laurie_ann

We have a few days in Cote d'Azur next month, staying in Menton (east of Nice and Monte Carlo). We have rented a car and were thinking a daytrip to Italy would be fun. What would be a scenic route into Italy, perhaps with some good site seeing stops and a good destination for an Italian lunch there?

bobthenavigator

We love Menton and have stayed there twice. On the water, San Remo is the obvious choice. However, read about the drive into the hills above the coast as far as Cuneo---very pretty.

joearena99

This may seem like a strange recommendation, but there is a beautiful cemetery in Genoa, known, worldwide, for it's elaborate marble and bronze statuary. My wife and I drove from Nice to Genoa to visit the cemetery, and then drove further south to a cute town called Santa Marghita (spelling?) for dinner. The trip was long, but well worth it. Here's the website for the cemetery

http://www.cimiterodistaglieno.it/

paskee

I would highly recommend a lovely little town called Bordighiera. It's past Vintemiglia. It should be about 25 minutes driving from Menton, if the traffic is ok. We were there a couple of weeks ago, and fell in love with it.

Once you get to Bordighiera, follow the signs to get to the old town, and then you'll find lovely cobblestone streets and archways. We managed to stumble upon a great restaurant called Garhibaldi.

Enjoy!

Kathryncee

We were in Nice last week and also wanted to do a trip to Italy.. We opted for going to Santa Margherita, which was very nice. However,I had been warned by other posters that this was likely too far out of the way. Unfortunatly, I did not take this to heart and went anyway. It took 3.5 hours the way there and 3 on the way back.. basically 2 days of driving for a bit of scenery.

If you went into Italy, I would opt to go no further than San Remo (about 45 minutes) or in the hills around there, otherwise you will likely be too rushed.