Monday 25th May 2009 - Tuesday 26th May 2009

Bungalow Camping Baciccia, Ceriale/Savona (ACSI2009-1469) N44.08164 E8.21777

After scanning the ASCI book, we decide to head to Ceriale, we stayed in this area last year with Joan and Bryan, on our way home from Croatia via Venice.

The route is simple, mostly motorway, and there is little cause for argument with the satnav, but on leaving the motorway, we find the toll booth is unmanned (fairly common in Italy). Since we are driving a Van with the steering wheel on the “wrong” side, handling the tolls is the passenger’s task. Problem one is I fail to get near enough to the machine so that the boss can reach the buttons for the machine from her seat. So she has to scramble out of the cab to get near enough to the machine, minus her glasses of course. The machines are quite neat, and “speak” the instructions as to which buttons to press and how much you need to pay. The instructions or course are in Italian, and on this particular machine the button to switch to English instructions clearly did not work, and it just kept on issuing instructions in Italian. This led to an argument between the Boss and the toll machine, picture if you will an irate Kathleen shouting at a toll machine which of course continued to repeat the same Italian phrase over and over.

Last year when we were in this area, we stayed at a site called Bella Vista, so we decided to try the other site in the area. In our view it is better than Bella Vista, one advantage is that it is not as far up the hill, so cycling back from the supermarket with a full pack is much less hard work!

Today we set off to cycle to Allasio, which according to our map reading is about 7 miles north of here along the coast. Enroute we had to pass through Albenga (about 4 miles away). This was a pleasantly surprising place. It is a “working” town, rather than a tourist destination, but is has an a very old section, with a labyrinth of narrow streets. It looks Arabic, but according to the information in the museum it is Byzantine (what ever that is). There is also a 4th century church dedicated to John the Baptist, with murals and a full immersion font all amazingly well preserved considering their age.