Saorge and a change of plan

The train station at Ventimiglia, that's our train, final destination, Cuneo, up in the mountains. We're only going half way to Saorge. After a whole day in Ventimiglia, we were ready for our second day. I had originally planned to take the bus to San Remo and from there take another bus to go to Triora, again up in the hinterlands of the Ligure, a strange and ancient place like Dolceacqua. It's kind of far and I'm not familiar with the layout. The problem with little hideaways is their inaccessiblity and with little time and lack of language skills, I'm more than a little apprehensive.
That first evening, after dinner, Sophie picked up an interesting pamphlet on other places to visit. Bingo, it had pictures of these places and there's a train, the Ventimiglia to Cuneo line, it stops at all these interesting places. I picked one, Saorge, it looked like the most interesting, perched against a mountain. I'm always under pressure, from myself, to pick quaint places and so make our trip worthwhile. I get disappointed when I go a place and I'm not enthralled. So even now I'm always searching for cute places to go visit. I've been successful so far because of the huge effort I put into trip planning.
So off we went on this Italian train, we passed other interesting looking villages. Finally after 50 minutes we were dropped off at a deserted station. Where is the village?

As the train rolled away, I saw some really interesting places, some perched high up, others are in the valleys below.

Breil sur roya, it looked really fascinating. I thought we'll come back another trip to see it. Little did I know 2 days later when we were in Nice, we would be visiting this village. On the way back, that evening, a fellow train passenger told me it had the most beautiful chapel with incredible frescoes, they call this the Sistine chapel of the Alps. I would get to see it and they are beautiful.

A deserted train station.

So here we are, got off the train and there was no village in sight. We have to walk to it but how far? It reminds us of a similar situation a few years ago when we had to walk an hour each way to get to a monastery in France, Rocamodour. It was well worth it. There were 2 English tourists reading their guidebook. So I asked how far we had to walk, they said, 'that way, 20 minutes'. So we hoofed it, up a little gradient on a winding road, through even a long tunnel until we turned a huge bend and 'voila' perched against the mountain, 'Saorge' came into view. Wow! What a sight! A 'beau plus' village (most beautiful).

This is what happens when you're an independent traveler, making your own arrangements. No tour bus and no tour guide. Are you up for the challenge? It's hard work but I won't have it any other way.

The rock surface of the tunnel. Am I crazy or what?

Is that the light at the end of the tunnel? Are we there yet? How much longer?

Wait a minute? We know who this is, St Roch. Why is St Roch here? Isn't he a French Saint? We came up on an Italian train. Are we not in Italy? Do the Italians believe in St Roch? We met St Roch on our other trips to France. I was confused. It was later that I realised we're in France. This is the French/Italian border and the French and Italian rail share some of the rail tracks and they weaved in and out of each others' territory. You can access some French towns on Trenitalia and some Italian villages on SNCF. This is a French village and we arrived at it on Trenitalia. It is actually St George but the French shortened it to Saorge.

This is wild countryside and absolutely beautiful.

We just through that tunnel and into the other side. Sophie getting ready her camera. I walked faster after I came through the tunnel. I can't wait to see the village if there was one.

A narrow but paved road. This camper would be stuck further up when it met another vehicle coming in the opposite direction.

Olive trees and more forest but where is Saorge?

Oh my God, up in the distance, there it was. This is view through the lavender bushes.

Saorge and all it's splendor. Wow!

Trips like this are so worth it. I have triple fun from them. I have fun when I'm planning it, I have fun when I'm actually on the trip, I have fun when I looked at the pictures as I upload them into my computer and fun again when I write about it in my blog. Doing this makes me get excited all over again. It's as good as being there.