Dolceacqua with cousins!!

From France it was a quick jaunt across the border and through Monaco (on big highways!) back to the Ligurian Coast of Italy. A few km inland is the beautiful ancient town of Dolceacqua were we met Dan and Carlynne and their kids.

So amazing to have cousins around. Also adult company was very needed. We don’t get to see Dan and Carlynne enough.

Dolceacqua used to be a fortified city state that gained its wealth by controlling the inland trade routes. There were countless deals and marriages with the counts/royalty of Genova and Monaco. Plus pirate raids and waves of invasion. 

Through it all the old town has stood strong, with its ancient Roman bridge and hilltop castle.

The Ks had a place down the hill from us. Narrow streets and no cars made for easy kid roaming. Plus the cousins came with walkie talkies for communication and hide and seek.

View from our lovely deck. Our house was three stories. Three rooms all stacked on top of each other.

Exploring the streets.

Looking through the castle and absorbing serious history.

The castle also had a display about Monet, who spent months at a time here and painted some of his most famous works inspired by the scenery.

There were numerous excerpts of letters from Monet to his wife explaining why he had to stay longer in this beautiful place while his wife looked after the 6 kids in France. Sacrifices for art.

Drinks while the kids played in the local (and ancient) storm sewers.

Not sure why the Chinese presence on this particular street. Didn’t see any Chinese people. Maybe there was a tie in to the local Visionarium theatre.

We spent a day in the hilltop fortress town of Apricole. Dan found a hiking route that was over 50% through crazy old streets along a high ridge before opening up into the mountains. Local church above and below, mid way through our hike.

Out onto the ridge above town looking back at it. 

Lunch break. Fresh local produce and baking every day.

Italy loves little libraries! Different vibe than the Canadian ones.

Back into town on the downhill portion of our semi urban hike that still had significant elevation gain.

A church across from the church.

Back to the bridge! Very photogenic.

We made the wonderful discovery that the kids actually behaved better when we let them have their own table and we sat far far away.

On one of the hottest days we ventured out to a higher valley to find another swimming hole.

It was spectacular and once again provided excellent opportunities for cliff jumping.

It was busy when we arrived but the crowds cleared out over the afternoon and we ended up there by ourselves.

At the end of our time we realized that a local had rehabilitated an old farm property and opened a back country bar just above the swimming spot. He backpacks all the supplies in. We were there on opening day.

Spaghetti on the deck.

Cousin gang at the castle.

After dinner on our last night before an alpine adventure!

The next morning we packed up for hiking and left our excess gear at Dan and Carlynne’s.

After a 4 hour drive we arrived at the top of an incredible valley, planning to hike about 700m elevation gain to an alpine hut. Unfortunately our intel was faulty. Though indeed there was a little over 700m between our start and end point, the route we had to take went over a 2800m pass and then 400m descent to the hut.

This was not in the cards for our family so we made the split decision to bail to another destination after a short hike to appreciate all the waterfalls and granite cliffs.

Thankfully we found a comfortable Bed and breakfast in a little village just down the valley called Roaschia. Thank goodness for smart phones and internet access!

Our kind host phoned ahead and made reservations at a local restaurant (the only restaurant). Famous for its pizza if you can believe it… didn’t take any pictures but it was indeed delicious and reasonably priced and friendly and there was a very nice border collie that the kids loved.

Our host also recommended  much more attainable Refugio up Val Valasco. We’ll jump into that one next.

Farm with a view

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Searching Airbnb in desperation from our one room den of insanity in Belvedere we hit on this gem in the mountains north of Nice. It was halfway to our next stop. It had 2 bedrooms and amazing views. And it had a pool!

As the temp was high 20s, the pool was the kicker. Donkeys and chickens were a bonus.

But first we had to get there! The first section of road from Parc Alpha was lovely scenic winding highway, but we soon turned onto a tiny little secondary (maybe quaternary) mountain pass road that was often narrower than a single Canadian lane. Def narrower than a typical FSR, although paved the entire route. With some tense moments and taking way longer than the GPS predicted 2 hrs (speed limit apparently 70, I was mostly going 30) we finally came out the other side of the pass into scrubbier drier terrain and thankfully mostly 2 lane highways. However this was short lived and the final local approach road up the mountain to our place was 4km of concrete sidewalk with about 15 switchback corners that needed multi point turns in our long van. Clutching and rolling back even a little with a serious drop on the downhill side tested my shifting abilities and nerve repeatedly. 

Felt like driving up a sidewalk.

And of course if we came upon a vehicle going downhill, one of us had to reverse on this ridiculous road to the nearest (not much wider) pullout. The locals were clearly used to this and either drove their trucks right up onto the high side, or pulled around us with inches to spare.

By the end of the day I was exhausted watching for oncoming cars and calculating distance to the last pullout.

But at the end of the day we made it without a scratch! The kids were swimming within 5 minutes of arrival.

Once they had cooled down we explored the huge grounds and enjoyed the evening.

One of the decorations in the old farmhouse was a set of weigh scales which proved surprisingly popular for math, actually weighing household item and calculating exhalation strength.

The road up was so heinous that on our first full day we stayed on the mountain top, ate our groceries and hiked and swam and relaxed. I was not interested in driving for a while. Luckily we had plenty of food and beer. We were a little short on fruit but were able to supplement from a bountiful cherry tree on the farm.

Levi working on his smoulder style.

Kylie enjoyed these berry flowers on our hike.

Back to the pool! There was a German family staying on the farm for part of the time and we enjoyed playing with their 2 kids as well. They helped me improve my German counting skills.

Our outdoor dining room.

Hot tub was very nice and well used.

In the evening we could gaze down on the magical looking town of Touet de l’Escarene (I’m missing a bunch of letter modifiers here) and decided to visit the town and a local swimming hole the next day.

The town itself is ancient and built into the hill.

The community’s centre is predictably the local Catholic Church. The were setting up for some sort of festival when we were there but it didn’t really get going until well after we had left.

We were looking for a patisserie but it seemed the only commercial real estate in town was a lovely restaurant. The owner didn’t speak English but we got by quite well with our high school (and elementary immersion!) French skills.

If you look above my shoulder above or Zeke’s head below, you can see our house perched on the cliff! So fun.

It was hot but the old stone town was quite cool.

What was even cooler was the swimming hole! Took us a bit to find but knowing it was upstream of town we just kept wading and rock hopping.

Boom! Found it!

Even Kylie went for a swim.

Wasn’t long before we were cliff jumping. The water was clear, cool and deep.

The hike out felt much shorter when we had a clear end point.

Back to our place and it was cool enough for the hot tub!

The owner Monique was a lovely and gracious host. She allowed us a late checkout so the kids could get one more swim in before we hit the road (last time down the sidewalk!!) for Dolceacqua.