Watts the problem

24th April 2006 (not posted until 28th as did not have GPRS connection in
Deiva Marina)

Thursday was washing day, and whilst Sue got down and dirty with the
dirties, I headed off into town on the bike to practise some Italian. The
thing is that in Italy most of the sites don't have a very good power
supply. I wont get too technical but in Noddy we rely on the good old leccy
for running the fridge, cooking, heating water for washing up, and the
occasional blast on the heater. Now this is all fine and well in the UK,
most of Spain and France, but in Italy there is just about enough available
to contemplate shaking a stick at. We can of course do all of the above on
gas, but gas in Europe can be a bit of a pain as nothing is inter country
compatible, i.e. gas cylinders and connections. So I headed off to see if I
could shed some light on what gas cylinders were available in the town and
also to try and find a low power kettle that we could use for the tea making
ceremony that occurs every morning. We usually use the hot plate and the
whistling kettle, but that uses to much power, which is obviously not
available.
Needless to say despite some very helpful shopkeepers and some pigeon
Italian, on my part, I was not able to find anything but domestic kettles,
no use. I did have more luck on the gas front and had a nice conversation,
well we were both talking, with a chap in a little shop that did sell gas,
and we can when needed either buy an Italian cylinder or get our UK cylinder
refilled. I must admit I had great fun touring the town on the bike dashing
in and out of shops and having bizarre conversations with non-English
speaking locals.
En-route back to camp I stopped off at the supermarket down the road to fill
the backpack with some essentials for lunch. I even made a mad dash back to
the shops later on to get food for dinner as the thunder clouds were
looming, but thankfully they passed and I stayed dry. Not wanting to be left
out we took Noddy out early evening for an amble back to the supermarket in
the evening to do a weekly shop, three times in a day, they know us pretty
well now.
We left our nice site on Friday as we thought it was going to get busy with
locals in the static caravans for the weekend, and headed off to Pegli on
the western outskirts of Genoa. We wont mention the problems we had trying
to find the turning for the site off the main road in the town. We drove up
and down the same 3-mile stretch several times, but eventually managed to
get where we wanted to.
On Saturday we hit Genoa. We got a train from Pegli as the station was only
a ten minute walk away and there was no way we were ever going to attempt to
try and find any parking in the city. The train only cost us 1€ per person
each way, so why would you do anything else. We had a pleasant enough stroll
around the old town, but it did not really seem to hit the mark with us. The
old churches and palaces along with the cathedral were very nice, but the
very old streets with tall looming buildings did not look anything but run
down. Usually the old towns have character, but we just could not find it.
We did however manage to find some nice food shops and sampled some local
cuisine such as a slice of a freshly made spinach and egg tart, well we
think that is what it was, as well as some freshly deep fried calamari from
a very busy take-away fried fish shop.
We did eventually see a great view of the city on Sunday when we left Pegli
heading for our next destination, as the main road goes right through town
along the side of the port on a raised carriageway, and you do get to see a
great sweep of the old buildings that was not really possible on foot down
below.
We are now at Deiva Marina, on the Italian Riviera more towards Pisa. The
drive here on Sunday was very pleasant through little seaside towns along a
winding up and down road on the coast. We did however hit the Autostrada for
the last 10 miles or so as the road on the map looked just too squiggly for
us to contemplate. Luckily enough the toll booth on the exit of the motorway
was out of order so the 10 miles cost us nowt, we could have got all the way
from Genoa for free!!
The site is great, very nice facilities, and quite busy but everyone is sort
of hidden away so you don't notice. There is a young English couple next to
us who are also touring around, hello if you are reading. We are planning to
do the 'Cinque Terre' on Wednesday. This is a group of five fishing villages
along the coast from here in a national park. You can get a train between
them or walk the coast, and it is supposed to be very beautiful. We are
leaving it until Wednesday as tomorrow is a holiday, Liberation Day, and
most locals are treating today as a holiday also. The English couple next
door found this out to their cost today as they tried to do the Cinque Terre
and said the trains were like the London Underground at rush hour, and it
was just as bad on the paths and in the villages. I am glad we planned
differently, and just cycled into town and beach to see what was about and
also get info on the fishing villages and how to get to them.
Hopefully we should have a better tale to tell than they did.

Non sapevo che facessi qualicosa di male.

Ciao

M&S