13 February 2024 – Bonjourno Italia

Miles driven today = 98

Total Miles to date = 1,137

For the last 10 years of my Reinsurance career, before COVID turned the World upside down, I used to attend an annual conference every October in the Black Forest spa town of Baden-Baden, where the great and the good would discuss their philosophies, plans and predictions for the forthcoming 1st January renewal season.  There was a similar conference held in early September in Monte Carlo, which I always got the impression was a bit of a jolly, but I’m afraid it was only people on a pay grade or two above mine who usually got invited and as a result Monaco is yet to be added to my list of countries visited.  

I had hoped to rectify that omission on this trip and until recently there was a car park right on the French/Monaco boundary line which was reckoned to be a good place to stay overnight in order to visit the principality on foot.  However when I rechecked all of the possible stopovers I had penciled into our schedule just before we came away, there were reports that “No Motorhome” signs have recently been installed at the entrance to the car park and all of the previous positive reviews on Park4Night appear to have been deleted.  So without any obvious alternatives and with the Cote d’Azur being possibly the most un-motorhome friendly place in Europe, we made the decision to get on the A8 toll road this morning and head directly for the Italian border.

As soon as we got onto the A8 traffic came to a standstill reminiscent of the M25 but once all of the rush hour traffic had filtered off into Nice we could enjoy the snow covered peaks of the Alps as their foothills rolled down towards the Mediterranean.

We barreled our way through several lengthy tunnels, often only emerging briefly into the glare of the sun to pass over a soaring viaduct before plunging into the half light of the next tunnel.  We passed a blue EU symbol with ITALIA emblazoned across it and took next slip road off to Ventimiglia.  65km had cost us roughly €13.  Officially we should be category 3 as we weigh more than 3,500kg but I got the impression we were only charged as a category 2 vehicle on at least one of the Peage points.

Once we had got ourselves over the border we decided to slow things down somewhat by taking the coast hugging SS1 along the first section of the Ligurian coastline.  It was slow going through Ventimiglia and Sanremo but once we got through those bottlenecks it was a much more enjoyable drive with the azure of the Med often filling our view to the right.  Unfortunately there were hardly any places to stop and we ended up having lunch in Lidl’s carpark in Riva Ligure so you’ll just have to take my word on how gorgeous it all looked.

On we pressed past the impressive hilltop town of Imperia with it’s golden painted buildings and also the smaller but equally exquisite Cervo which Lisa managed to snap through the windscreen.

We followed this cyclist through Andora.  As we left the town we overtook him and he immediately jumped into our slipstream for a tow up the next hill.

Journey’s end today was the town of Albenga.  The place we are staying at tonight doesn’t open their gates until 3pm so we parked up near to the station.  First impressions were of a rather drab and uninspiring place but that changed when we reached the ancient centre.

Albenga was a fairly major port in Roman times and the network of tiny streets and alleys within the mediaeval defensive walls are largely of Roman origin.

Albenga was known as the “City of 100 Towers”, which was probably something of an exaggeration but nevertheless a number of these survive to the current day.  They were predominantly built by noblemen of the 13th century as follies to show off their wealth.  The epitome of willy waving.

The Cattedrale di San Michele Arcangelo.

This little alleyway was bedecked with lots of interesting artwork.

A Roman mosaic from the first century AD.

The Church of Santa Maria in Fontibus has an interesting mint humbug construction.

This Baptistry dates all the way back to the 5th Century.  Externally it has 10 sides but inside it is octagonal.

We could have done with a bit more time to explore the City centre but our main priority for today was a bit more mundane.  While we have been in France we have been eking out our data so as not to exceed our 25Gb monthly roaming allowance (Cheers Brexit!) and thereby incur whopping surcharges from Vodafone.  But now that we are in Italy we can slot a local SIM card into our onboard MiFi system, so we popped into a shop and, with the help of Google Translate, explained what we wanted.  Success!  Thanks to WindTre we now have unlimited data for as long as we are in Italy for the princely sum of €19.99 plus a one off €10 payment for the SIM Card.  So we can put the playing cards away and stream as much in the way of films, football and music as we like.

By now 3pm had come and gone so we headed for our home for the night at Le Coccinelle, which is an Agricampeggio site, where farmers give over a small proportion of their land to vagabonds like ourselves.  We are in the middle of a market gardening area but still only 15 minutes walk from the centre.  We did consider having another look around the town but it’s so peaceful here that we decided to just relax for the rest of the day and enjoy the scenery and the sunshine.

14 February 2024 - Sestri Lavante