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This is a Commune founded in the twelfth century, signatured by the Giovanii Batista Church offering wonderful strolls through its fifteenth century streets and the best food and value for lunch between Ballyhide and Genoa. On the website there is the history in Italian French and English. For some unexplained reason they do not translate into English the engaging legend that the town was founded by a couple escaping from the Count of Ventimiglia's ( a border town with France thirty miles West) Droit de Seignieur
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| Favourite spots: |
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Trattoria dei Cacciatori (Restaurant of the hunters) at Via Dante Aligheiri 8, where we were welcomed to lunch. We learned many new Italian phrases pomodoro solo for example. This described the freshest most crusty and appetizing tomato panini we have experienced. Ther was good beer from a spotless stainless steel tap. There was dessert of fabulous Orange and cinamon sponge cake, espresso coffee, another panini of formaggio misto served with a smile above a breathtaking vista for ten euro each. If you ever go to Montalto Ligure please say hello and remember me to them.
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| What's really great: |
Getting to Montalto Ligure is a little adventure in itself. We went by bus. From the central bus station in San Remo where we stayed at Hotel Nazionale Best Western, it costs one Euro each to travel the twenty or so miles.
The bus staff are exceptionally helpful but you must have a word or two of Italian- not unreasonable as it is after all in Italy.
The route follows the Cote d'Azur for about five miles and then ascends the Argentina Valley in a breathtaking series of curves, under the Autostra dei Fiori, past some of the glasshouse complexes where the flowers of Riviera dei Fiori are grown.
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| Sights: |
At every turn there is a magnificient sight. In all directions the peaks, forests, rivers, farms and building of the Argentina Valley entrance the eye.
To the South end of the town there is a path leading to the eleventh century church of Saint George. In the centre is a piazza (no more than a slight widening of the main road through town) named for a twenty two year old hero of the second World War
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| Accommodations: |
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Accomodaiton is limited to apartments and ours was a day trip. Google will rapidly deliver a choice of several offers.
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| Restaurants: |
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In addition to the Trattoria dei Cacciatori there is a further restaurant near the church of Giovani Batista. This is reached through the steep fifteenth century cobbled streets and was beyond our reach. We have no reason to believe that it was of less excellence than our Trattoria.
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| Other recommendations: |
The war memorial is the landmark for the bus stop on return to San Remo. We misunderstood this and also we failed to grasp the best efforts of the bus driver to explain matters ot us. Nevertheless we got home safely on time through the unstinted patience of the people of the town.
The flowers in nooks of the many hundreds of year old walls are striking.
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Published on Tuesday October 5th, 2010
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