Off to the backblocks of Genoa

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Sunday October 25th
Off to the backblocks of Genoa
Another cracker of a day has dawned and with the extra hour in bed we are feeling pretty refreshed after two days of walking in the Cinque Terre.
After breakfast we took a walk up the road from the hotel to the hilltop village.There were only two locals up and about and the woman we passed didn’t return our cheery ‘bonjurno’.However the man sitting admiring the view out to sea did sort of grunt back.We had the feeling that the locals weren’t keen on tourists snooping around their village on a Sunday morning.
Neither were the dogs!!We walked up an alleyway to take a photo or two and take a look at what we could see from the other side of the small group of houses. A little terrier stood in our way but turned around and walked in the same direction as we headed towards him. He didn’t look too ferocious so we carried on onlt to be stopped in our tracks by some very loud barking from around the corner we were approaching.That was the end of exploring this alleyway for us!!!We snapped a couple of quick photos and turned on our heels.Did we detect a wry smile on the face of the old man who was admiring the view??!!
We have passed the turnoff to the seaside town of Lerici several times over the past couple of days as we have gone to and from the hotel and the place looked very inviting so this morning on our way towards Genoa we drove down there.
There were a lot more people down here on the promenade but we were lucky and found a car park quickly.There is a very old castle on the headland just around from the township with a commanding position looking over the harbour entrance to the wide bay in which La Spezia sits.
We took a short stroll but in doing so we passed an officious looking parking meter lady(and this was 10am on a Sunday morning!!)and as we hadn’t really sussed out whether we should have found a parking meter and paid for the space we had RR in.We didn’t want another parking ticket(and we still haven’t sorted out the Amsterdam one)so we cut our stroll short and returned to the car.We did also have a good journey ahead of us and so it was back to the road.
We wanted to continue on SP1,which we had been on since Rome,and found the sign directing us toward it at the back of La Spezia.
However,as has happened so many times in Italy the signs ran out and we found ourselves on a road heading towards Rome!!the wrong direction.
Luckily it wasn’t too long before we were able to get off the road but the only one north we could find was the A12 motorway so that was what it had to be.It was certainly a high class road compared to the SP1 and we cut out a good distance quickly.
We came off after half an hour where there was access to the SP1 and drove through a gorge where the vegetation on the hillsides had been burnt out recently.It seems they have a problem here with dry undergrowth and a number of suspicious fires.The one on the Cinque Terre was apparently arson.
Being Sunday morning and we are still in Italy ,it is time for cyclists to be out in force and almost always in two’s or more making it a challenge to get past them as they seem to think they have a right to ride their bikes anywhere in the lane.
The road climbed steadily and now the challenge was avoiding the motor bikers who also get out in force on Sundays racing around the corners on the steeper roads.They would be easier to cope with if they didn’t like to cross the centre line when taking corners!!
The road climbed to an elevation of 613metres and we drove through a small town at the top of the Passo del Bracco with fantastic views out to sea.Unfortunately the little villages down on the Cinque Terre were hidden from view so we couldn’t give them a final farewell.
As we came down towards Sestri Levante we noticed a police patrol stopping motor bikers riding up the hill in the opposite direction to us.We were not sure what they were checking but obviously it wasn’t giving the bikers a fright enough to slow them down on the corners!!
Beyond Sestri Levante the road followed the coastline again through a number of towns.The only problem was that when you could see the seaside there was a double railway track with overhead electric lines in our vision.What a great case for undergrounding the train line!!(such as we should do on the Stand in Tauranga!!)
The weather this morning is absolutely stunning and ahead of us we could see the peninsula on which the photogenic town of Portofino is located.So at Rapallo we turned off with the idea of having our lunch on the seaside at Portofino.
There is a very attractive town of Santa Margherita Ligure that we passed through and we could have grabbed a parking space there but we carried on.We could see however that with the amount of traffic that we might be best to take a park whenever we saw the next one and we did.So it was a ‘boot lunch’for us enjoying the view out over the seawall to the small cruise ship anchored off Portofino which was just around the corner from where we were parked.
With lunch over we carried on but at the last corner an officious short Italian policewoman with her lollipop stick waved us down and turned us around as there was no available parking in Portofino and they didn’t want any sightseers cruising the streets.We guess this is probably the thing that happens every sunny weekend in what is supposed to be a very picturesque seaside town.
We returned to the SP1 and then after a short distance joined the A12 again as our instructions to the B&B above and behind Genoa started from the motorway.In fact the owners had emailed us a set of very detailed instructions which we thought was more descriptive than what we could have got from Google Maps.
We ran into a bit of problem when we found ourselves on the wrong side of the river and so returned to the start of the instructions and this time ended up in a supermarket carpark!!
Gathering our thoughts we took to the road again only to nearly have RR sideswiped by a smart ar.. Italian driver who we reckon thought he would give a couple of Kiwis in a car with a French number plate a scare.
Thereafter it was relatively straightforward and we followed the road up to the hillside B&B far above and behind Genoa away in the distance.
We had told the owners that we would there after 5pm but we were early at 3.30pm and it took a bit of banging on the door to get them out of their afternoon siesta.
The B&B is in an 18th century house with doorways so low I had to bend down to avoid banging my head.Our room has a lovely view down the hill towards Genoa.
We went up the hill further for dinner after 7.30pm at a local pizzeria recommended by the B&B.We under estimated just how dark it would be and it was just as well we had our Kathmandu dynamo torch with us to warn cars coming down the hill at breakneck speed that we were on the side of the road in the pitch black.Thankfully it was only 10 minutes and we were back under the street lights.
We had a tasty dinner of pizza for Gretchen and a gnocchi with pesto for me washed down with a bottle of Pinot Grigio.The prices were so cheap that we had sweets as well,tirumasu for Gretchen and ice cream with a hot chocolate sauce for me(can’t remember the Italian name).
It was easier walking down in the blackness and we were helped by the half moon which was a bit higher in the night sky.

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