A three day catch up. On the 3rd we lazed around Bauduen, spending a good part of the day at a beach on a gravel road that heads out from the village around the side of the lake. The beach was great, having trees growing at the top giving shade. While the surface was sharp gravel rather than sand that is what is normal around the lake as all the beaches are artificial (created when the lake was filled in the 1970s) we made ourselves comfortable and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the lake. The amazing thing (to me) was that for most of the time we had the beach to ourselves.
Looking at the real estate listings properties are incredibly cheap with a big villa on 4000m2 of land, with swimming pool, available for 300,000 Euro ($NZ 500,000). The equivalent in NZ would be over the million mark.
The next day we cleaned up the house and put a couple of loads of washing through before heading off to Italy. As we headed down to the coast the trees became more lush. When we saw palm trees we knew that we'd reached the Riviera. Amazingly we found a carpark at the top of the beach at St Raphael and found a pleasant sandy beach that wasn't overly crowded. Heading towards Cannes we decided to avoid the motorway and ended up on a delightful twisty road through the woods away from the coast. Beaches in Cannes looked good, but we didn't stop and then got caught in a traffic jam in Antibes, so jumped on the motorway and headed for Monaco, avoiding the chaos (we thought) that would be Nice. Went to get off the motorway at Monaco and found that the toll both only accepted cards or coins and rejected all NZ cards and required 30c more than we had in coins. An embarrassing 5 minutes later we managed to raise some assistance was able to change a 5 Euro note. The queue behind us was amazingly patient.
We found Monaco simply beyond our expectations. Plastered up the side of a steep rock it is clean, freshly decorated and has a relaxed atmosphere. The sea front is not great, mainly being a harbour for exceedingly large yatchs, but the mass of hotels and stately buildings above is spectacular. As we could easily find convenient parking spots we didn't linger and headed back on the road to Italy.
The motorway in this area is a succession of high viaducts and tunnels. As you come out of each tunnel you get a view of a different part of the area - a glimpse of a town, then an agricultural area, then a rocky valley. Never long enough to get the full impact before you are back in another tunnel.
The background to our stop in Liguria, Italy, is a series of books by Annie Hawes, an Engliswoman who bought a "rustico" in the hills in the 1980s and made it into a holiday home. Gillian wanted to see the area described in the books, so we booked into a B&B in the village Diano San Pietro.
We found our way to the village, but the directions we had did not get us to the B&B, so a quick phone call lead us to continue 1 km up the valley to find an aged woman standing in the road to flag us down and direct us up an impossible turn to a parking area. The B&B turned out to be a good size apartment with kitchen and large swimming pool - bliss. There is another couple staying here in the upstairs apartment - an Italian and his German wife who work around Cologne. We have had some interesting conversations with them from religious conflicts through to the ratio of possums to people in NZ.
Just down the road we found the local restaurant. They have 2 small tables perched on the side of the road that are permanently occupied by the locals to swap gossip and drink apparently vile local liquor(my imagination no proven). Inside the first room is the bar/wine shop with a couch and small table and racks of wine bottles. Out the back is a very couth restaurant area with around 8 tables. The host is also the barman and chef. The menu is simple - 7 aperativs, 4 primo piattos and 4 secundo piattos. The special tinight is rabbit. When it arrives, the food is magic.
Today we headed up into the hills above Diano San Pietro to look at the area described in the books, This involved a road 2m wide zig-zagging up the hill in a series of blind hairpin bends. At one stage we met a large (for the size of the road) lorry heading in the opposite direction requiring us to reverse up the side of the hill to give him room. We got completely lost and continued to climb through the olive groves on roads that our GPS said didn't exist. Looking over into the next valley we saw more little villages nestled on the side of the hills among the olive groves.
Looking across the valey to Diano Costello
With the narrow rads around here the standard transport is the Ape (Italian for bee) which are small 3 wheeled trucks designed for 1 person, though you often see 2 people crammed into the cab. These are narrow enough to pas on the one lane roads.
An Ape
We decided at last we were not going to spend the rest of the day lost on top of the hills, so we turned around and headed down. We found the local cemetery where some of the characters from the books are buried, or should I say stashed, as much of the cemetery consists of concrete pigeon-holes which are sealed with stone slabs when the coffin is slid in. Most graves have photos of the people on them, often quite informal snaps - very evocative. We found the niches for Domenico and his wife Antonino who featured in the book as great supporters and friends of Annie.
Cemetery at Diano San Pietro
After lunch we headed down to the coast to Diano Marina to wander around the shops (all closed as it was Wednesday) and find a public beach. All the best spots are covered with "concessions" - fenced off with loungers and umbrellas - but found a corner near the harbour where we went in for a swim to say that we had been into the Med at least once. After a spell on the beach to people watch and dry off we headed back the the B&B to jump in the pool to wash off the salt.
Eventually we wander down to the restaurant and again are overwhelmed by the quality of the food. Gillian has the special (Sardines in a cake) and I choose the Carpaccio de Vitello (thin slices of raw steak covered with a fresh salad doused in olive oil) - both absolutely gorgeous. Gillian is enraptured by a "ladies version" of grappa (strawberry flavoured) and then more so by Lik Li (Liquore de Liguria) which is a rich dark brown syrupy liqueur. I only let her buy the grappa on the basis that the flight to Scotland has strict weight limits.
Tomorrow we head off for a stopover in Leichenstein.
*** Photos will be added later ***
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