Italy – its all about me
Day 9 continued:
One of the first towns we came across in Italy was SAN REMO so we naively decided to follow the signs into the centre hoping to magic a car park and a pizza place for lunch. Lights were out at intersections of 7 roads making everyone duck and weave and negotiate by hand gestures to get through. Motos were coming at me in all directions. Cars pulled up abruptly on the curbside wheels akimbo, put on their hazard lights, and flung their door into the already ridiculously narrow street causing Kelly to squeal several times and causing me to indraw breath in order to fit between both cars coming towards me and the cars parked on the other side. After an hour and a half of driving around we hadn’t managed to find a car park or the road out of town. The GPS was not coping, erratically instructing me to make a U turn, turn left no turn right, and directing me into hotel parking lots and dead end streets. Kelly was having a low blood sugar moment so also not coping and was erratically bursting out into fits of road rage and then almost catatonically repeating the phrase “we are never getting out of here, we are never going to find the way out”. We then got stuck behind a garbage truck stopping every 100m for a kilometre while traffic was piling up beeping behind us. All I could do was laugh hysterically – how could it get any worse. On the 3rd time around the same route I had to ignore a no turn left sign and do it anyway as seemingly this was the only road out of town. We hit the motorway and finally with out troubles behind us took a deep sigh of relief, only to be directed off the highway and on to a road destined back to SAN REMO! At this point Kelly yelled at me to pull over, burst out of the car and burst into tears. I quietly made us sandwiches and we ate in silence by the side of the road. Calmer we navigated our way back to the highway and on to Genoa. From there we took the slow road winding around the peninsula offering magnificent views of the towns built into the hillsides and the wild ocean. At dusk we found a camp ground by the sea, wandered the promenade and finally found a pizza place with so much glee that we devoured 3 of them, washed down with house wine.
Day 10:
We got up early to continue the drive to LA SPEZIA south of the Cinque Terre national park. The drive was spectacular weaving through forest with early morning mists rising and the first glimmers of sunshine peaking through. We wound up a few hundred metres before gently ambling down past 4 house towns and following the river toward our destination. We jumped on a train to the 5 coastal villages unreachable by road. I imagined a romantic B&B a top a cliff but instead had all illusions shattered by 1000 Italian tourists who decided to take their family Sunday outing to the same spot. We had planned to do a 12km coastal walk that links each village, but this was closed, which left little to do except eat and look at other tourists. So we trained back to our car and decided to ditch the idea and drive 4 hours to ROME. We arrived at dusk to a 4 star camping place which meant the shower block had an indoor fountain, underfloor heating and played classical music while you bathed.
Day 11:
We spilled out from the train into the Piazza del Popolo. Immediately impressed by that larger than life size marble statues that encircled the entire square, we ambled down streets and bumped into monuments looming on every corner. Absolutely gobsmacked silent by the Pantheon, the pagan temple overwritten by a christian conversation, both stories still legible in the architecture. Gelato on the steps of Trevi Fountain – chocolate mousse and fondant flavours – I vow to never eat icecream again. Late afternoon pizza in a small rustic family run place. A few hours to explore the high brow (labels), mid brow (brands) and low brow (souvenir) stores before falling onto the Spanish Steps with aching feet. Dragged ourselves back to camp for sunset aperetivos and a homecooked meal before a well-earned collapse for the evening.
Day 12:
Second attempt at the Colosseum, closed the day before. We happen to be here in Roma appreciation week which means all sites are free and therefore unseasonably crowded. We lined up to get inside, then avoided the audioguide queues to go straight to the entrance turnstiles. However in typical Italian logic, we were redirected to again line up for the free tickets to put into the turnstiles before we could get in! Unlike the Pantheon, the Colosseum requires quite a bit of historical knowledge and creative visualisation to construct how impressive it must once have been. We took a metro to the Vatican City and were awed by St Peters Basilica but missed the Sistine Chapel closing by 15 minutes. We metroed back to central Roma to meet my aunt Angela who is a resident nun. She took us through streets we hadn’t yet seen, past the uplit fountains and pavement artistry of the Plaza Nuevo, to a local restaurant not inhabited by tourists. We were shouted to a delicious dinner of arrabiata penne pasta, margarita pizza, fried artichokes, veal cutlets, all washed down with regional wine, and finished with espresso and limoncello shots. We cosied into a corner of the restaurant talking and laughing late into the night until we were the only customers left. Having missed our respective trains we decided to taxi to Angela’s car and then she would give us a lift to the campground. It took 20 minutes or more to get a cab at the taxi rank as people kept cutting in and stealing them before us. Once in Angela’s car she took the freeway out of town and we took a belated exit signed to the suburb we were staying in. 100m past the exit was a poorly signed fork in the road, we went left, and after 20 minutes of driving up a sparsely lit and empty road realised we were not going the right way. No GPS. No map. No service station open. It was now 1am and we had only ever driven to the campsite once and that was under the guidance of the GPS, we hadnt paid too much attention, certainly not enough to find it by landmarks. We turned back on the freeway, stopping abruptly with hazard lights at each exit to inspect the 20 signs to search for clues. We saw a camping sign and followed it to another site. We finally made our way back to the original fork in the road and this time bore right, and fell upon our campsite within a few minutes. We said a cheerful if weary goodnight, it was now 1.30am, and fell onto the air mattress satiated and thankful.
Tags: Italy
Jyai