Day 18

Thursday 4 June 2009

"We are on the road again" in the words of donkey from Shrek! We spent a while yesterday evening looking at possible routes and have decided to dip our toes into Italy on the way back up north and home again. At this point we have 10 days left and we didn't want to travel too far afield and end up having to rush majorly to get back to the ferry. We have worked it out that we should have 2 nights in each campsite from here on in with an extra night spare for a campsite we really like. We have also decided not to put the awning up to allow us more time in the areas we are visiting. As we drove the landscape changed again and it became much more arid with rocky hills spreading out in front of us. We then drove past Cannes and Nice which were impressive towns rising up from the sea like amphitheaters. And then the tunnels began... because the coast is mountainous with the mountains running perpendicular to the coast in order for a road to pass through they have built tunnels through the mountains and bridges with the most amazing vistas to span the gaps. Unfortunately the photos are all naff because there were barriers on the edge of the roads and bridges to stop you driving off the edge! We did drive past some interesting sites en route such as Mornas, an 11th century fortress atop a cliffand a hilltop church which we were later to discover is very typical for Italy with every town and Hamlet having one which chimes out the hour from it's belltower. After an amazing drive we were extremely dissapointed to arrive at our campsite which was at the edge of a town center, in a particularly run down area. To add insult to injury it was a noisy campsite with lots of road noise and the most expensive campsite so far charging 7 euros for each of the kids! We were however too tired and too far from another campsite to move on. We did however meet a very charming local Italian lady called Maria who lived on the site. She came up to us whilst we were having our dinner and started chattering away in Italian. I told her we didn't speak Italian but it didn't make a blind bit of difference she carried on chattering away! I managed to pick up some of what she was saying which I was really pleased about even if I couldn't say much back!