ITALY - Stage Two
The plan was to leave Roujan, meet Annie (Wimble) and David in Martigues, just through the Carmargue. Stay there the night, then on past Monaco and over the Italian border to somewhere like Sanremo, stay another night, before heading north towards Lake Garda and Lake Iseo (the smaller and trendier lake, apparently). There we plan a few days walking and cycling. Then down to the Cinque Terre area for some sea and more walking. Then on to Rome for a few days sightseeing. Then Puglia before heading to Brindisi to catch the car ferry over to Greece.
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THE PLAN CHANGED!!!
The head of administration and accommodation checked the weather in the Italian Alps and saw if was RAINING! Sharp change of plan......
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The thought of a big wet lake in the wet was not appealing and so the team made Sanremo, but then headed south to the more sunny climes of the Cinque Terre region, Monterosse al Mar to be precise.
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This was by way of lunch in Portofino. Or not as the case may be.
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Good old R10FFN, perfect drive for this sort of trip - except on little tiny Italian hill roads.
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Can't see the front at all, wider than a Tiger Tank, and I am sitting on the wrong side. Oh for the lovely French roads and the calm and reasonable French drivers again.
The Italian motorways are narrower, more crowded and faster than France. An altogether more stressful drive. Add to this that 90% of Italian drivers are great, but the remaining 10% are suicidal tossers! They might be going one mile an hours faster than you but once they reach your rear bumper they stick there like glue, literally one foot away at 80 mph. Oddly this leads to a lot of accidents. In the relatively short run of 250 miles we witnessed no less than four smashes, which delayed us by 2 hours. That put us in Portofino at lunchtime - bad move. We have no idea what Portofino is like in the season but avoid it like the plague!! I have never driven into a smaller or narrower underground car park in my life, and in R10FFN it was amazing, all four corner parking aids squealing like banshees the whole time it took us to inch in, fail to find a space, and inch out again to flee the area. Onwards to the Cinque Terre, to end up on a mountain pass watching a tosser in a truck disengage himself from the tosser in a bus who had hit each other head on. Once they had shouted at each other the tosser in the truck then tried to marmelise Sara as she jumped back in our car as he roared ever onwards at his traditional suicidal pace. Probably late for his next smash.
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So onwards into Italy..........
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The map on the left shows you how the adventure all worked out in the end.
START - ROUJAN
A. MARTIGUES (1 night)
B. ST TROPEZ
C. SANREMO (1 night)
D. CINQUE TERRE (4 nights)
E, Actually turned out to be FORTE DEI MARMI then SIENA (2 nights)
F. ROME (3 nights)
G. BARI, with a stop somewhere else halfway there. (2 nights)
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