Notes for visitors to Apricale
Apricale
Of the 10 very different medieval villages on La Strada del Olio, Apricale is recognized as the prettiest with the sunniest piazza, (the name means open to the sun), one of only seven villages in Italy with ‘most beautiful’ status. Its shops, cafes and good restaurants are open all year round, which make it the perfect base from which to explore the wider area, but it has a lot to offer in its own right. At the core of the village and surrounding the piazza are the medieval castle, the museum, several lovely churches and an old town hall. The school, shops and medieval houses, all cling together on a knife-edge of hillside, linked by tunnels, alleyways, bridges and terraces with astounding views.
From Apricale the sophisticated French and Italian Riviera beaches are a short drive, bus or train ride away, but swimming in the deep river pools of Rochetta and sun bathing on the rocks nearby is also a lovely way to relax. In winter, lunch in the fresh air, walking or cycling the many miles of tracks and footpaths or climbing the snow capped mountains which overlook the Nervia valley are all popular pastimes.
People come from afar simply for the food. Apricale’s 7 restaurants serve great traditional fare. Village shops stock locally produced bread, cheese, ham, sausages, pesto, olive oil, and wine. Markets remind us that food can be seasonal with beans, salads, herbs, figs and peaches from local gardens, chestnuts and fungi, wild boar and rabbit from the wooded hillsides and all the cheeses, sun dried and oil preserved delicacies of the region.
The Ligurian day starts early. People use the cool mornings to work on their land, grabbing a quick coffee in the cafe or collecting fresh bread on their way to their hillside plots. Lunch, the main meal of the day is at one; work stops and shops close shortly after this for the afternoon siesta. At four shops and offices open again and stay open until around seven thirty in summer. After a light dinner families stroll in the piazza, teenagers congregate on the upper levels, little children play with balls on the lower levels and old people sit under the arches to enjoy the evening.
Local shopping
The village shops in Apricale and Isolabona cater for basic needs Italian style: fresh bread, pesto, parma ham and sausages, olive pate, good wine, oil and cheese. Isolabona (at the bottom of the hill) has a good butcher, hairdresser, ice cream counter in the bar, books, cards and gifts and extensively stocked grocers (four or five kinds of bread, a great array of cheeses, fresh yeast for pizza, home made stuffed vegetables). The big supermarket is in Vallecrosia (turn left at the roundabout on the valley Nervia / Vengtimiglia road just before the autostrada passes overhead, follow this road winding right and then left as it runs parallel to the coast for a mile or more, turn right when you reach the only set of lights with a slip road off to the right, CONAD is on your right). However, we prefer to use Raimondos in Dolceacqua, where the best wines are the cheap ones with no labels and they let you taste the cheese before buying. A useful phrase when shopping is ‘un etto’ 100 grms. This saves you having to buy a half-kilo of parma ham or parmesan cheese!
The vegetable, fruit and fish market is held in Ventimiglia everyday. On Fridays it grows to fill the streets with shoes, clothes, bedding and souvenirs. There is a little local market in Dolceacqua on Thursdays with lovely cheeses and fresh vegetables. Fish mongers tend to sell the days catch and close up by lunchtime, several can be found along the coast road in the direction of San Remo. Fish vans do arrive in the villages from time to time playing very ‘unfishy’ music! You will almost certainly find one in Dolceacqua on a Thursday.