TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

I was not very enthusiastic about my visit to Ventimiglia. You can find my post here: Rundown Vintimiglia So to cheer myself up, I went on to search for the local market. Yes, I love food and it makes me happy all the time. I wanted to bring home some dried sausages and other Italian fares. This deli shop owner was coaxing me to take a foto of him, and so I did. Droge worst! Spiced-cured-dried sausages, they are my comfort food all throughout the season. Market Tip: When picking dried sausages, pick the hard ones, they are usually the tastiest. A few weeks back Dutchman was complaining that the sausages I brought from Spain before the Riviera trip were not tasty enough. He wasn’t into it and in fact I still have 2 left in the cupboards. I am now seriously doubting if we will ever get to eat them before they hit the expiry date. So I promised Dutchman I will buy a bag of Italian dried cured sausages in this Italy work/pleasure trip. He is sometimes a copycat; he tends ...

I was in Ventimiglia last year sometime in early December, which now seemed like an eternity as many things have transpired since then. Life moves on so fast but how strange it is to say I was there last year when it was actually just last month? Just 4 weeks ago. Ventimiglia, the Italian city by the border of France in Liguria. You see Ventimiglia Alta on the foto which means Ventimiglia Old City. My original plan was to spend an extra 5 days in the Riviera around the 2nd week of December, this time hopping over to the less swanky Italian side of the Riviera. I am so resolved, and so literally lusting over this, in visiting Portofino (this one is a swanky town) and panoramic Cinque Terre, the old 5 rock cliff coastal villages. I have everything mapped out, my itinerary, which hotels to stay, the train schedules, and I spent days searching for flights back to Holland via Genoa and Pisa, and nights reading tons and tons of articles, travel reviews, and blogs about the hike tra...