Mont Blanc and the very long camper van

The 29th was spent as a travel day from our camping point outside Troyes to the small town of Portofino, a quaint little place, sometimes called the Italian riviera.
The day started very well with an earlyish start and a reasonable sleep despite the warmth and some a**holes deciding it was a great idea to talk and play football at 02:30 in the morning.
After travelling down the French toll roads and the obligatary financial drumming that gives you, we arrived at the Mont Blanc tunnel. It was Kirsties first time through the tunnel and the feat of engineering of drilling through the mountain still impresses me after several times of going through it and is only superceeded by the fact they actually get French AND Italian drivers to obey speed AND distance regulations through the tunnel. I am not sure if it is some kind of brainwashing/ mind control exercise but it is something I have never seen repeated anywhere else in the world (the mind control I mean, not the drilling :)
).
After another quick pee stop we headed down to Portofino and a lovely overnight stay next to the sea (or so we thought!!!)
The road to Portofino is a lovely windey road that has some really nice scenery and houses along the way. It would be the first time I have visited this part of Italy and I was really enjoying the drive until......
After a few miles we noticed the road narrowing and becoming more cramped (this should have set of alarm bells, but the lovely scenery had firmly placed blinkers on me) and even when the sign came up saying that vehicles no wider than 2.1 meters could travel onwards (we were a little over 2 meters) it did not put me off. So after braving some rather tight passing places and some more great scenery (including some massive yachts) we reached the town of Portofino, now the roads had got really tight now with no chance of turning the camper so we had to press on. In the end we came into the main square, which ended in a dead end!!! Although there was now space to turn, and whats this a helpful police lady coming to help. After a quick chat and a talk about how it would be best for me to turn, the police lady enquired about how long the camper van was? After me replying, she promptly took my documents and informed us that we would be fined as the vehicle was too long to be in Portofino!!!
Eighty euros down we left this pictureseqe little town with no camping spot, no photos and a very annoyed driver. We decided to carry on up the autostrade and had a later finish than planned, but were set up for an easy hours drive to Florence (Firenze) in the morning.
The photo I have chosen is one of the peaks surrounding Mont Blanc as you come out of the Italian side of the tunnel, very majestic and very humbling when you think of what it took to create this monster.
Lesson of the day: Portofino, very nice but take the scooter not the camper :(