Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy

Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy (Wednesday 11/05/05)

We are now in Italy, my face is black with road grime and I am second in the shower. Here is what has happened since last post while I wait...

Digne-les-Bains, France (9/05/05)

From Avignon we headed east through the mountains of Provence. The map we have puts a green line beside any scenic roads, and this one is green most of the way. Simply stunning roads through valleys and up mountains. The terrain though is becoming noticably more "Australian" as we get closer to the coast, with red lome and hotter weather. The houses too look more Spanish.

We break our journey with a stay in Dignes, which is nothing much but it is good to have a hotel after 3 days of camping!!!

Nice, France (10/05/05)

From Dignes we follow another green road to Nice. Again simply stunning, with all manner of rock formations (and some fossils which we did not stop to look at). We stocked up on local cheese, fig paste, honey and bagets from a store on the side of the road. We then picnic on a mountain top looking down at the road we will soon travel... simply magic.

We also drop into Cannes and the place is packed, no wonder as it was the day before the film festival started (and the population trebles). We kept an eye out for Margaret and David (SBS/ABC movie show) but we saw no one famous. We also looked out for Cannes Film Festival t-shirts and postcards but without luck, which is a shame because the logo features a scooter.

From Cannes, getting into Nice was a nightmare. At one stage my GPS showed Nice 13 Km away and an estimated travel time of 5 Hours!!! The Lonely Planet guide loves to say how great big cities are but anyone that has to drive in one (even on a scooter) has a different opinion. We found Nice not nice. The good thing though was that we stocked upon scooter spares from a shop and the owner (although he could not speak English) proudly showed us a picture of his Vespa tour to Niger.

Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy (Wednesday Today)

We head along the coast road to Italy through Manaco. Previously the roads have been through valleys, now we are winding our way along cliffs overlooking the ocean. Very beautiful but very, very slow. Once in Italy we find that there are 2 types of road, the motorway, which bans motorbikes under 149cc and scooters under 249cc (or PX's are 200cc) and the other roads, which are all 50 km zones. We thought that we would be missing out Rome, now it is assured (oh well, another big city is no big drama to miss).

Italy is scooter crazy!!! Every set of traffic lights gathers up to 20 scooters and it is great fun as everyone takes off. Scooters have their own road rules to follow. At one point Laura and I jump on to a scooter conga line of 10 scooters, heading up the centre line of the road, through a traffic jam (preventing any other conga line forming in the opposite direction). If you think the police should care, they are just as bad, we saw one cop pull a wheelie, just to show off!!!

It takes us 8 hours to get from Nice to here, that is an average of 25Km an hour!!! We are tired but at least the roads are nice and being slowed down by a winding cliff road is not a bad thing. We get a hotel and go out for a great meal. Tomorrow Cinque Terra...