Saturday 21st - Montalto

We’d promised ourselves a good lie-in, and it was just perfect. Our apartment is very nice, and we keep eyeing up its various features and decoration thinking about how we might do things the same or differently in Céret. It’s going to be quite some project starting next year.

Montalto from below

Walked down to Badalucco before lunch. It’s about 30 minutes away, much the same as from our Nelson home to town, but the scenery is rather different. There is an attractive rocky river flowing down the Argentina Valley, with a mix of pools and rapids. Badalucco was not quite what we expected. It is a bit tired, and the locals don’t appear to be terribly friendly. In France, they were almost universally cheerful and would pop out a bonjour as we walk past, but here they are very reserved. The difference is very clear.

So we feel a little let down at this stage. Badalucco was probably our most likely place to buy when we left New Zealand, and I must say we are very happy to have managed to acquire our Céret house instead. It is looking more and more like a good decision.

Pretty girl and car!

However the 1€ caffe from the bar on the main street was excellent, and I had the pleasure of looking over a perfect Lancia Delta Integrale (70s/80s world champion rally car) that parked outside. Every male Italian that went past was drooling. There was a constant stream of male cyclists going by as well.

Walked back uphill to Badalucco, a pretty steep track for the last part but not a big deal really. It was a much more attractive alternative than following the windy road between Montalto and Badalucco. Made a lovely mixed salad for lunch, with minimal bread, and ate out on our deck. The hours following lunch were spent getting the blog up to date (it often takes a number of hours), emails drafted etc. Our host dropped in to see us at 5.30pm for a chat and to make sure we were all sorted. He is a German who is married to a Hungarian and they live here in Italy. He is part of a German real estate company, so was probably hoping we might buy a place while doing a home exchange with him. I think he was a little disappointed we had bought in France but he is a nice guy. He’s given us plenty of clues of where to explore, walking tracks, markets etc.