(written 11/4/06 15:32 Greek time, in Náfplio, Greece)
It was raining and misty when we woke, and as such we decided not to hang around Torino. On our way out, we attempted to locate olympic sites but failed - we had certainly expected far better signage than we able to locate, but perhaps a lot had been pulled down. Liz observed the buzz that seemed to hang around Sydney for months after the games just didn't seem to be here - so much was closed and deserted it was as if people had just gone off somewhere else entirely.
We stopped at a café on the outskirts of the city where lovely man served us coffee and a bit of breakfast while his assistant stopped a dog from jumping on the window she had just cleaned, cleaned it again and repeated this several times.
Getting out of town on small roads (hence avoiding the hefty tolls you pay on most motorways in Europe), we drove south through flat farmland towards the coast. The weather improved but then deteriorated again, not exactly the great sunny days we were hoping for.
We drove up into hills heading to the coast at Savona where we were consumed by amazingly thick fog. Luckily weeks earlier we had located the control for the fog lights on Schnee Three, so we flicked them on and proceeded carefully around hairpin bends with about 10m visibility. In retrospect this was probably safer than the motorways, where no doubt some idiots would have still been driving at 130km/h.
Only for the last couple of hundred metres were we out of the fog as we hit the coast at Savona, turning east along the coast to Genoa.
The choice not to use the motorways let us find some lunch at Taverna Marinara in Varazze a little while before Genoa, but meant very slow going as we went through the city itself and out the other side.
A little while further along these narrow scenic coastal roads and we wound our way down through yet more fog into Santa Margherita Lígure, a little place we liked the sound of at the northern end of the Riviera di Levante.
We parked and wandered, finding a nice hotel
Nuova Riviera which was still very posh, but within budget, with helpful staff and nice to relax at. After a bit of negotiation we we able to put the car in the front, although the way the old owner directed me in to the tight spot ended up putting small scratches on the front bumper. Can't be helped I guess.
We wandered around town, but the weather still wasn't fantastic. We end up at
Ristorante Sangiacomo on the waterfront for a couple of great pizzas with nice views.