Ferrara - Cinque Terre - Taino - France

Whooooops...

Cordially sorry for everyone for not writing for such a long time – two weeks now or what? And what is my excuse? Well, I have none. Somehow I didnt have a good moment when I had internet and nothing better to do. Butbut, now we are in France in a small camping in a small town (Greoux les Bains), its raining a bit outside and here we have netti. So time to write a small resume about what we have done since Austria.

So, after Austria we drove through Slovenia and spent there three days. What a nice country! Go there now everyone! :) It was small enough to see it all more or less while driving through in a few days, but still it was variable enough to keep the interest. The autumn colours were at their best and all the leaf tree forests were in burning orange and yellow, wow. People were friendly and nice and not yet fed up with tourists, since I think there is not yet too many easyjets and ryanairs flying there. Atleast I had an image about all the ex-Yugoslavian countries to be like poor and broken and smashed and badly taken care of – but thats not true in Slovenia at all! The whole country was clean and well kept and even biking was super easy and nice in Ljubljana. There we had our first touch to the mountains that surrounded the small capital, and in general even Ljubljana was cute. We spent there one whole day, and it was possible to see the most of it in that time. But if we would have spent there longer time then there would have been many outside hiking/biking possibilities in close proximity. And one curiosity about the country is that there the prices of gasoline were fixed since at first we were wondering why all the gas stations dont tell their prices – surely its not necessary since the price was the same everywhere :) In Slovenia we also had our first touch to the mediterranean sea, since the last night there we were in a small village in the coast. We went to eat in some cute restaurant where we had suuuuper nice gambas and squids. And hey by the way Simons squids in Wien became excellent also. Have I now written a good travel commercial about Slovenia? Well then, lets continue to Italy – totally another story that is...

We drove straight from Slovenian coast to Ferrara to spend the weekend with Laura and her family. The first thing that jumped in front of our eyes was of course the traffic and terrible signing of the roads and streets. In one crossroad there is a sign indicating to some city and in the next crossroad that sign is missing.. Well, that was no surprise but it was quite interesting experience anyhow. It was not only one time we got totally lost and off-track, but what to do – it must be part of the Italian charm ;) And the second thing I noticed and which I think was best in Italy compared to all the other countries where we have been is that all the horrible American fast-food chains and non-domestical chain restaurants were missing. And thats great! As a quick snack you go to bakery and grab some foccaccia or slice of pizza or something. Excellent! And not to mention all the lovely oil, cheese, fruits, vegetables... Yummy!

And from where we get conveniently to the topic of our feeding during the time in Ferrara. Lauras and Davides mums were competing who would get the tourists closer to explosion after eating too much too good food. Neither of them succeeded but it was close daily during midday lunch time and in the evening at dinner time :) After a lazy weekend in Ferrara we drove in the evening one hour down to Bologna and slept in the parking lot of Ducati factory/museum so that Bruno had best possible chance to get to the museum next morning – which he did in the end. That day we drove small roads down to the borders of Toscana, stopped by in Pistoia for lunch and spent the night in some small town up in the hills. Lovely view from the roads.

The next day we went to Lucca, and then to the western Ligurian coast of Italy in Levanto. From there there is the access to the five small cities of Cinque Terre where you can go hiking and walking but not biking or driving car (or thats what they want you to think atleast..). The first night we spent int the most expensive camping so far in Levanto, but the next day we found when biking though an old train tunnel that in the next small village (Bonassola) it was possible to park the camper just between the high cliffs and the sea for free. There we spent two more days enjoying the summer – the sun was shining and it was +19 during the days, jubii! One day we took out the kayak and went kayaking in the Mediterranean, that was awesome! The other day we took the train to Cinque Terre and went hiking on the mountains. There was another example of the Italian efficiency since the train ended up to be free for us, hehe.. The ticket machines were out of order in the train station, the ticket office was closed and after asking from one family waiting for the train we found out that we were supposed to buy the tickets from the tourist office. So we biked down town again, found the office and saw the “away for a while” sing on the door... Finally one lady in a tabac shop told us that you should buy the ticket from the train – and its maybe not surprising when I tell that ofcourse there was nobody in the train to buy the tickets from ;) After the more or less same thing happened on the way back we named it as a free train of Cinque Terre. Aijoo, except on the way back there was one bored lady sitting in the ticket office in the train station but she had a big sign in her kiosk window saying that “we dont sell train tickets” :)

But in the whole the Cinque Terre was awesome. Actually heard about it for the first time in Amsterdam in a small restaurant we were eating. In the table next to us was sitting a couple from Vermont and they said the place was lovely. And so it was. I can imagine that the whole place is one horrible tourist trap and a mess in the summer, but like this in the off-season it was really nice. And the same is true actually with most of the Italian coast. The whole country is so popular and crowded, that in the summer it must be a mess. But our timing was more than perfect I might say!

Our temperature dropped with several degrees since from the coast we drove up to Pavia to see Laura in her working town. On the way there I wanted to go to the aquarium of Genova and it was nice as well. There was for example arctic fishes without hemoglobin, manaatti (sorry I only remember the name in finnish) and giant sea turtle. We drove to Genova along the Riviera coast, and huhhuhh the amount of fancy houses and yachts and cars on the streets... We spent two relaxing days in Pavia before driving up to Lago Maggiore to see Ritu in her small town of Taino. And again our temperature dropped with several degrees and we entered for the first time in a proper autumn. Wet rain and yellow leaves in the ground everywhere. But the lake itself was nice and there were awesome mountains just close by. We took Ritus dog Touko with us as a guide and spent one day hiking and walking in rain in the marvelous leaf tree forests and mountains facing the lake. I was thinking that this place must be at its best in the spring time when the forests are blooming but the tourists are not yet :) This time I think we came maybe a bit too much off-season considering the outside activities but it didnt matter – just it means I have to come back another time ;o) And the evenings we spent cosily inside blaablaaing with Ritu and cooking suppilovahvero soup and pumpkin – grown in the campania in Ferrara :)

And then we finally come to yesterday which was the most horrible driving day so far – thanks to the terrible signing of the Italian streets, sorry to say. On our way from Taino to France (or so we thought, its only 200km) we got lost in all the bloody hell city centres you ever can imagine, except to Torino thanks god. And after getting close to cross the mountains to the French coast we drove up 1400m to Col de Tende only to find out that the tunnel is open – except for camping cars... Well, luckily the road was dry although there were heaps of snow next to the road, so coming down was ookoo. Finally we made it back to the coast, but we spent the night in the Italian side in Imperia in some parking space for the campers. It might have cost something but we never ended up paying, hihi :) It was funny to think that one week earlier we were kayaking in the same sea just 150km away, since yesterday the sea was rough and restless with huge waves that broke on the side walks next to the sea.

And here we are, in today. We drove from Italy to France in the Riviera, and then behind Nice to the mountains of the French coast. We drove through the European Grand Canyon – Grande Canyon du Verdon. Awesome view! Hundreds of meters steep cliffs down to the bottom of the canyon where turquoise blue river was running. It would have been nice to spend the night next to the lake on the other end of the canyon, but our battery for the cabin was a bit empty so we came here to one of the only open camping sites in the area. Tomorrow we will continue our way through southern France finally ending up in Barcelona maybe in three days or so.

And thats all folks - this time. Bruno has prepared a nice salad for dinner and I will start munch-munching now. Big kisses to you all, and enjoy the autumn :) 

PS. Remember to feed my five blue fish on the right panel ;o)