Autostrada Arrivederci

One last walk to the cafe for breakfast from our room above the ice cream parlour, soaking up the sun's warmth and trying not to think about how many hours we were going to spend in a car today or how much lower the temperatures were going to be back home.

We were sad to leave Castiglion Fiorentino. It's been a great base from which to explore and we loved that we found a room above an ice cream parlour, next door to a pizzeria, with very friendly people in both!

I wanted us to turn off as we drove past Florence but Gareth stayed strong and we didn't stop until we reached a service station just outside Modena. The Italians do service stations with a flair Brits could never manage in a million years. Their salad bar made me cry, it looked so delicious, and for the millionth time, I asked Gareth if we absolutely had to leave.

Apparently, we did.

We turned west towards Turin, and crossed the alps, noticing how much snow had fallen in the last two weeks and how much cooler it was.

Close to 8 p.m., we made Lyon and decided to stop there overnight.