Dolceacqua, Apricale, Perinaldo loop

The ride today took us into the Nervia and Crosia Valleys, starting in Ventimiglia. These 3 towns are all classified as “Borgo Più Bello d’Italia or most beautiful towns in Italy. They are medieval with castles and churches, situated on top of hills/mountains with narrow streets and much character. The whole ride was only around 40 kms but again involved some fairly serious climbing, about 500 meters, so took most of the day. We stopped in the 1st town, Dolceacqua, to wander around the old city and do a bit of souvenir shopping. There is a famous old bridge going into the city that was built in the 15th century and was painted by Monet.

The towns kept getting higher in elevation as we progressed. At one point just before reaching Apricale we saw another town perched high above us and joked that this was our next point, and in fact it was, Perinaldo. The road to Perinaldo was ridiculously narrow, I thought it was a bike path at first, but spectacular as it wound up to the town through a forest and of course gave us great vistas of the towns below. At times the grade of incline was over 14%, a new world record for us. But then we got a free ride all the way back to Ventimiglia.

For the evening passeggiata we visited the old city of Ventimiglia which is perched up above the modern city. Like the towns we explored today it is a fully functional modern habitat for the people but appears to be from the middle ages with it’s narrow streets and passageways, so different from our own home where we have so much room to live.