Mumbo Italiano

Everyone goes to Italy to buy fresh pasta.

Right?

Spurred on by our successful trip to Nice yesterday, we decided that the thing to do for a pasta supper tonight was to go to Italy to buy some fresh pasta.

Off to the train station we went, this time to buy a ticket in the opposite direction, to Ventimiglia, Italy, which is the last stop on the TER, The Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur railway line (or if you live in Italy, the first, I suppose). Anyway, we were running a little late to catch the next train (the station is up a very steep hill), but with a little brute force we managed to catch it, so we didn’t have to wait for the next train, which would be about a half hour. A round-trip ticket cost only E3.80!

A pleasant 8 minutes later, we were getting off the train in Ventimiglia. If you want to know more about the place, you can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventimiglia

I hate to be brutal, but it really isn’t much of a place per se. Its main claim to fame is that it has a massive Friday flea market, notorious for selling designer knock-offs at cut-rate prices. This area abounds with rumours of tourists being charged for purchasing such item (which is indeed illegal) and receiving hefty fines for it (which there are).

Another thing that I have noticed is that Italians seems to have a penchant for what Paul calls “romantic decay.” I’m more honest and just call it shabby. Just a few minutes away, in the French Riviera, the buildings are spiffier and the streets cleaner. The buildings in Ventimiglia (although some are restored) are generally in poor condition, even though they are of similar vintage as the ones in Menton. The streets and corners of buildings seem to accumulate litter, and the joy of Graffiti has not been lost on the Italian youth.

The centre of town is dominated by the Municipal building, which appears to be a text-book study of Mussolini-esque/Soviet architecture. I quite frankly found it frightening and somehow expected to hear the howl of imprisoned dissidents emanating from some basement window. Quickly passing by, we ducked into the market. Now this, I have to say, as far as size and variety goes, beats the Menton covered market by a fair bit. There was a vast selection of pasta, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, meats (including a horse butcher!) and flowers.

I won’t even tell you about the bathroom. Suffice yo say the ones I used in Istanbul were of higher quality. Ahem.

Deciding to leave the market we found a wonderful pasta shop that made and sold only fresh pasta and home made sauces (The kitchen was open and you could look right in and see them making it. There was only ever a few grams worth in the chillers at any time to buy. Now that’s fresh!) Using our almost non-existent Italian, we managed to purchase some cheese filled raviolis. We were going to get their home made arrabiata sauce, which she refused to sell to us. She insisted (!) that we take this concentrated white sauce, which we didn’t know what it was. We decided to trust her, and we purchased it along with a little box of some sort of cream that she told us to mix with it in order to make the sauce.

Being in Italy, we decided to stop for Pizza for lunch, which was quite delicious, and some cappuccinos. A very fine cappuccino indeed, with a crema so thick my spoon was almost able to stand up on its own! Noticing the time, we dashed for the train station.

Uh oh.

Our train and the next train were both “Sopresso.” Cancelled.

“WTF! I exclaimed to Paul… how do we get home now?” After a conversation amongst ourselves for quite a while, we began to get worried that the third train from France (which would be more then 1.5 hours later) would also be cancelled (we surmised there were issues with the rails, not a break-down in the trains).

Deciding to bite the bullet, we jumped in a cab.

The pasta from Italy was delicious – as was the bottle of Prosecco we bought to go with it.

Thank goodness they were – the cab ride was 30E!