During October as the autumn sun passes lower and lower behind the houses in Piazza Rocchetta the piece of land where my friend Delia and I have our vegetable garden gets less and less sun, until by the middle of November the entire plot is in the shade – and it will stay that way until early February.

This fantastic rim of ancient houses is the back drop to our vegetable garden and a total sun screen during winter.

Before the sun has gone completely we pick the last of the tomatoes and make a tangy green tomato and ginger chutney – a treat with cold meats or with cheese. The recipe is never twice the same but the general idea is this:

The ingredients assembled in the photos are for double the recipe – 2kg tomatoes

1 kilo or 5-6 cups of finely chopped green tomatoes

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup sultanas which you have soaked overnight in strong tea or spirits of your choice – rum, whisky, tequila, limoncello …

1.5 cups sugar,

600ml vinegar

A good handful at least of finely chopped or grated fresh ginger

1-2 teaspoons of ground chili pepper.

When all the ingredients are ready put them together in a large saucepan and boil gently for as long as it takes for the mixture to become thick enough for you to see the bottom of the pan when you run the wooden spoon through the mixture from the side of the pan towards the centre.

Spoon into hot jars and leave to cool wrapped in a blanket.

Meanwhile, in the vegetable garden it’s time to take down the tomato stakes and cover the beds for the winter. To one side of the plot we have various brassicas, some artichokes and some lettuces. In a raised bed near the warmest edge of the garden we’ve planted leeks. This is where the very last of the sun can still get through the gaps between the houses until about the 10^th of November, and where in February the first rays of early spring will appear. Some of the young leeks have been squashed by a visiting cat deciding to take its siesta on them. Hopefully the rest will do well.

Brassicas, lettuce, leeks

Over the embers of last Saturday’s barbecue lunch we roasted the final picking of red chilli peppers. Cleaning the seeds out of them is quite a messy task but when it’s done and the chillies have been reduced to a paste in the food processor, we freeze the paste in teaspoon-sized portions – enough to really liven up our winter dishes. (Other previously picked chilli peppers are already drying at home – they will be ground later on, to use in our sauces and chutneys.)

Two ways of dealing with chilli peppers

Wherever the Romans built a settlement it was inevitable that when the empire crumbled those constructions became a ready source of material for early Christian buildings. This happened in Ventimiglia. Massive stone blocks and columns were hauled a good two kilometres away from Albintimilium (the Roman settlement in the east of what was to become Ventimiglia) across the river and up the hill to be used in the building of present day Ventimiglia Alta. The same occurred in Frejus. Here, recycling building materials from the Roman arena and theatre was certainly much easier than in Ventimiglia as the terrain is quite flat. There was no river to cross or hill to conquer in order to construct the town’s 5^th century baptistery and its first cathedral. As in Ventimiglia, Frejus’s baptistery is octagonal, although unlike Ventimiglia’s, it sits on a square base.

Ventimiglia Alta’s octagonal baptistery on the left and the one at Fréjus on the right next to the Cathedral.

Outside and in the baptistery and adjoining cathedral and cloister glow with warmth as they are constructed in deep red volcanic stone from the Massif de l’Esterel – one of the oldest land masses in Europe.

In early Christian times, baptisms were by full immersion. The unbaptized person entered the baptistery from outside through a small, low doorway. They undressed and entered the font, protected from view by a curtain which hung from pillars around the font. After the baptism they entered the cathedral directly through a much wider and taller door. The wrought iron door that we use today is a recent opening. The full immersion font, which was originally lined with marble, is no longer used.

Only one of the pillars that held up the curtain around the baptismal font remains.

The baptistery stonework is nearly all original.

While the baptistery has remained almost entirely as it was when it was built in the 5^th century, the Saint Léonce Cathedral has undergone numerous changes. Very little remains of the original construction: most of what we can see today dates from when the town was rebuilt between the 11^th and 14^th centuries after it had been destroyed Saracen pirates. The cathedral is in fact made up of two churches: the original Notre Dame cathedral and the adjoining Saint Etienne parish church: these were made into one in the 13^th century.

I was intrigued by this statue standing quite high up in a corner of the cathedral: it’s the first time I’ve seen a female saint with a broom and a demon. In fact there’s something of a contradiction between the domesticity of the broom and her warrior-like domination of the demon. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems from my book of saints and their attributes that this must be Saint Martha of Bethany. She’s the one who was a close friend of Jesus’s: he rebuked her for doing housework while he preached. And the demon must be the man-eating Tarasque – it supposedly lived in the woods along the banks of the Rhone between Arles and Avignon, so not all that far from Frejus. Martha is said to have come to Provence to preach and to have tamed the Tarasque by sprinkling it with holy water.

The cloister and a reproduction of one of the strange paintings in the wooden ceiling

Unlike a convent or monastery cloister which was usually for the exclusive use of the nuns and monks, Frejus’s bishops opened the cathedral cloister to the public as a place for meeting and contemplation, and apparently as a way of showing off their wealth! In the 1300s an upper gallery was added around the cloister. The ceiling of the main gallery was covered with 1,200 larch wood panels painted variously with pictures of religious figures, scenes from everyday life and a fantastic range of bizarre creatures such as beasts that are part man, part animal; or part animal, part bird. There is no real explanation for these strange drawings and sadly only 300 of them remain.

Six of the original ceiling panels

A very strange creature on the catherdral facade.

A shop near the cathedral – they may well have head aches even if the lintel is resting on cushions!

A Roman soldier or a medieval nun: it’s hard for me to imagine which of them I would rather – or rather not – have been. However, according to a psychic friend of mine, I’ve been both in my past lives. Perhaps this explains why I feel so at home in Ventimiglia Alta. For the same reason a perfect day out is a trip to Frejus, which like Ventimiglia lies along the Via Iulia Augusta – the Roman Empire’s east-west highway. Situated in the south of France about 120 kilometres west of Ventimiglia, Frejus was a purpose-built Roman settlement, founded by Julius Caesar in 49 BC. In fact the town’s name derives from the Latin Forum Iulii or Julius’s Forum. In this respect Frejus differed from Ventimiglia which wasn’t a purpose-built town – the colonists simply took over and expanded an existing settlement inhabited by the Intemeli, a native Ligurian tribe. As the Roman Empire expanded, coastal Frejus gained a significant river port and ship building yards: many of the galleys which sailed to Actium against Anthony and Cleopatra were built here. The port and canals which linked it to the open sea have long since silted up as Frejus was built on a low plateau in the Argens River valley between the Massif de l’Esterel and Massif des Maures mountains: the town is now a good three kilometres from the sea and surrounded by extremely fertile agricultural land.

  two views of a scale model of Roman Fréjus, showing the river canal and just how close the town was to the coast 2000 years ago.

The Roman constructions which have survived the last 2,000 years are not only reminders of everyday life in one of the empire’s military outposts: they are also a thought provoking commentary on how such constructions can be adapted to fulfil a role in modern times.

The aqueduct brought the Roman town’s water supply from about 50 kilometres away – below are some of the remaining pillars and an arch – the channel through which the water flowed is visible at the top of each pillar. As with the other Roman constructions in Frejus, the aqueduct was built using the  reddish-brown volcanic rock from the nearby Massif de l’Esterel.

The fourth photo of the aqueduct above is a fresco in the Archeological Museum, showing some of the joined up arches. The aqueduct is also clearly visible in the bottom left of the second photo of the model of Fréjus above,

The easy-on-the-eye perforated steel seating tiers which have been put up inside the Roman theatre are arguably an ideal way to keep this ancient space in use for putting on shows and performances, while at the same time respecting the Roman construction. The modern seating is completely detached from the original stonework which dates from the 1^st century AD: wandering around between the new seating and the old it is still possible to capture an idea of how the theatre would have been 2,000 years ago. The column on the left of the second photo is where the original stage area would have begun. The theatre is clearly visible in the photo of the model of Fréjus.

In creating an entertainment venue in the Roman arena – rock concerts and bull fights are held here – vast amounts of concrete have very recently been poured directly onto the ancient stonework. The arena, which seated around 10,000 in Roman times, had over the centuries been reduced to about half its original height, although the complete elliptical shape had remained intact. By building the walls back up again to their full height with concrete and edging the seating structure in corrugated roofing, the millenniums-old, warm, red stonework has been dwarfed into sorrowful insignificance. Only a colour photo in one of the corridors reminds us of what a beautiful construction and tribute to Roman builders this was, until about 5 years ago.

Many thanks to Fabio and Daniela, Ventimiglia’s Archeological Museum, the International Institute of Ligurian Studies – Intemelia section, and all who organised this wonderful day trip to Fréjus, and to the staff of the museum and sites in Fréjus who welcomed us. Many thanks too to the young bus driver who coped so well with Ventimiglia’s difficult traffic system.

When autumn comes here in Ventimiglia we barely even notice it: palms, prickly pears, agave and  olives trees are hardly known for their autumn colours! But higher up the Roya Valley, October sees the deciduous vegetation turn stunning shades of gold, amber and red. Wherever you look patches of colour light up the mountain sides, scattered among the rocks and scree slopes. In October 1977, on my first trip to northern Italy, I drove through France to Nice, over the border to Ventimiglia and then up the Roya Valley, en route to Turin. I was enchanted then by those vibrant autumn colours – a sight I have never forgotten, and I always enjoy returning to the upper reaches of the valley at the same time of year.

The road and railway line out of Ventimiglia follow the river north into the Alps, past the villages of Airole and Olivetta-San Michele and then cross the border into France. The first French village is Breil sur Roya, followed by Fontan, Saorge, and St Dalmas de Tende: each with its own particular charm, architectural gems and variegated history such as can only be found along an international border which has been redrawn and redrawn again several times over the last thousand years. Finally, before tunnelling under the Tenda Pass back into Italy, road and rail reach the small mountain town of Tende (its French name) or Tenda in Italian.

Although nearly 50 kilometres apart, the history of Ventimiglia and Tenda are closely linked. Until the mid-13^th century the Counts of Ventimiglia ruled a vast territory which extended in a wide swathe all the way from the coast to Tenda and beyond to the northern slopes of the Alps. However in 1249 the Republic of Genoa took over the Counts’ southern strongholds, including Ventimiglia, and Tenda become their central settlement. In 1261 Count William Peter I of Ventimiglia married Eudoxia Lascaris, the 13-year-old daughter of Theodore II, the Emperor of Byzantium. With a view to their offspring one day being able to claim their right to the Byzantium throne, Count William Peter and Eudoxia founded a new branch of his family: the Lascaris of Ventimiglia and Tenda.

Lascaris di Ventimiglia coat of arms

Their castle in Tenda must have been massive, judging by the single watchtower (now a clock tower!) which remains along with a lone, precariously tall and narrow slither of stonework, pointing skywards above the town.

All that remains of Tenda’s castle.

The images above show a doorway adorned with a giant thistle flower (left) and on the right, one of the town gates with the Annonciade Chapel of the White Penitents. The chapel, in a former  guard house, was decorated in the 15th century with a number of beautiful frescoes.

Beatrice Lascaris of Tenda was born in Tenda in 1372. She was put to death by her second husband on a false charge of adultery in 1418,  and is remembered here in the name of this alley.

Saint Michel Church features paintings  with views of Tenda as their background. On the left Jacob dreans of angels going up and down a ladder – a typical stepped alleyway – and on the right Saint Christopher carries Christ across the Roya River.

Tenda’s museum highlights the Bronze Age rock engravings in the Mercantour National Park

When Ventimiglia Alta was still a fortified town the military would patrol behind the walls, checking the surroundings and approaches to the town from various strategically placed lookout towers. The route that defined their beat is called la ronda in Italian.

Vico della Ronda, turns into Salita alla Mura

Even though over the years houses have been built backing onto the fortification wall, the alley named Vico della Ronda recalls those less peaceful times. It opens into Salita alle Mura, an alley that rises steadily towards the highest part of the wall. Behind the houses we catch glimpses of the wall and its many loopholes.  When we’ve nearly reached the highest point another alley, Via Appio, plunges away steeply on our right.

 Via Appio

Salita alle Mura widens at a point where the wall has broken away so that we can see the Roya Valley lying spread out far below. Immediately outside the wall the hillside is terraced for ease of cultivation but further north the hills give way to mountains: bare now in early autumn but they’ll be powdered with snow any time soon.

looking north up the Roya valley from Salita alla Mura

Around to the left Porta Morro de Bo comes into view. It gets its name – Ox Nose Gateway – from the fact that it opens in the top northwest corner of the fortifications where the wall was angled in such a way as to allow the stocky lookout tower to protrude from the wall on three sides. From inside the walls, the area above the gateway is an intriguing construction of arches and ramps, layered one upon the other like the pieces of a puzzle. A door on the right of the wall gave access to the stairs to the lookout tower. This would have commanded a fantastic view not only up and down the valley from the mountains to the river mouth, but also of the flat land to the east where the modern town of Ventimiglia now lies.

views of lookout tower and gateway from inside the wall (above) and from outside (beow) 

The Morro de Bo Gateway itself is a relatively recent feature. It was opened in the wall in August 1892. By then the military garrison had withdrawn and the tower was no longer needed for defense purposes. This new gateway gave the inhabitants of Ventimiglia Alta easier access to their farmland, olive, fig and citrus groves and to their orti – vegetable gardens.

I love walking out here. It has an immediate country feel to it, and even today any little piece of cultivatable land has been given over to growing vegetables. Where in other countries we might have planted flowers or laid a lawn, here there are, for example, the last of summer’s tomatoes and eggplants already interspersed with thriving cauliflowers and broccoli (photo below).

In the photos below artichokes and chard alongside lettuce with marigolds to deter insect pests. Nowadays no orto would be complete without a table and chairs under a shady tree – a place to relax with friends after the exertions of gardening or maybe have cheese and salami with a glass of wine on a summer evening.

A lane, Via Mon. Daffra, continues up to the right past houses, vegetables gardens and olive groves, while to the left it follows the outside of the town wall down a ramp to Piazza Funtanin.

The little sentry box is within sight of both Porta Morro de Bo (just out of sight to left of photo) and Porta Nizza (about 50m to right).

Before motorized transport became widespread, these ramps, with their low gradient and wide, shallow steps, were routes used by mule trains: who knows if maybe one day, as in a village not far from here, the mules will be brought back to do the door-to-door recycled rubbish collection!