Thursday 3 September - Ceriana

On the advice of Helen from last night, we got up early(ish) and headed up above our carpark to a one hour walk, with "something special" at the end of it. Up the hill to the dear little San Salvatore church, where there was a social area set up with a long concrete table under a frame for an awning, and a shed with cooking facilities. From there we were not sure where to go, so followed our nose out along a road. Decided it was going nowhere, and back to the intersection above San Salvatore.

Followed some red and white track markers up beside a new trench for water pipes, and found ourselves walking up a little track through the very attractive first and scrub. There had been a motorcycle trial through recently, as there were plastic tapes left along the track. Up for half an hour or more on the steep track, getting dripping wet with sweat. Not terribly hot, but definitely high humidity. Decided that this too wasn't getting us to anything special, though it was a lovely track, and back down to the intersection again. This time headed the other way, and came to a "Y" junction. Murphy's Law struck again, and our upper trail turned out to be going nowhere either, so back down to the "Y" where about two metres along the other track we came to a sign pointing 45 minutes to San Michele.

If we'd come across that earlier, we would have been fine, but getting a little late to head off on it this time, so will save it for another day. Besides, we needed to be in town before 12:30 to get bread before the shops shut. Duly got our bread and a few grapes from the grocer who had been at the other end of our table last night (Angelo's). Sat at our café having a coffee while beside us a lift truck was lowering scaffold for some workers. The walk had been most enjoyable. We hope to make a habit of doing a decent walk any day we are not travelling, for the rest of the trip.

Helen had told us of a count's house in town, so we set off to find it. We knew it was two streets below the one the trattoria was on, so headed down, naturally taking the wrong passage to start with. Eventually found it – a big 4-storey palazzo with a decorated top, now largely missing, and a beautiful arched stairwell. Hopefully the 93-year old who lives at the top still will spot us next time we go past it and take us through, as Helen said would happen.

By now, time for home and lunch, then our more or less compulsory siesta, spent reading and Boulder Bank booking. Dragged Karen away from it around 3:30 to try out the piscina, which looked very inviting. We had been told it gets destroyed in the winter floods each year, and in Spring the men of the town band together and dig it all out again. It would be 15 or more metres long by 6 metres wide, and 2 metres plus deep. It was indeed perfect. Cool, wet (unsurprisingly) and fresh. Even had a really good sized trout hovering in one corner. A very good swim indeed, and no medusa to worry about.

On our way back bumped into the Englishman from our first day here. He had been leaning out a window, and his glasses had fallen off his nose into the foliage and weeds many metres below his house, he had an axe with him and had been slashing round trying and eventually succeeding to find the lost glasses. Walked on up the path with him, badgering him with questions we had. His mother had bought their rooms back in 1976, and he was in the process of claiming squatters rights over the two levels above his two levels. They had been leaking, and he was in the middle of legal processes to claim them as the current owners were not maintaining them at all, and it was affecting his place. He was nice enough to show us through his rooms, with the slight possibility of us buying them as we had expressed an interest in buying in Italy.

We could hardly do better than here. The locals are stunningly friendly, far more so than in any books we have read where they take months to even say buon giorno to strangers. Also clearly more friendly than in the various towns we have stayed in or visited so far. We are near San Remo, near Nice (on Emirates flight routes), and near the coast. Also, the swimming pool is a wonderful asset I am sure very few villages can match – it is so close, so pleasant, and perfectly big enough to use for real exercise (one of us is an addict and would find this invaluable). The walks around here are excellent, and are obviously bikeable judging from the sprayed MTB arrows in various places. Downsides are the limited restaurants (two) and the downscale pasticceria which can't hold a candle to some of the others we have seen. Fruit, vege and other prices are definitely higher than some other places.

Not keen to spend another 20€ each tonight, so Karen & I went up to Angelo's to get some sausages, plus milk and yoghurt for the morning. The sausages and our normal vege fry-up, plus some pasta, made for another good meal.