Film set

~backblip~

Today the plan was to head for Italy, as the second half of our trip would see us drive through Austria and Southern Germany as we made our way back to Calais. That was the plan...

The morning started as scheduled, a scenic drive round the coast towards Cannes, through this stunning landscape that looks like something out of a fantasy movie. Then on the autoroute to skip the summer traffic and get to Monaco in time for lunch and a quick walk around the Formula 1 track. I've been there a few times before, and in many ways it's not a particularly pretty or interesting place, but I just love the memories it evokes - that's where X crashed, Y broke down while leading, Z overtook (ok, that doesn't happen much). It's one of the truly magical places for motorsport fans.

After lunch we bombed along the autoroute/autostrada into Italy, planning to find somewhere to stay in Genova. I think we lasted about half an hour before we decided to turn on our heels and head back to France! Everything in France is geared up for tourists in cars; the roads are great, sign-posting is good, there are fantastic underground car parks in every town and although the drivers don't tolerate much hesitation at junctions, they're fairly understanding if you pause for a second to check a sign. In Italy the roads are a bit... Irish, sign-posting is intermittent, parking is impossible and the drivers are unbelievably rude. Don't get me wrong though, I love Italy, I'll just never try to go there in a car again!

So after trying unsuccessfully to find a car parking space, going the wrong way down a badly signed one-way street, ending up in a Zona Traffico Limitato (or something like that, we weren't supposed to be there anyway!), and having horns blasted at us for having the cheek to stick to the speed limit, we cut our losses and headed for the border again. The rest of our trip would be in France. We formulated Plan E :)