Ceriale

Our first attempt at ‘culture’ this trip went a bit awry when Sara decided that Renoir should have “put his glasses on before painting” :-).

To be fair, there was only a limited, and somewhat odd, selection of his paintings and sculptures on offer at the museum but the setting and gardens were very nice.

Then on to the old port in Nice and the coastal (Corniche) road to Menton via Monaco. This was a little disappointing tbh. Maybe the route I planned was wrong but I expected to be much closer to the sea. Most of the route that we went on was thru long areas of cafes and shops. There were some good bits, with dramatic sea views, but not as much as I was expecting. I had put on a French playlist and everything! Driving thru Monaco was a bit like driving thru the longest multi-storey carpark you’ve ever seen… while it is still being built.

We stopped at Menton for lunch, then straight into Italy - the border comes pretty much as soon as you leave the city. We joined the toll road in Italy almost immediately - before we had a chance to find out how they work. This hasn’t been a problem in France and Spain because we have an automated tag for those countries. Anyway, the barrier wouldn’t raise and the help button only connected us to someone speaking Italian. We finally realised that you simply had to press the big red button and get a ticket… but it was completely unmarked.

All a bit stressful because there was only one barrier and a big queue had formed behind us. As you might expect, Italian drivers are not slow in letting you know if you are doing something wrong 😊

Btw, the E80 toll road is a pretty amazing feat of engineering - tunnel followed by bridge followed by tunnel followed by bridge…

We are now at Camping Baciccia near Albenga on the Italian coast, the first campsite we tried having been full. As usual, we are still undecided about where next but at least we now know how to deal with any toll roads.Read more