) and changed we headed back into town to watch the Italian football team lose to Switzerland, as you can understand it was a very sombre crowd, who had nothing to cheer about….

For our second day, we first dismantled the shower pump, luckily it wasn’t in quite such an awkward position as the bilge pump, to thankfully find it was just a bolt that had worked its way lose, 30 minutes later, our shower was drained so we could set off on our sight seeing tour. Having already walked the length and breadth of San Remo, we decided to take the train, which was a novel experience for us, to the old village of Ventimiglia.

Ventimiglia

Ventimiglia is comprised of two distinct parts with its historic old town perched high on a cliff top and its more recent town below, each part separated by the Roya river. The old town is enclosed by walls which is mostly traffic free as many of the streets are too narrow for cars. It would have been a steep climb uphill but David found a lift, tee hee, Everywhere was very quiet but it was very picturesque with its warren of winding lanes and cobbled squares lined with quaint old stone houses, and a wonderful viewing point across the pretty empty marina, the price per night might have had something to do with that!

The “new” town wasn’t much to write home about, probably because it was a Sunday and everything was closed, so we headed back to San Remo in time to watch the England v Slovakia match, funnily enough we managed to get a good table with a great view of the TV, and we didn’t have too much to shout about until the 93rd minute as we were saved by the Bellingham…

Monday came, along with the usual job of provisioning, then we were ready to set off again, northwards along the coast, inching our way towards Genoa!

1st July 2024