We had to fight the morning rush, and what a rush. There must have been a million scooters and other bikes and motorcycles on the roadways, weaving in and out of the traffic. The most difficult part of driving over here, especially in the larger Italian cities, is having to look out for all the bikes. They pass anywhere, go into the oncoming lanes, anytime they are held up by cars, and at every traffic light, they all congregate at the front so that they get a jump on the cars.
We started off leaving Genoa, by following the lower coast road again. Fortunately, we had blondie to guide us, as without her, we wouldn't have found our way out of a paper bag. We twisted and turned all over the place to get out of town, then it only got worse! The road wound up into the mountains and back down, a number of times, before we finally got fed up and switched off the "no toll roads" exception on the GPS. The first picture shows how narrow the roads are with people parking virtually anywhere, including double parking everywhere, while in the second, we were stopped at a traffic light beside the police car, when a large tanker truck was making a right turn. We expected it to run over the police car, and they wouldn't back up to help.
We found the nearest entrance ramp and got onto the straight, fast, freeway. Although it started out hazy, we expected the sun to come out (and later on we did hit 29 deg.), but at one point as we came out of a tunnel, we were hit by a humongous rain storm that forced the traffic to slow to about 80 from the 110+ speeds we'd been doing. This 125 km trip took us to Pisa, where we wanted to visit the leaning tower, and cost us 10.50 Euro.
There was not much else to see there, and after taking a walk around, and a bunch of pictures, we got on the road again.
We decided to head towards Venice, but after inputting the final destination, and a stop at a MacDonald's where we wanted to go online (we couldn't as they did not have the WiFi connection), we learned that it would be after 5:30 before we would arrive, so we once again went to the freeway and cut off approximately 1-1/2 hours from the trip. (cost 14.60 Euro) We arrived at Padova (Padua - isn't that from Romeo and Juliet???) at 4:00 pm and found a nice hotel, part of a chain that we'd stayed at before, but slightly better qua lity. This one actually has free wireless internet, so we can catch up on all our blogs and emails.
It has been a rough day for me as I have really been having a time with my hip and leg. ( Part of the reason for heading straight to the Venice area.) and wouldn't you know it as we are sitting here writing this blog there is a wild storm outside. My weather barometer is working real well. I am hoping that we can get a good rest tonight and that by tomorrow I will be feeling up to seeing Venice and then we head up to the Dolomite Mtns. and on to Austria. Arrivederci from Padova.
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