Monday 26th November 2007

The morning dawned clear and bright and breakfast consisted of a plum! Before we left I wanted to have another quick walk and admire the scenery.
Today was quite different, it was very clear in the distance and the Alps had appeared, covering the whole of the northern horizon with snow-clad peaks. However, looking down into the valleys was another matter with the cotton wool fog filling every dip. This made the scene incredibly picturesque with villages and hills appearing like islands out of the mist. The scenery here is fantastic and it must change at each season making it a wonderful place to visit at any time of the year.
This has certainly been one of the best stays of The Odyssey, but we must move on and we have a long journey today so by 10:00 we are bidding a reluctant farewell to Ai Cuivin and Castiglione Tinella. The scenery was lovely on the early part of the journey – Castiglione Tinella is quite high (over 700m) and this gave us views to the mountains and down the valleys until we descended by hairpin bends to Santo Stefano Belbo. Here we purchased supplies and found a very helpful butcher who spoke some English. We bought some steak and pork cutlets and asked his advice on some pasta that we bought from him. The ravioli was stuffed with cheese and nuts and he advised serving it with some sage fried in butter with perhaps a little shaved cheese such as Parmesan – we must not serve it with a tomato-based sauce! This sounded great but we didn't have any sage on any way of obtaining any. The butcher however realised this and dashed out to the back of the shop and returned with a sprig of sage – what service!
We wound our way over hills and down valleys until we joined the motorway to Savona. As we approached the coast, it became Autumn again with the trees still retaining their gloriously orange and brown leaves. I was somewhat confused by the fact that the motorway only appeared to have one carriageway until I noticed that the road over the other side of the forested valley only had traffic going in the opposite direction. This was the first time that I had seen a motorway split by a very deep valley, but it made a great deal of sense given that the steepness of the valley made any road construction very difficult. Our carriageway was originally a single lane in each direction and the opening of the new road on the other side must have been a dramatic improvement.
The road descended through many tunnels, at one point crossing underneath itself with a tunnel underneath another tunnel, until it reached the coast.
The journey to San Remo on another motorway was also full of tunnels with glimpses of the sea and many resorts full of hotels. Italian campsites on this coast are expensive and, given that we were only staying one night and moving on early the next morning, we decided to use a camper stop. The Camperstop Europe book showed a free site on the edge of San Remo right on the coast and this seemed ideal. I would not be without this book but its accuracy leaves something to be desired - it actually turned out to cost €7 but this was still very good value.
We arrived in Sanremo (rather than San Remo, which seems to be the English version of the name) quite early, so we decided to investigate the town. It was much warmer than it had been of late (around 17°C according to our somewhat unreliable thermometer) and I walked in a shirt and light jacket. We came across the Tourist Information Office and made the mistake of obtaining a map. We had intended to simply walk along the promenade and back, but now we realised that we investigate the old town. As members of the BAGS walking group will testify, one of my favourite hobbies is getting lost and we did that in style! I only accept joint responsibility here, I did not have my reading glasses and Jane had the map but we walked up very steep zig-zag roads for some time before Jane announced the bad news – we were on hill the west of the town, a long way from where we should have been. At this point we cut our losses and found a much more direct route back down to the promenade and back to Henrietta.
Neither of us felt like eating meat after yesterday's excesses, so we had the pasta with the sage and butter – it was delicious. Many thanks to the butcher in Santo Stefano Belbo – we will go there again next time that we visit the town!
Photos: Mist and mountains; Vineyards from Ai Ciuvin; Close up view of Castiglione Tinella; Pitch at Sanremo; Bocciofilo at Sanremo; The coast at Sanremo.