the grand finale

I’m writing this after having already started the next adventure, so I’ll try to keep it somewhat brief. J SO for my last week in Europe, dear papa flew over to Europe and we set off on an epic road trip.

Pops rented this little French convertible and we basically drove through the French and Italian countryside for 5 days.  We didn’t really plan anything out beforehand, no hotel reservations or ferryboat bookings, we just decided where we wanted to go, and went, and stayed or moved on if we felt like it.

Also, no GPS.  I navigated the entire thing from a paper map. How old-timey of me, huh?

Yes, we got lost several times…hahaaa….actually a lot, but we survived! and made it where we wanted to go, so it was all okay.

So after leaving Lyon, we headed for Mont Blanc! Mont Blanc is the range’s highest peak  and is claimed by France, Switzerland, and Italy. Coming from France, we stopped in Chamonix, a little cutesy, touristy ski town close to the peak, and took a lift up to one of the neighboring peaks to get an incredible view of Mont Blanc.

Next destination: Italy.

The easiest way to get from the French side to the Italian side is to go through Mount Blanc.  Relatively recently, the countries worked together to build this hugeeee tunnel through the mountain. Ya go in and you’re in France, you come out, and you’re in Italy! 

Once in Italia, we had planned to drive straight down to the coastline.  But then I saw this place called Lago Maggiore on the map (aka Lake Maggie), which my guidebook described as gorgeous (naturally), so of course we just had to go.

We took a little ferry out to one of the islands.  Actually, we ended up accidently going to several of the islands even though we only paid for one because we didn’t know when we were supposed to get off the boat.

I really didn’t mind that old boat ticket man yelling at me in Italian. I couldn’t really understand what he was trying to say (except the elevated tone of voice) so I just looked innocent and waited for him to finish, so we could get along with our merry little boat tour.

When we finally did get off on the island, it started pouring. And I mean POURING. So we stopped for ice cream. 

Did I mention how many older people there were at Lago Maggiore? Dad and I felt a little out of place for being under 70.

Leaving Lake Maggie, we drove south through Italy until we became really really hungry, and then we stopped in this little bitty town in the middle of nowhere, parked the car, and asked the first person we saw (an old man and his wife coming out of church) where we could find a good spot to eat. They pointed to a little (seemingly hole-in-the-wall) restaurant across the parking lot, and we went.

What a great decision. The owner didn’t speak any English, and about as much French as I speak Italian…which is like 5 words.  He was so happy to have us there (tons of locals, even a little gang of middle-schoolers, but we were definitely the only foreigners!) and it was really fun to communicate through broken French and lots of pointing and smiling. Hahaa.

And of course, the pizza was AMAZZING.  We ordered a gorgonzola and prochuittio pizza (basically blue-cheese and fancy Italian salami).  Ohhh it was so delicious. J

After dinner, we asked the dude if there were any good hotels nearby where we could stay. He found one of the regulars from the bar who knew a little more French, and he gave us directions to the only hotel in town.

When we arrived, the guy was so shocked to see us, haha, he spoke French pretty well though, and was just so incredibly sweet. 

In the morning, he served us the most decadent cappuccinos  (a norm in Italy) and these delicious little cream filled pastries…grazie!

Then, we went to Pisa! Everybody i talked to said not to go...just a tourist trap and not really anything else in the town but the tower, but I didn't listen. :)

Then we continued driving south until we reached the coast! Then we drove west on these fun little curvy windy roads until we reached Montremossa, the most eastern town of the Cinque Terre—a place I’ve been longing to visit for ages! The Cinque Terre is a group of five villages along the northern Italian coast that are not connected by roads…the only way to travel between them is by train or by hiking! So pops and I stayed in a hostel there for a night and hiked along the coastal cliffs and vineyards to a couple of the villages.

And the crystal blue water was just so clear and inviting (not to mention cold) I just had to jump in.

After leaving the Cinque Terre, we continued to drive along the coast, stopped at some other cool little towns, and then drove a little inland to Florence.

We ended up getting pretttty lost in Florence, haha but it was beautiful. So many ornate marble statues and buildings. We went to a fabulous Picasso/Dalhi/Mali exhibit, bought some leather shoes (outlet!), took about 100 pictures of the river, and ate double scoops of gelato for dinner.  J

Looking for a hotel was a bit challenging. I was trying to find the door of this bed  &breakfast that I found online 30minutes earlier (thanks to free wifi at the Picasso exhibit), and ended up knocking on the wrong door, being greeted by a sympathetic and cheery woman from Australia who invited us into her living room where we spent the next hour and a half talking with her, her husband (a kiwi) and their 2 kids about everything from ipod apps to gelato.  And they found us a hotel. And they might give my cousin a job offer. Yeah, that was a lucky knock, guess there are just good people everywhere!

After leaving Florence, pops and I drove back up along the Italian coastline, drove through Monaco, Cannes (during the big film festival, Festival de Cannes),  and Nice. We also drove along these 3 gorgeous highways built by Napoleon back in the day. These roads are called “les corniches” and there is a low, middle and high one, kinda like the Route 1 of the French Mediterranean.

Then from Nice we headed back up north towards Lyon and stopped at a vineyard to do some wine tasting along the way. Oh and then we ran into a biscuit tasting shop (in france biscuit = cookie). So for dinner, we went cookie tasting. Haha.

We might have gotten a bit lost at times….haha….but pops and I had a blast. Epic road trip, thanks papa J