Our 30 year experiences and Reccomendations ....... Chapter 1 – Sand-beach : The one and only sandy beach … Do you like … a sandy beach … well hidden away … 10 minutes walk to get there (after you parked the car) … small beach .. (quite crowdie in summer) … no roads around so no cars around … un-deep for about 150 meters … that is the CALANDRE … in Ventimiglia. (Excellent when high waves … as it’s a sand-bank the place you can access the water, when it’s really wavy as the other beaches have very rough shore brake) LE CALANDRE VENTIMIGLIA – SUNSET To get there, go through Ventimiglia … don’t take on to the Motorway or to Menton, but go relatively straight (let’s say … go over the river Roya bridge and take left and right … then you cannot miss the tunnel), to enter a TUNNEL in the city (the only one) at the end of that tunnel, go right and park the car right at the end. Then continue to walk on a sandy road for 10 minutes or more. There is a bar for drinks and ice creams at the Calandre, all very natural … there are some beach facilities … again very natural. Preferred beach of all locals as it is great … so very busy on Sat and Sun. On Friday .. difficult to get to as this is MARKET DAY … please look at chapter places to visit for Fridays … Stone-beaches … 1 advantage … no sand in the clothes …. Bordighera – Since years getting better and better big stones all over the beaches, the best stone beaches are in Bordighera … as this town is very beautiful .. it has a car-free promenade of about 3 km with bars and well organized beaches … Very pleasant atmosphere with or without kids. The beaches are normally prepared mid May and finish mid October to be organized … To get there, drive all the way through Bordighera, right to the end … when the housing finishes … then turn right … you see a small church … you are right … there is a ‘big’ parking … with a bit of patience park there and … you will see the boulevard starting. (we will describe later when talking about food, but the best of all in our opinion is actually on the boulevard … an almost ordinary looking bar on the pedestrian area .. called ALCIONE … the coffee / pastries / and mostly lunch and dinner are Excellent (they have a very passionate cook). BORDIGHERA BEACH AND BOULEVARD Ventimiglia – … Really messy Italian … Apart from the Calandre … only one good stone beach in Ventimiglia; with kids this is quite good, it is close to the CALANDRE, actually pass through the same tunnel and turn left .. at the end you will see SAN GIUSEPPE. For whatever reason they are able to create the perfect atmosphere .. there are toys all over in a shady area. They have something with Holland … there are always a lot of Dutch people there who tend to have houses in Airole, a small village … also the owners are half Dutch origin. Cannot explain why … but atmosphere is good. VENTIMIGLIA SAN GIUSEPPE AND OLD CITY Vallecrosia .... This year we were there quite often ... it is not really beautiful ... but extremely practical with kids from 4 to 8 years old ... there is a beach ... water and then rocks, so no open sea and water from 70 to 90 cm deep all over … so very safe and you can relax a bit. There are not many foreign kids though … To get there, drive towards Bordighera ... in Vallecrosia at the traffic light follow Sea (right) … at the sea, turn right again and it’s the second beach-establishment on the left, called Oasi, the life-guards are really cool there. Vallecrosia Balzi Rossi – Beautiful … To find it … if you follow signs for France and Menton via the normal road … and not the motorway, you pass through a village called LATTE, right after Latte keep left still following France and Menton … you will get to the old Frontier. (still there ) 50 Meters before the frontier … turn left and park your car … pass a kind of gate and walk on to Balzi Rossi …. A very famous private beach / bay / stony but really beautiful. Expensive …. Not really, just normal. Menton … It has such a nice city centre that it is nice to pass a day in Menton on the beach and have a pan-bagnat in the centre at lunch … there are two kinds of beaches … very small stones, maybe better for kids and never waves here as protected … in the yachts harbour area (sounds worse then it is) .. or on the west side, normal .. stone beaches. MENTON OLD CITY AND SEASIDE Really fancy beach and but not over-expensive .. Pass Monte Carlo along the Basse Corniche … (along the sea side) towards NICE .. You will get to a place called Cap d’Ail, descend when you arrive in the centre and ask for the beach called ‘La Mala’, you can go to ‘La Reserve’ or to ‘Eden Plage Mala’ You can easily find Carolina there and other celebrities, it is a nice bay .. and not even too expensive, feel exclusive for normal prices … Nice : Stone beaches … nothing special … beautiful long boulevard though. Juan le Pins as well as Cannes : Sandy beaches … very nice … in high season … very crowdy … lot of traffic, in pre- season of post-season worth a visit, it is a teeners paradise in the night … in the day a good but crowdy beach-resort. JUAN LE PINS – TEENERS PARADISE Surprising Monte-Carlo : Also in Monte-Carlo there are some decent beaches … they are close to the famous tennis club … close to Jimmy’s, everybody in Monte-Carlo knows Jimmy’s, the nightclub. The beach is called ‘La Spiaggia’ (yellow umbrella’s) there is a playground on the beach right next to it. It is in “Plage du Larvotto” They offer any plate for 9 Euro and staying all day is relatively cheap … (for what one would expect for Monte-Carlo) the owner is called Eric Chauvet tel +377 93505080 IT IS REALLY GOOD WITH KIDS AS WELL ! One day to the river ... rather then the beach ..... There are in Rocchetta (after Dolceacqua left for 5km) very special „rockpools“ Completely naturally pools connected by small falls.... you can have a good swim there, the water is nice and cool, have a relaxed day and discover and visit untouched Rocchetta. A couple of pictures of the place Chapter 2 - Restaurants Dinner normally starts at approximately 19h00. The thing we really recommend is to stay in the valley and enter deeper and deeper … go down the hill and go left, pass Camporosso .. towards Dolceacqua, in Dolceacqua itself and after Dolceacqua .. there are really great places. They are in-expensive and excellent as mainly used by locals (therefore they can’t effort to be expensive or bad) They are all good … some ones we know are … La Rampa in Dolceacqua (very hard to get in as very busy always .. go early like 19.00 and stand a chance) Il Borgo (best Pizza) in Dolce Acqua ... (also very busy in high season ... wait a bit and you will be seated, you can even reserve here … doesn’t help much in high season but …. ), there is a nice Pub in the main square as well (that is on the new side of the bridge), they are all in the main square. Have a walk in the old town before or after dinner, it feels like going back in time ...... that is Further in the valley .... La Favorita ... on the way to Apricale ... just 2 km before coming into Apricale on the left side ... tel 0184 208186 They have good honest food, really typical for the region. Also there are excellent restaurants in Apricale like La locanda dei Carugi and many others. Quite upmarket and very well looked after. other one ... Ristorante Apricale da Delio Rina e Baci ... place to check out, heard a lot of good about it. Piazza Vittorio Veneto 9 in Apricale 0184 208008. One more is La Capanna da Baci, Via Roma 14/16 in Apricale IM, Italy. +39 0184 208137 Do you want ….. a crazy place ... in Castelvittorio (again an old village) ... called Ristorante Italia. The guy is funnily crazy ... you pay 25 Euro for : 20 antipasti ... 6 primi and 6 or 7 main courses …. wine as much as you like included .. desert and coffee and all the rest … he will start to put on music at a certain hour as he also drinks wine as much as he likes … real good fun. Concluding .. Keep the valley as a reference for dinner … Bordighera : In Bordighera, we described the ALCIONE before on the boulevard in Bordighera … looks more like a bar … it is not. Food is excellent, at lunch or dinner. Also the old town of Bordighera has some very nice restaurants and Pizzeria’s. There is a huge parking in front of the old-town, as the old-town is car-free. San Remo or Ventimiglia … nothing special … Ventimiglia is mainly there to munge- French tourists who come for a bargain …. Apart from the beaches mentioned in chapter 1 … avoid it, it is also a traffic bottle-neck… and food is under standard. Fancy : There is a very expensive restaurant right next to the Balzi Rossi beach (look at the beach-area) … we have never been there but it is very up-market. If you go to the end of Menton, two, nice sea-view … semi luxury restaurants, they are already in Cap Matin … right at the end of Menton, turn left following the sea … place is called Cala Azzurra (+33 493 356307).