Thursday (3rd May) we had a lovely day with our friends Judith & Andrew in the beautiful unspoilt and traditional village of Seillans. Judith and Andrew run a lovely shop called Le Comptoir de Seillans selling a lovely selection of local wines and regional products. Also a surprise was to meet Judith's Mum Iris who had arrived for a short break from Tiverton, Devon UK. What a coincidence that was and a lovely day was had by all. We left accompanied by some lovely local wine and honey.
Friday we finally set sail (or perhaps left the grid) into Italy, no border controls any more but we had our passports at the ready just in case. The policeman at the border gave us a quick glance but seeing Bradley at the wheel reassured him that us Brits' knew exactly what we were doing (we were in for a shock!). We were advised by a seasoned traveller that just stick to the highway code, don't honk back and just accept that the Italians will often spit their dummies out at a passing foreign driver. That was obvious from the horns of a following bus in a motorway tunnel that I was maybe going a tad too slow for his progress!. Soon an excited Lorraine noticed all the F1 team lorries passing in the opposite direction towards Monaco, it was great to see them up close even though on the opposite carriageway. As we continued along the 'Autostrata' towards Genova things got a whole lot quicker as well as spending nearly the entire time in tunnels. It was like night driving but some of the views in between tunnels along the coast were amazing. On reaching Genova it was like our world was in fast forward, cars everywhere and dare you leave the space of a car in front of you then 6 lorries, a bus and 20 cars will jump into it!. My concentration had reached a peak of its life and my face and expressions must have looked like I was being tortured below.. but I didn't get annoyed or honk once!. We crossed a bridge that looked so unsafe and so high our knuckles went white holding onto the steering wheel and Lorraine onto her door handle with the resultant expletives!. Even Piccolo hanging on to the trailer looked whiter than normal in my mirrors. The Italians build their motorways like Scalextric tracks and somehow you just stick to the corners which are so tight for motorways and can be taken at amazing speed but not in a motorhome towing a trailer. All the contents of the motorhome can be heard sloshing and clanging to one side only to return on the opposite trip for the next bend. Soon things started to return to normal as we left the motorway at Sestri Levante and climbed a short mountain road towards our campsite. We soon relaxed on the terrace of a lovely small bar watching the setting sun over the sea. All we have to do now is get up the courage to leave the shelter of our campsite for the next leg of the journey into Italy. Its all great fun really!.
Arrivederci
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