Today we turned ourselves in a northerly direction because the weather forecast for this region is going downhill and it looks better in France, so to give plenty of time for a scenic route back, we set off towards Genoa. 1st May is a national holiday and no lorries are allowed on the motorways, so we thought it could be a really good day to travel. Although we didn't account for all the Milanese people returning home after a long weekend on the coast! There was a hold-up at every junction after Pisa, so our journey of less than 3 hours actually took 6 (including 2 stops), and most of that time in the rain too. We stayed the night at a site right by the sea at Arenzano (west of Genova) - might sound great, but it rained all the rest of the afternoon and evening, a high speed railway line ran between us and the sea and the tunnel to the beach under the railway was closed because of the big waves!
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| The motorway behind us ... |
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| ... railway in front! |
We left Arenzano in the rain
and stayed on the A10 motorway following the coast of the Med. Our original plan was to go west at Savona to Cuneo and then take the route through the Alps into France. The weather forecast made us change our minds and avoid the mountains for the time being - not a lot of point doing all those hair-pins when the clouds are so low. So we decided on a slightly longer route, but by following the coast we lost the rain and the temperature went up a bit. However, we needed to get some shopping somewhere. The road alternates between tunnels and high viaducts above huge valleys, so John used his app and we came off the motorway at Taggia to go to Conad supermarket. It was a long way down, but there it was - off that roundabout. Eventually we found the way to drive into the carpark .. but there was a height barrier! Grrr. Now we had another problem too - I had some postcards to post in Italy because I'd already stuck the stamps on ... and we were getting awfully close to France. Our only bet was to come off at Ventimiglia, immediately before the border - and we spotted our favourite shop, Lidl, just a liddle one but we could get into the carpark OK. Phew. I asked an employee of the shop if there was a postbox nearby and no, it was in the town centre, but 2 ladies getting into their car saved my bacon - they will do the posting for us. So Reeves, Borketts and Griffins - your cards are on the way, we hope!
So back into France - passing way above Monaco and Nice - we arrived in Antibes at a very pleasant little campsite, le Rossignol. We soon had the kettle on and then a washload on the line and felt delighted to be in the dry again. After our dinner we walked the 1.2k down to the beach and back. Tomorrow we shall explore some more.
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| Antibes - towards Fort Carre |
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| Towards Nice (zoomed) |
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