May 16, 2008

We got up this morning and found that God had answered our prayers and given us a nice sunny morning, after last night's thundershowers. We had breakfast and quickly got on our way. While we were in Padova, we figured we may as well see if there's anything interesting in town. We found a cathedral, and Jan took some pictures, while I drove around, 'cause there were no parking spots, AGAIN! I ended up driving all over the place down narrow streets and finally returned to the square where I dropped Jan off. I was trying to figure out how to find her, since I came back from a different direction than before, but fortunately, she was waiting for me right where I came out of the alley.



We now decided to head to our next destination of Venice. On the map the distance from Padova to Venice shows as 25 km, but it took us close to an hour and a half to get there. We found signs pointing to "Parking + Boat = Venice" and eventually came to a parking lot which showed 8.00 Euro for up to 12 hours. I asked Jan to check on the price of tickets, and when she returned, and said go park the car, the ferry leaves in 15 minutes, I told her to start walking while I parked the car. We just managed to get to the boat before it left!

We got some great pictures, saw the canals and boats, and had lunch and some yummy Italian Gelatio. The canals here are utilized just like streets in any normal city. They haul freight, and people, with even a "bus" service, although it is a boat service. We then took the boat back to our car and got on our way to travel north towards the Alps.








And I just had to take a picture of this boat with the guy steering with one hand and talking on a cell phone with the other!

We are up high in the Dolomite Region of the Italian Alps; and I don't know why but these mountains are very different from the Rockies. I have gotten some beautiful shots and Bob stopped to get some great extra's that I couldn't get when we were driving. Cortina, where we will spend the night, is a popular Winter Ski Resort and we are lucky to find a hotel open. Out of 60 Hotels in the town only 5 are opened right now. Our host told us one of the better restaurants to go to as most of the restaurants are closed also.





They say that the Winter and summer seasons are busy but the Spring and Fall are dead. We don't know if we will be able to get this posted tonight or not as there is no Wi-Fi and we are not sure if any place has internet right now. Tomorrow we will travel down the Valley of Cortini and into Austria. We are hoping to get some beautiful pictures as the travel books all tell us of the great vistas you can see between here and Bolgona.

May 15, 2008

Today started out hazy, and we were up early and away from the hotel. As you can see from this view out of our hotel room window, there are a lot of roads over here. I have never seen so many on/off ramps criss-crossing all over the place.



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.

May 14, 2008

The beginning of the Cannes Film Fetival! Today the lines were starting up just to get into see the films up for awards. Exotic Cars all over the place and chasing us down the Cannes-Nice road. We had Masserrattis, Porsches, Lamborghinis, Jaquars and many I can't name. We drove all the way through to Monaco only this time we chose the Mountain Top road. As you can see from the vista's we were really up high in the clouds. The road we're looking down on, is the road we took yesterday.The weather was beautiful and we had a pleasurable drive until we came into Italy.



We got some absolutely gorgeous panoramic shots over Monaco and we really are pleased with the pictures.





Bob takes back all the bad things he says about French Drivers ( well at least some :-) ) There must be 10 motorcycles here, to every one in France and they are hell on wheels. We were both thinking we were surprised not to hear about more bike and bicycle accidents when we saw one just outside of Savona, where it appeared a trail bike ran over or into a bicycle.

The water is beautiful but it is a sin that you have to pay to go on the beach in a lot of places. Bob kidded about not seeing the topless beaches Italy talks about. However, I told him he might as well stop looking as I'd have to put an end to it anyways. (and I told her, I had trouble enough seeing anything but the multitude of motorcycles whizzing by on both sides of the car, and trying to understand the Italian road signs, to watch for the girls on the beaches.)



For some reason it is really hard to find a hotel so we have to figure out which way we want to go; further into Italy or north toward Austria and Switzerland. No matter which way we choose to go, we'll have to figure out ahead of time where to stay, as it is really difficult to keep an eye out for hotels and also watch where I'm driving and avoid the bikes, pedestrians, and other drivers.

We were merrily following the main coastal highway, and just as we were ready to go through one of the many tunnels, the road ended! No signs, no detours, no nothing. So we had to backtrack a few miles, and force the GPS to direct us to the Toll highway, so we could bypass the blockage. This road goes through the mountains high up the valleys. About 20 km cost us 1.90 Euro! At almost every valley you can look to the left, up the valley and see these huge viaducts!

May 13, 2008

Today we drove to Monaco, via Cannes and Nice, and I actually drove on the Grand Prix circuit, mind you, it was only at 50 kph, but I was there. It was crowded and heavy with traffic the whole way. We ran into a huge traffic Jam at Cannes, as they were getting ready for the start of the film festival tomorrow, and Nice was just busy.





Cannes and Nice are not anywhere near as pretty as St. Raphael and Frejus where we stayed. They may be known all over the world but I am not overly impressed. However as I said before the roads to and from have some beautiful sections for picture taking. I am trying to figure out a better route for tomorrow to keep us away from Cannes, Antibes, Nice and Monaco. If we can get past these places then it is clear sailing to the Northern Italian Coast.



I'm convinced the drivers over here are All for One and One for One! At an intersection, you don't leave the intersection empty so the cross-traffic can move, otherwise other drivers force their way into the line and block the intersection, and no one can move. If you close up tight against the car in front, no one moves anyway! Weird! On top of this, there was a tour bus double parked blocking the oncoming lane, holding up the traffic, 'cause no one from this side was going to allow alternating traffic. When another tour bus came by, it was unable to go around, 'cause again no one from the other direction would let it by. Where are the police to direct traffic when you need them?

On the way out of Monaco, we drove through this tunnel system that was simply awesome to get the traffic out of the city. The surface streets are clogged with traffic, but the tunnels were flowing at 90 kph with little hold-up. The pictures are a little blurred, as Jan was having problems holding the camera steady enough in the dark.

Tomorrow, we say goodbye to France and plan to spend a little time in Italy. We're hoping to find reasonable accommodations, and also hope the locals understand our English!

May 12, 2008

Well here we are from the Mediterranean. I would say sunny but we have had a hazy day, although still warm. I can't get over how beautiful the Mediterranean Sea is. It Looks a real turquoise blue and then sticking out of it are deep "brick red" rocks.

Whoops before I start my glowing report about the Mediterranean; let me finish about Nimes. It was such a delightful place to see and visit. For me it has so much history combined with beauty. Just a couple more pictures to finish up Nimes. This is the Arenes du Nimes which we were not able to go into over the weekend because of the Freria that was going on. The picture here shows the Arenes du Nimes at its finest and then some pictures I took as well. Also we got a picture of Le Pont du Gard that we tried so hard to get yesterday so we are putting it in. The church is the Catherderal Notre Dame in Nimes and La Maison Carree at night. All this was blocked off to us so we had to improvise.



When we got to St. Raphael-Frejus this afternoon we were still dealing with it. Apparently we got in on Pentecost Celebrations all across France. We had a ball and walked a lot of miles in the last 3 days.

This afternoon, after we checked into the hotel (a bit better class) we went for a drive up the Mediterranean Coast and Bob and I got some awesome pictures. I wish we could share them all but will try to limited it to some of the best shots we got. We took 162 pictures today and only had to drop 2.

As you know I have been trying to find Bob some "too cool" roads to drive on and today I succeeded again. I set him off on the D6068 much to Blondie's dislike. However once we got going down the coast towards Cannes we were well rewarded. I am going to let Bob take over and describe his feelings as he was doing the driving. He had to make room for me to stop and take all my oohs and awhhs and make them a reality. We can even see the SEA from our hotel room. It is just so beautiful and it really was worth a lifetime of waiting to come and see it. I am so glad I can share these firsts with my husband of 33 years.





The above are a small sampling of the pictures we stopped for on this road Jan referred to. The following ones are the road, and one last one of a spot on the coastline that we both felt was interesting enough that we walked for a few hundred feet in the rain over a rocky landscape to take some shots of it. The road was awesome, comparable to the one a few days ago when we "went over the mountain", as it were, that I described in an earlier post. Ever since we took the train from Paris to Saar Brucken, I have been trying to drive alongside the tracks as a "fast train" whizzed by. Well, today, we were stopped for Jan to take a few pictures and all of a sudden, there goes a train, and I missed it 'cause we were stopped. Then, just as we started up again, another one went by the opposite way. Oh well, maybe before we drop the car off, I'll get my wish.