Nedly on his Treadly: Genova to Bordighera

Monday December 6, 2010

My campsite for the night in Genova, Italy.

When I woke up in the morning, it was still raining. This made me really reluctant to get up - it's hard to bring oneself to pack up and set off in the rain and cold. I drew the line at 11 am and got up. Because of the rain, I ate brekkie in the tent, cereal as usual. Then I set off at about 12:30 pm for another big day in the saddle. It was very cold to start off with, a chilly 2°C, and combined with the rain, this made the riding rather miserable, but I trekked on. Temperatures during the day ranged from about 2°C to 9°C. The whole day was rather uneventful, although the scenery along the way was cool. On parts of the trek, I was on a dedicated bike lane which ran alongside the coast and went through lots of tunnels, mostly short ones.

One of the many tunnels I went through on the bike path, this one in Arenzano, Italy.

I think the bike path must have been built on a disused train line because I'd be very surprised if they went to all that effort of building these tunnels a hundred years ago just for bicycles!

I stopped in at a restaurant for lunch and ordered a pizza, of course. And it was delicious. Man I love pizza! And only €8, the pizzas are cheap here!

Lunch! Pizza again of course.

I think the riding would have been quite pleasant if it weren't for the rain and drizzle, which persisted the whole day. I passed through so many little towns along the way that they all began to look quite similar. A pattern was occurring - a little coastal town, followed by a patch of cliffs/mountains where it was too difficult to build towns, then more towns, more mountains/cliffs, and so on.

On the Via Aurelia between Vado Ligure and Bergeggi, Italy.

On the Via Aurelia near Malpasso, Italy.

It got dark, and I kept riding, until I needed to refuel, which was just after a town called Imperia and I downed some choc-chip cookies, fresh long-life milk and a banana.

I kept going until I got to San Remo where, continuing with the patterns theme of the day, I decided to order a pizza. Well, it wasn't really a decision, just an accepted, inevitable event. It was a good pizza too, better than average, and again only €8.

Dinner! Pizza again, this time at a restaurant in Sanremo, Italy.

The waiter could speak English fairly well, and we had a bit of a chat. He was impressed by how far I'd traveled and was quite friendly. I told him I was aiming to get to Nice that night, but he was strongly against the idea and tried to dissuade me. He suggested I instead stay at the caravan park/camping ground just a kilometre or so down the road. It was just before 10 pm after-all, so I guess it was a bit unrealistic and not a very attractive prospect to ride another 60 km that night to Nice, after I'd already covered 125 km. Yes, the waiter had dissuaded me successfully. So when I headed off, I was on the lookout for a suitable campsite. And it had finally stopped raining, and was relatively warm; things were looking up.

I stopped at a park another 10 km's or so further down the road and sussed it out - it was all a bit sloped though, no flat spots of ground. Then I spotted a potential site across the road on the seaward side. Sure enough, it was a goer, so I set up there at around 10:30 pm - a relatively early one! I tried to dry out some of my clothes and ate some choc-chip biscuits before going to sleep just after midnight.