Ventimiglia, Italy

Ventimiglia (Vingtmille in French) is the closest Italian town to the southernmost part of the French border. Erin and I took a 50 minute train ride on Sunday there. I didn't even bring my passport, which was a complete accident but now I'm akin to an international spy. The ticket was only 7 euros, and no one ever checked the tickets so I can use it again! #whataspywoulddo

We were super excited to go to Italy, as neither of us had ever been to Italy. Ventimiglia is the town that everyone in Nice goes to if they just want to say they've been to Italy. We passed through Monaco, which is a principality, so technically we were in three different countries within an hour!

You could see all three countries up the coast, but it didn't translate to the picture. But Italian rocks!

There wasn't a ton to do there, but it was a cute little town. There were some areas of town that were noticeably poorer than others, which I haven't really seen in France yet. Erin and I were constantly in a state of uncertainty as to which language we should speak to people. Upon our arrival we discovered that neither of us could remember even the most basic Italian word. It was a little stupid of us. For example, 'Hello' is 'Buongiorno', which is practically the same as the French 'Bonjour'. So we wavered between French and English all day. The waiter at the restaurant spoke to us in French automatically, so I am just going to assume that we looked super French. Not that I'd get excited about that. Not at all. No, really. Just ask for my French autograph later.

Did I mention I was in Italy?

But speaking of restaurants:

We were stoked to have real Italian pizza or pasta. Thankfully all of the restaurants were open even though it was a Sunday (take that, France).

We got a "normale" sized pizza, which was the medium size, and it was ENORMOUS. We split it between the two of us, and it was amazing and perfect and beautiful and really Italian. I forgot the name of it, but it had mozzarella, prosciutto, mushrooms, artichokes, and a blanket of parmesan.

The entire meal we talked about how much we loved it. 

It was also a lot cheaper than a comparable French meal (only 12 euro for the pizza and three for a 1/4 L of wine!) Interestingly, most of the people in the restaurant were speaking French. I also saw the waitress bring a dog bowl to someone's dog that was sitting inside.

For our appetizer/dessert, we bought a confection from a candy/cookie store. We thought we were just getting a little sliver of something when we pointed to it in the window. It turned out to be a huge, semi-sphere of chocolate, marshmallow, and hazelnuts. I've tried searching for its actual name, but it remains a mystery.

.We gnawed on that thing all day. 

And that was my very brief trip to Italy!