Sanremo

Wednesday 21^st September, 2011

Another early start, you must all be sick of hearing that! Up at six again and went up for breakfast at 7.00am. Packed up the car and headed off just before 8.00am. We booked a room at the Hotel Miramare Continental Palace in Sanremo, Italy for tonight as a stopover before heading into France. It was a 3 hour trip with a couple of Autogrill stops along the way. We have never been through so many tunnels in our lives. One after the other, after the other with little villages dotted right throughout the region. The tunnels they have going through the mountains shorten what would otherwise be a very lengthy trip going around them.

We left the Autostrada as instructed by Ruby and started winding our way down the hill to see what is a larger town than we expected and again appears to be quite exclusive. Kim spotted the hotel very quickly so in we pulled to a four storey grand old hotel. We checked in and was told our room would be ready in 10 minutes so we wandered out the back to have a quick look around. The grounds overlooking the water are lovely with palm trees, hibiscus, gazebo’s and lounge chairs. Once again luck is with us in picking a great spot, sight unseen. The hotel proprietor came along and told us he had put us in a seaview room instead of the economy that we had booked. We think it is because we are Aussies and he has a son that lives in QLD. We had a good laugh with him and the porter because they asked if we had any luggage to which we responded ‘lots’. He replied ‘the room is not so big, either you in and luggage out or luggage in and you out’. We gave them our two biggest bags and they took them and us to our room, that’s a first. We’re used to carrying our own luggage around! We thought we’d check out the room and then head down later for the rest of our stuff. The room was fine with enough room for everything, us included!

As we arrived early we decided to take a look around town and have the mandatory gelato for lunch. After an hour or so of that we are now lounging under a gazebo in what is probably about 28 degrees, clear blue sunny skies and once again wondering what the poor people are doing? Oh, maybe we’ll take a walk along the promenade, catch you later.

Back again, we walked along the promenade a little and stumbled across a little bar. Good idea. Back we go for some money and in for a drink. That’s easier said than done though cause all we wanted was a vodka but trying to get it with a mixer isn’t easy. They have cans of lemon soda which we can usually get them to add to the vodka but if they don’t speak English very well that can be quite hard as we found out this afternoon. They also have flavoured vodka here so we always have trouble. Sure enough out comes this little shot glass with this very potent lemon flavoured vodka. The few people that were in the bar all seem to follow where they were being taken to so it obviously wasn’t the done thing and this at 3.00 in the afternoon. We downed that and then ordered a lemon soda and followed it up with that. Back into the room at 4:30 and relaxing again before we go and look at some more shops before having dinner. Trading hours here are very hard to get used to as is eating late but we’re managing! They shut from early afternoon for a couple of hours (siesta time I think) and usually re-open at about 4:00pm until 8:00pm and then they eat. I say usually cause some shops stay open and sometimes the hours seem to change a bit so it can vary but as Mirco from our last place used to tell us, ‘relax, you’re in Italy’. Says it all really.

Kim with vodka shot

Back from shopping again and dinner. Had trouble trying to find somewhere for dinner as there are more Pizzeria’s than anything else and we didn’t feel like pizza or pasta again. Obviously we are very spoilt for choice in Australia and although we have enjoyed the pizza and pasta we wanted something else. We chose somewhere just down the road but as it turned out it wasn’t our best choice especially for our last night in Italy. It was a shame because it is such a lovely place. Near the end of our meal an argument started between someone from a group of people leaving the restaurant and the waiter. We had no idea what it was about because we couldn’t understand a word but they were very loud and animated. There was only us and a couple of old ladies from Munich left at the restaurant and one of them spoke a bit of English so she filled us in. A little something to amuse us for a little while.

View of Hotel

View from our room

After 2 ½ weeks of trying to communicate in Italian and just when we think we’ve got it down pat we will be leaving for France tomorrow so it is Ciao for now, arrivederci. Stay tuned for how we go in French.