On the road - Italy into France

Lago Di Garda - Italy's largest lake
Basking in autumnal sunshine

The plan has evolved as you will have discerned from Sheryl's last post. We're on the move, in no uncertain terms, with a reasonable journey to complete, hopefully finding our Eldorado of golden weather to tide us through winter. As Sheryl says, we  will confirm this early next year.
Driving across Italy from Chioggia the stop was called at Lake Di Garda, a thriving tourist destination, (no one told us that!!) called Peschiera. We pulled in locating a camp reasonably quickly and headed out on our bikes to immerse ourselves in the balmy autumnal lakeside ambience, only slightly shattered by the heaving throng of tourists, also seeking the quiet ambience, mmmmmm yes well that's the issue isn't it???

A municipal building on the canal into the lake

Our thoughts were, it was the Sunday rush thing, the town was full of German bikes and cars, they would all scarper off during the evening and leave Sheryl & me to ourselves. Yeah right! They were all, pretty much, there the next day as well.
Headed into town in the morn. and came across perhaps the biggest market we've encountered yet, with hundreds of stalls, coming to the realisation that there is really only a handful of products to sell, that get repeated "ad nauseum", but you still have to keep on looking as occasionally there is something different at the odd stall.

Sunset on the lake from camp

We spent a good 90mins separately wandering and sad to say both came away with nothing. Still it was fun.
Peschiera trades on tourists who come for its many natural beauties, being the largest lake in Italy. It is Northern Italy so it is in mountainous country at the top end, akin to Queenstown in many ways except, at night you spot the hundreds of small settlements dotted around the whole shoreline. In Europe there is seldom a place that can be built on, not built on. I expect in 2000yrs. Queenstown will be the same. Money and influence rule.
The other attractions to this area are its Movieland and SeaWorld, which needless to say we stayed well clear....

This could be anywhere in
New Zealand!

From here we crossed back through the mountains to the Med. coast, was very reminiscent of Buller Gorge and  the Lewis Pass, not busy and with having just flooded a week prior was clean (flushed) and showing some signs of wear and tear. We had trouble finding a camp as many in this area close over the low season. When we finally found one at Bobbio that should have been open, they were closed due to the flooding. We pleaded for a place to park as it was late, saying we didn't need any amenities and for a modest charge they ceded & allowed us to stay.

Bobbio and the crooked Roman bridge

Bobbio, again, a small village steeped in historical intrigue and politics, won't bore you, but always a good back story to be had in this country. These days it's a quiet back water with the great flood of 2015 the only talk in town. Not so many priests and cardinals in town whipping up a crowd to overthrow the incumbent despotic land holding tyrant.
The road took us on to Genoa, which we narrowly avoided 3 months earlier as we headed to Elba. The old port area was calling and though Sheryl wasn't keen, we found a reasonably central camp to set out from in exploration.

Genova - city of roofs looking out to sea

Alas I hadn't fully done my homework, this city of 1.5m people is "largish", and well spread over the the steep gullies and gulches clinging to the steep Med. coast. My 12 minutes to the city centre was in reality 12 minutes to railway station then 30 minutes by train to town, albeit at a very reasonable 24hr all transport ticket at 4.50 Euro. Unfortunately the train system crashed that afternoon and after waiting for 90minutes we caught a bus for the hour plus ride back to camp. The best made plans .....But woe is me.... our first shite weather of the trip and we didn't even make it to the old port area as it was too cold, blustery and wet. Instead found a warm Pizzeria and whiled away some time waiting on the wind and rain to

Looking back into  Port Genova
with all it's cranes

abate before being thwarted at the rail station. Genoa does not rate highly with us, which in most probability is an unfair call, but there we have it!!!

Roll on the Riviera.