BreweryDave
LIFE MEMBER
We were at a beautiful place in the French Maritime Alps called Castellane and decided to drive straight through to Massa in Tuscany on Thursday, I've been posting my travels on my face ache page, but thought I'd share this one with you
If you think a drive through the Alps down to the Med at the French Riviera past Monaco and along the Italian riviera sounds fantastic, yes it does 'sound' fantastic - the reality is a bit different
We knew yesterday was going to be 'challenging' as we had a choice of trying to find somewhere around Nice to stay, a mid way Italian stopover, or a ' go for it' kinda day! The Cote D'Azure is decidedly motorhome unfriendly in terms of sites and Aires, and with 3.5T weight limits everywhere, no good in our 5T van!
Research with all of the resources I have to hand failed to find anywhere decent to stop, so set the sat nav for Massa in Italy to include motorways and tolls and set off down the mountain for a 400km jolly!
To be honest, I was actually looking forward to it ( I do love driving) but I refer you to paragraph 1
The roads down the mountains were as twisty as the day before but it was a bit overcast so less stunning views. Arriving into Grasse it all had the look of the stereotypical south of France glamour, fabulous buildings and plush looking hotels, well dressed women with little dogs under their arms, and men in berets playing the accordion on every street corner ....
2 hours after starting out, we hit the motorway. Me and the van both breathed a sigh of relief for a bit of straight smooth tarmac, and jak finally opened her eyes
Now, you'd think that stretch of motorway, being in an area that ain't short of a shekel or two, and passing some chic and glamorous places like Cannes, Nice, Monaco and along the Italian coast might be a pleasure like so many other continental motorways. Well, sadly no, very busy and with shuttering or fencing all along the coast side, hardly any views and no hard shoulder ( clearly the real estate is too valuable!) and the edge of the carriageway just fenced or shuttered
And then we crossed the border into Italy, and it all changed............
I now know where Chris Rea got the name from for his song ( you know the one!!!) cos we were on it
Has to have been the most horrible and uninspiring drives I've ever done! Never before have I been on a motorway where the sat nav shouts out 'warning' for sharp bends! Most of it was 2 lanes, and boy were they narrow lanes! Every lorry in the world was on that road, along with every driver who ever attended the RNIB driving school.
All the anectodal stories of Italian drivers are true, QED! They are obviously taught to use the full travel of any pedal they press every time, so it's either full power or full brakes, and all that after having had their brains removed - remarkable. And don't worry about leaving a gap, gaps are meant to be filled, clearly so you can fit more knobs on the road then there's the tunnels most of the drive felt like it was underground, there was a tunnel every few hundred yards, must've been through well over 100 of them along our route, and the paint was peeling off the walls inside every one . Yes, I bloody noticed that as there was sod all else to notice whilst dealing with all the knobs and the narrow lanes and the lorries, and I didn't even mention what they go like with the side winds when they emerge from a tunnel and out onto a viaduct it's not like they haven't been there before
................and relax. The loveliest words I heard all day were from my good old sat nav - ' you have reached your destination'
Will be here for a few days now, let my tyres cool down
If you think a drive through the Alps down to the Med at the French Riviera past Monaco and along the Italian riviera sounds fantastic, yes it does 'sound' fantastic - the reality is a bit different
We knew yesterday was going to be 'challenging' as we had a choice of trying to find somewhere around Nice to stay, a mid way Italian stopover, or a ' go for it' kinda day! The Cote D'Azure is decidedly motorhome unfriendly in terms of sites and Aires, and with 3.5T weight limits everywhere, no good in our 5T van!
Research with all of the resources I have to hand failed to find anywhere decent to stop, so set the sat nav for Massa in Italy to include motorways and tolls and set off down the mountain for a 400km jolly!
To be honest, I was actually looking forward to it ( I do love driving) but I refer you to paragraph 1
The roads down the mountains were as twisty as the day before but it was a bit overcast so less stunning views. Arriving into Grasse it all had the look of the stereotypical south of France glamour, fabulous buildings and plush looking hotels, well dressed women with little dogs under their arms, and men in berets playing the accordion on every street corner ....
2 hours after starting out, we hit the motorway. Me and the van both breathed a sigh of relief for a bit of straight smooth tarmac, and jak finally opened her eyes
Now, you'd think that stretch of motorway, being in an area that ain't short of a shekel or two, and passing some chic and glamorous places like Cannes, Nice, Monaco and along the Italian coast might be a pleasure like so many other continental motorways. Well, sadly no, very busy and with shuttering or fencing all along the coast side, hardly any views and no hard shoulder ( clearly the real estate is too valuable!) and the edge of the carriageway just fenced or shuttered
And then we crossed the border into Italy, and it all changed............
I now know where Chris Rea got the name from for his song ( you know the one!!!) cos we were on it
Has to have been the most horrible and uninspiring drives I've ever done! Never before have I been on a motorway where the sat nav shouts out 'warning' for sharp bends! Most of it was 2 lanes, and boy were they narrow lanes! Every lorry in the world was on that road, along with every driver who ever attended the RNIB driving school.
All the anectodal stories of Italian drivers are true, QED! They are obviously taught to use the full travel of any pedal they press every time, so it's either full power or full brakes, and all that after having had their brains removed - remarkable. And don't worry about leaving a gap, gaps are meant to be filled, clearly so you can fit more knobs on the road then there's the tunnels most of the drive felt like it was underground, there was a tunnel every few hundred yards, must've been through well over 100 of them along our route, and the paint was peeling off the walls inside every one . Yes, I bloody noticed that as there was sod all else to notice whilst dealing with all the knobs and the narrow lanes and the lorries, and I didn't even mention what they go like with the side winds when they emerge from a tunnel and out onto a viaduct it's not like they haven't been there before
................and relax. The loveliest words I heard all day were from my good old sat nav - ' you have reached your destination'
Will be here for a few days now, let my tyres cool down