On day one of week seven there was a great plan in place:
Get up to date on computer stuff, read books and The Daily Telegraph magazine, swim in the pool for some exercise, cycle in to Antibes late afternoon for a final mooch around and a dinner somewhere nice. That plan never happened.
Day one of week seven actually went like this:
Got up late and spent hours and hours on the computer, didn’t get much reading done, finally walked over to the pool at 3pm, spread my towel out on a sunbed, just as a massive black cloud came over. The pool water was heated but not very warm, so I packed up my towel after only 10 minutes as the temperatures plummeted and got back to the campervan just as the thunder began to roll. Chairs and table, cushions and tablecloth were all grabbed and chucked inside before they got wet. We sat inside for an hour or so and decided that this was not a passing shower. There was not going to be a nice cycle ride in to Antibes for dinner, so I threw a frozen lasagne in the oven and we spent the whole evening feeling grumpy indoors. If only we had gone for lunch in Antibes, we could have had a nice time earlier and then shut ourselves in when the rain came over. The forecast had been for a ‘perfectly sunny day with no chance of rain’, dang! At this point I would type some swear words but I want to keep this blog clean….
Thursday would be a better day, so we fixed our cheery smiles on our faces and checked out of the campsite. Today would be a major ‘treasure hunt’, there were things we had to obtain before even thinking about where we would end up, at the end of the day. We needed to get diesel and LPG for Eileen, a bank for some cash, a post office before the border, a supermarket for a lot of food (supplies were running very low) and we needed somewhere that would sell us a 50cm square red and white reflective aluminium warning panel to hang on our bikes. We had just discovered, the night before, that we couldn’t drive without one in Italy, if we wanted to carry our bikes on the rear bike carrier. So we set off fairly early knowing that each one of these requirements could turn out to be a drama in France.
We set off south along the coast and found a petrol station selling both diesel and LGP; a good start. Only problem here was that the nozzle didn’t reach round Eileen to fill the LPG tank, so Rodney had to manoeuvre around in the driveway, avoiding cars that were trying to go in the opposite direction, to park the other way around and fill her up. At Villeneuve Loubet we found a hardware store and the lads there tried to be super helpful by advising us to buy a piece of aluminium that was too big and a few rolls of reflective red and white tape. They couldn’t cut the aluminium to 50cm square and neither could we, so we thought we would compromise with a piece of perspex in the right size and stick the tape on it; fingers crossed the Italian police might not notice that it isn’t aluminium. After sitting in the car-park a while and working out how much tape would cover the perspex, Rodney went back in to buy another roll of tape. €45 spent and we’re not sure if it’s even going to work. If it doesn’t work, we’ll head back to France and go to Switzerland instead; we don’t want to pay a €150 fine by not have an obligatory warning sign on the back. Next stop the supermarket, where we couldn’t get any decent fruit, so hopefully we’ll find a market soon, but at least they had a teller machine, so we managed to get some cash without searching for a bank. After stowing all the food and locking the fridge, we managed to squeeze both bikes inside between the two sofas and the fridge and hoped they wouldn’t roll around too much, or damage the upholstery. We wanted to get on to the péage, but still needed a post office, so with directions from a local tourist office, we found one, on a roundabout, so with a bit of dangerous parking, the last job was completed.
We hit the péage and started clocking up the toll fees. With English translations and clear signage, we pumped the cash in at each toll booth and then pulled off at a viewpoint above Monaco. As we stepped out on to the pavement we could hear the sound of the Formula 1 cars driving the roads below on practice day and through a gap in the buildings, we could see the cars zipping past the stands.
It seemed like a lovely spot for lunch with views out the other side looking down on Beausoleil and Cap Martin. From there we got back on to the péage and drove further along the coast. As we drove in to the Tunnel de la Giraude, we fare-welled France and when we came out of the other end of the tunnel, we were in Italy.
Here comes the next drama. The first Italian toll booth was completely blank, no instructions, nothing with arrows pointing this way or that, no illuminations and no human being to talk to. I leaned right out of the window to see if I could make out anything to help tell me where to put the cash, the truck driver behind beeped his horn, Rodney started shouting to hurry up, but I was totally flummoxed and starting to lose my cool. So I pressed the big red button that had ‘Emergence’ written above it, the only thing with any instruction, and a small cardboard ticket came out. No cash required, yet……welcome to Italy.
The road along this section was an amazing continual flow of viaduct to tunnel, viaduct to tunnel and on it went; we hardly drove a section of road that wasn’t over a viaduct or in a tunnel. When we left the autostrada, I managed to work out how to pay the next €11.30 bill and we drove along the scenic coast road from Andora, through Laigueglia, Alassio and Vigo.
We had sussed out a campsite that looked ok and then managed to drive straight past it on a sharp bend. We drove in to Albenga, twice, trying to find the same route back south; it looks like a nice town, even if it is hard to access its campsite. Finally, we entered the gates at 3:20pm to find they don’t open until 3:30pm; looks like lunch ‘hours’ are even longer in Italy. So we sat by the front gate and waited until 3:30pm to check in. The campsite manager parked us right next to fields of cultivated flowers and greenhouses. He told us that flowers from here are sold all over the world, including Holland. The area also grows a special purple asparagus that is sent to the Queen of England. He says it’s delicious, so we’ll have to try and buy some tomorrow. After he left us, we couldn’t get the electricity connection to work, but when we got him back and moved cables around, we managed to get it going, phew. Finally, having purchased some internet time from Mr Campsite, we discovered that we have to go over to the café to get it to work. This has to be the last of the day’s dramas….please!!! After dinner we may go over to the café and see if we can find him for a chat; he’s already informed us of lots of interesting things, including the news that Italian politics are currently ‘a comedy’. Oh hang on; I’ve left the Italian phrase book in Sydney…… We’ll try fixing our cheery smiles on our faces again tomorrow.
My first introduction to Italian campsite showers was not good. You can only have a warm shower here if you put 50c in a slot machine outside by the door, and then there is no indication of how long the warm water will last. I slipped 50c in to the slot, pressed the button and watched a lot of cold water flow down the drain. After leaning over and washing my face in the cold water, some lukewarm water started to come through. One minute later and with me covered in soap, my 50c ran out. I slipped in another coin and ‘enjoyed’ a full 3 minutes of warm water. It’s really not a good way to start a chilly day.
We cycled in to Albenga with a map in hand which was kindly marked with an ‘X’ by Mr Campsite. We found our way to ‘X’, Rodney popped in to the shop and came out the proud owner of a €43.80 genuine 50cm square red and white reflective aluminium warning panel to hang on our bikes. Thank goodness we can now put the bikes back on the rack and move around inside Eileen. Being always well prepared, I had brought along a large beach bag to carry it in and Rodney somehow managed to cycle around town with it swinging on his handlebars. Next stop was a Vodafone shop, where we managed to use my mobile phone to translate the need to purchase a sim card for internet access in Italy. We couldn’t test it in the shop because it takes 2 hours for them to set-up in their system; more news on that later…..
After the success with the purchase of the aluminium panel and a sim card, we treated ourselves to buying a couple of fruit tarts for afternoon tea and a small pane for lunch; no more pain, we’re no longer in France. We wandered around inside the old walled section of Albenga; most of the Roman remains have long gone, but there are a number of tall square mediaeval towers in the centre, one of which has a lot of greenery growing out of the side; not sure how much longer that one will be standing, but the Gothic cathedral also has a very tall tower which is lovely. Everything was starting to close for lunch, and I mean everything: the churches, the museums, the shops, the lot, so with little reason to hang around and too cold to be laying on a beach, we cycled back to the campsite.
After lunch, we walked over to the café to use the campsite internet, to set up the sim we had just bought from Vodafone. Andy, in England, had very kindly given us pages of instructions, but we were still prepared to be unable to make it work and to be heading back to the Vodafone shop the next day. After a few false starts, we did it! We got it working! Major thanks are on route to you, Andy. Now we have a sim card and 5gb of wi-fi in Italy for €25 and that’s a lot cheaper than in France, where it cost us €25 for 2gb this year. Tonight we might celebrate with a real Italian pizza at the campsite, before we move on further south tomorrow.
