Day 15 Friday 12/5/2017
Breakfast started well!
..it was actually empty! But it augured well for the day! Anyway off about 9.40am after a very relaxing, non-sight seeing, just-chilling night in a very nice hotel with nowhere to see around it! We headed for Nutella the home of Alba - ah sorry let me type that again..we were heading for Alba, the home of Nutella (well, actually the Ferraro factory - one of the biggest disappointments of the holiday. NO VISITORS! ). First stop was the very nice Alba Cathedral of St Lawrence, beautifully painted inside.
..plus a bunch of trainee chefs having a break...
Alba is also big on truffles both black and white...
White truffles at a mere snip of 140 euros a kilo
Black truffles at 350 euros a kilo!
A failed attempt at buying something at Ferraro (staffs only) has us heading for the hills. We were en route to the Med and the cross country route took us through some interesting terrain...
It is wine country so interesting enough but it got much more interesting after our lunch stop..top down, top up, top down - a day of rain showers.
Having spent quite a bit of the day in the car we headed straight out for a walk along the beach ( not sand ) and promenade. And finally we found a bar overlooking the sea and had a couple of drinks. Best view in the house!
Alessandria to Ospedaletti 147 miles. Total 1850 miles.
We knew we were heading into hills but it got so much more dramatic than we had thought. First of all snow appeared on the...mountain? Yes snow! Heck we are almost at the Med. How did that happen?
Then we were heading for France! But our hotel was booked in Italy? How was all this possible? We had to cross the Alps at Col de Tende and found a fantastic single track tunnel through the mountain. We felt very Pioneerish! It was opened first in 1882.
We were very fortunate to catch the tail end of a traffic lights sequence and thus to avoid a 20 minute wait. The rain started as we were approached the tunnel but we managed to make it under cover before we got too wet. On emergence 3.2km later on the south side we encountered dry weather and started our descent from 1280m to sea level. After a few kilometres the rain caught up with us and we were very fortunate to be at a layby which allowed us to get the top up before we got VERY wet. We were both disturbed by the poor communities which suffered some very heavy freight traffic passing through incredibly narrow roads. No wonder some of the local inhabitants are up in arms about a second road tunnel through the Col which would bring even more traffic. The road is not geared up for heavy traffic...
Then we drove back into Italy! The same road. WWII shenagingans we think, with territory passing back and forth. However there were Military guys with guns at the border crossings in and out of Italy/France. They were not interested in us at all but there were machine guns and a very heavy duty presence.
Our hotel in Ospedaletti, the Hotel Firenze, turned out to be a star - we have a large room with a sea view and private secure parking all within easy walking distance of the beach and the town.
