Cross-border raid

Yesterday we spent a very pleasant day out, partly in Menton and partly just over the border into Italy, to stock up on booze and other goodies.

Menton was its usual ravishing self, with the Portmeirion backdrop of pastel and ochre houses and churches, fringed by a nice, clean harbour. I even added another lifeboat to my collection.

We had a light meal in a café and then went to visit the new Cocteau museum. The original nucleus of the collection had been held in the quaint citadel next to the port. Now a large building, looking like botched dentistry on a horse, and jarring mightily with the surroundings, has been built. The inside is ever so slightly better, if you like endless, unimaginative expanses of white. The collections, though, were stunning, with lots of pencil and pen-and-ink drawings, posters, notebooks, letters. In particular, the works he did whilst being weaned off opium addiction were searing and powerful. Worth the crowded motorway journey on their own.

We then dropped a notch or two in the cultural pecking order by heading for the CONAD supermarket in Latte, just over the border. It was, just like last time, besieged by uncouth, unpleasant French day-trippers elbowing each other out of the way to get at the bargains. What the Italian staff and customers thought of this unrivalled rudeness does not bear thinking about. Mind you, we were probably counted as part of the unwelcome herd. Top of the discoveries were fresh ravioli stuffed with chopped borage. Definitely worth eating again.

Some of the products deserve a photo, like the moving pan-European collaboration to produce whisky (enlarge the photo by clicking on it), the 'mental' hooch and the metre and a half salame.