It should have been a great day and for me it was pretty good. Jenny woke up in a bad mood, not sure why, I'm innocent.
We had hoped to be on the road by 9am, we did wake up at 7am, but we're a bit slow to have breakfast (cereal) pack our gear & clean up the Studio room so we receive our 300€ bond back. We also now know why you should not put dish washing liquid in a Dishwasher. Trust me not good, didn't take to long to clear away all the suds....
So we lugged all our gear & bikes down the 350yo worn stairs, nearly completely dark in some places & don't forget to duck your head under the cross beams. The Studio & Nice were both excellent.
Then it's time to negotiate our way out of Nice, DaveGPS wants to go one way, Jenny wants to keep closer to the coast (which is a hilly road that hugs the cliff).I don't really mind either way, so when Jen tells me to use my brain and not to put so much trust into a gadget, I agree to go the way I think she means, remember I'm in the lead (reluctantly).
3 awkward flights of stairs to the very narrow street below.
Good bye Nice, following the coastal cliff road.
Not happy Jen !
First small French tunnel just around the corner.
It works out ok until Monaco, I'll remember 4 things about that place, 1) Some nice cars, all the usual candidates, Lambo's, Ferrari's, GTR Nissans, Porches, new Shelby Stangs, Maserati's, Bentley Coupes and of course Astin Martins.
2) riding our push bikes across and down the main starting grid for the Monaco F1 Grandprix. 3) getting snookered at the bottom of the hills at Monte Carlo Beach and having to walk our bikes up a mega steep hill. 4) the nice road & down hill run out of there !
Monaco is getting ready for the F1 later this month. Watch out for the White Ferrari Jen.
Tourists in Monaco.
F1 car statue in the background.......Nice....(my latest catch phrase :-)
Looking back towards Monaco. (The tall hotels)
The sky's were now really starting to threaten with rain, we have arrived into our last French town, Menton after riding 36kms, both of us have been required to put our bladders on hold for the last 2 hours. They mustn't pee much in Monaco. So we find a nice Cafe looking over the stormy Med & order a couple of pasta dishes plus a couple of Peroni beers ( got to practice my Italian you know :-). Of course we used the toilet as well, always a good sign when they are spotless. We are nervous about eating food in establishments with yucky toilets ! Nice lunch and it appeared Jen's mood was improving as she was now saying more then 3 words to me.
Peroni's on the beach Menton, France.
Looking forward to a feed & rain.
The Italian/French border was only 4kms away so we crossed that and took the necessary photos, there were at least 40 camper van parked around the now defunct border crossing....no mans land free camping ? I'm not sure ?
We had a few tunnels to contend with as well, a 600mtr one on the French side had us going around the long way along a small Chemin that followed the cliff for 2kms.
Always take a photo of the border crossing sign first.
Once into Italy we had a quite a few more tunnels, 100mtrs, 170mtrs, 300mtrs and the Mother of them all at 830+ metres, We now had all of our LED bike lights strobing merrily away in the gloomy conditions. At "The Mother" tunnel Jen was about 30 mtrs behind me and I could her yelling....screaming, I don't want to go through THAT ! There was a lot of road noise from cars and motor bikes, plus the rain was pelting down. I had a quick look, the tunnel was long, straight & with a good descent. So I pretended I couldn't hear Jen over the noise (plus I had about 3 seconds to make a decision when I did hear her) and went for it, I was whooshing through at 45km/h, Davo shut himself down, "no satellite reception" I took a quick peak in my new "Nice" rear view mirror and could see Jens headlight flashing away brightly, so she had decided to follow. We were out of there in no time and into a fast downhill run into the Italian town of Ventimiglia.
Jenny headed towards her first Italian tunnel.
This is the second Italian tunnel, Jenny's in there on the right if you look really hard.
The rain was still pouring down so we pulled into a Service Station (Prepaid & Closed) to get out of the rain, I was also hoping to fill up my camp stove bottle. Jenny just yelled at me about the awesome tunnel & how scared she was, then started to tear up a bit, or was it the rain?
I did my best to smooth things over, the rain had eased so we continued East through a very traffic congested town, no photos of this we were to busy keeping our wits about us. Or call it survival mode !
Not much further on we reached the campground, we were going to stay in the tent, but with all the wind (at least it was a tail wind all day) and rain I decided to make the executive decision and get a small bungalow for the night. I just asked Jen if she is feeling happier & she said No, oh well I'll keep trying. See you on the road some time.
Nervous about the rain, cars, wife & Italy.....lol
Still looks like rain see we take the easy option, a bit dear at 88€, but I'm trying to be .........Nice !
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