Part 2 (4 March - 17 March) From Monaco to Cinque Terre, Italy

Part two of our journey was scary, exiting, challenging and great fun!

Monaco & Monte Carlo

We thought it would be fun to drive through Monaco & Monte Carlo with our 3-ton truck as we passed it anyway on our trip from the Cote d`Azur to Milan. And fun it was, but mainly pretty scary as the roads have narrow hairpin turns up and down the mountain and are filled with cars that cost the same as the average house in Holland. So we were aware of the fact that if we would crash into anything here, we would have a very displeased insurance company.  But Nicolette did a good job, a few close encounters with a nun and a suicidal moped driver, but not an (additional) scratch on us or on any of our fellow road users and we were rewarded with breathtaking views of this movie-set-like country/city/town/centre-of-the-universe (whatever they like to be called). 

Drive to wintersports

Next morning we drove to the airport to pick up Loes and Sebastiaan so we could drive to Val Gardena (Ortisei) for a week of winter sports. They had reserved a rental Panda prepared for snowy conditions but at the collection Hertz decided in all their wisdom to give us a car with summer tires. But no worries, winter tires would only cost us a measly 20 euro per day extra ( which for 7 days rent adds up to double the rental fee). Unacceptable, so this turned out to be a heated 2 hour discussion, which we won in the end, and we were awarded a Panda 4x4, which turned out to be the best car we could have hoped for.

Navigation showed Ortisei as a 4 hour drive, in normal conditions, but this was the day the mother of all snowstorms decided to hit the Alps. It already rained heavily all the way to the mountains and as we gained altitude the rain changed into snow and visiblity turned to near-zero. So we drove slowly and steadily.

Because we started our trip 2 hours later than expected, it was dark when we reached the mountains which was also the moment the snowfall got worse, a lot worse. Then at the worst moment possible, we took a wrong turn which made us go up a steep, snow covered mountain track where we had to turn after 2km of climbing. Going up was no problem, but within 50 meters on the way back down, Nicolette lost control over the Toyota and it started sliding. She steered towards the mountain wall to prevent the car from sliding down the mountain, luckily the car stopped just before hitting the wall. Jeroen then engaged the 4 wheel drive and took over. He did great (going down at an average speed of 6kph) and got us back on track safe and sound. 

Going up the correct road we noticed many 2WD cars at the side of the road stranded, we were still ok. Then we saw some cars at the side of the road which had crashed into each other or into some other obstacle, we were still ok. Then everything came to a grinding halt as we had to climb a 14% incline which had almost 10 cm of snow on it (with only 8km left to go). There was a chain of stranded cars on our side of the road blocking our way, not able to go up or get back down. We thought we would get stranded there, but the next moment a snow plow came to the rescue, we jumped in our cars and followed it in its tracks all the way to Ortisei. Many other cars tried the same but couldn’t follow and got stranded. Our next challenge was that the apartment was situated on top of a 20% little street, no possibility of parking below, so we took a leap of faith, put the pedal to the metal and made it, sooooo happy and relieved that we and the car were undamaged that evening. Both our cars did great considering the circumstances. Panda 4x4 did better than many Audi’s, BMW’s and Volkwagens. 

Wintersports in Ortisei

The next day we could start to enjoy our winter sports week together and it was great! Lots of fresh snow, sometimes limited sight due to clouds, but overall good conditions and more importantly, no broken bones or torn ligaments. In the evening we played Ligretto and Wazabi, which (especially Ligretto, go look it up, it is one crazy card game) brought out a highly fanatic side of us. We celebrated Loes her birthday on the Friday with a delicious restaurant dinner.

Cinque Terre

After a week in the snow we could use some sun & sea so we decided to head for Cinque Terre. These are 5 villages situated on the coastline of the Italian Riviera a little to the south of Genova, and are an UNESCO world heritage site. People used to be able to walk along 4 beautiful trails connecting all 5 villages, but in 2011 2 of these trails unfortunately were taken out by massive landslides, so we were able to visit 3 villages with a nice view on the 4th. The walk was quite tough with lots of uneven Inca-trail-like steps carved from the rock, but look at the view, spectacular!

Time for some culture, we`re off to Pisa, Florence and Siena.