The Adventures of Dave & Cass: Au Revoir France and Bonjourno Italy

After dinner last night we had returned to the campsite to discover our neighbours sounded like they had Aussie and Kiwi accents. We thought we would say hello in the morning before we left. Unfortunately the neighbours decided to say “hello” until 3am – up drinking, laughing, singing and generally being annoying (as boys are!).

So this morning we said Hello by making every loud noise, slamming every car door, talking about how good Aussies are and how ordinary Kiwis are (especially at rugby and TDF). We then played them ACDC Thunderstruck, left our rubbish and tooted (some may have called it blasted) the horn in farewell as we left (it was about 10:30am so everyone else in the park was up too). They poked their heads out with an apologetic smile as we drove past.

Before we could go too far we had to make a pit stop at the industrial estate to pick up Dave’s replacement Visa. We unfortunately had to wait 1 ½ hours for them to open after their 12-2pm siesta break.
Once all done and on the road we did a drive through Monaco. This was one crazy city/country. The traffic was nuts with no chance of a park for lunch and a quick walk around. We ended up finding a park right up on top of the hills overlooking the city to have our traditional lunch baguette with a view.

Welcome to Monaco

The casino

Lunch time view

Afterwards we crossed the border into Italy – “Si”, rather than “Wi” again Dave, and stopped off at the seaside town of Ventimiglia. The campground had hot showers (apparently this is not necessarily standard in Italian campgrounds) and toilet seats! It also had a cute restaurant where we decided to have a 1L bottle of rose for 7€.

We attempted to cook dinner but had a minor glitch, our pasta had turned green, and so we went back to the restaurant for Scallopine Al Limone with a side of Pizza.

Our healthy dinner - hey it had some lettuce!

The beaches of Ventimiglia were again rock beaches and had a mixture of public and private patches. The town itself (we were staying in the old town – French side of the river), the new town was bustling with people. Heaps of restaurants and gelatarias, plus heaps of Vespas everywhere.

Dave doing as the locals do...Having a lovely relaxing snooze on the beach

Italian beach Husky - this ones for you dad...Devil's long lost cousin

The other thing we have discovered are that pedestrian crossings in Italy pretty much mean nothing – just white stripes on the road!

After showers and breaky this morning it was a journey slightly inland to Pigna where as part of the Evans family, I had spent a week in 1997 – albeit in a summer house in winter. The house belonged to Canadian teaches the Halliwells on exchange at Trinity at the time. I had fond memories of the place and wanted to show it to Dave 14 years later.

Pigna

The door leading up to the Halliwell's (old) house

We went and visited the Cathedral and Madonna’s grotto, which was unfortunately closed.

Me at the grotto

I wanted to have an Italian hot chocolate in the Gelateria with Dave but it was also closed (I think i remember it only opening in the afternoon). While taking photos outside I heard a Canadian accent, lo and behold when I turned around, there was Michael Halliwell on holidays from Toronto Canada – Small world! He told us they had moved to a house further up in the hills with some land and that the Allevenas had moved a few years ago to another town. Can’t believe we ran into each other!

Fabio's Gelateria

After leaving Pigna it was on to Genova where we planned to stay the night. WE had to go back through Ventimiglia where there were major traffic holdups to get back onto the autostrada. Eventually we got there in time for lunch at 4pm.

We didn’t really like the city that much – would go as far as saying we thought it was ugly so we continued driving to Rappallo (about 50km’s further east).

We found the campground Miraflores and then walked into town (about 2-3 km’s). We found another cute beach/portside town - more rock beaches though I’m afraid. We indulged in some pre-dinner gelati and Dave: Caramel + Chocolate, Cassie: Mint Choc + Extra dark chocolate, ended up walking back to the campground for a homemade pasta dinner (the one we had tried for the night before with fresh pasta!)