Travelling again

Yes. We are back in France and settled in our apartment just around the corner from where we were before. We would have liked to go back there but it is occupied by one ex colleague for part of the time. We are getting together with him on his Birthday.

My overall impression of Italy is one of extremes, as follows:

• Extremely bad traffic in some towns like Rome and Florence
• Extremely bad road signage and maps everywhere except on the Autostrada, which are privately owned and cost about 1 Euro per 10 km.
• Extremely bad driving which gets worse the further South you go.
• Extremely dysfunctional culture, for example:

• Bus tickets cost 10 Euro for ten trips but when you scan the card on the bus it takes 5 at a time, no one cares
• Railway ticket office can keep you in the queue for days
• Our car disappeared and it had been taken by the city because they wanted to install a light there. No warning, no notice, just a 200 Euro fine and towing charge.
• People walk straight into you on the footpath and then say sorry as if they expected you to jump out of the way. Happened every time I went out of the house.
• Buildings, streets, public paces all run down and looking that they've been left vacant for years.
• A complete absence of civic pride and common good like in France, Switzerland, Austria and Spain, but not Czeck Republic.

• Extremely good food
• Extremely good pizza (different as you will discover)
• Extremely good fresh food markets and seasonal produce
• A focus on quality rather than quantity and a real pride in the cuisine

And, last but not least, and most importantly - the people are wonderful, once you get to know them. It is well worth going out of your way to make friends there and be sociable with them, and they are amazingly welcoming and generous. We greatly miss our friends from everywhere we went, but the Italians were by far the warmest.

Here is a story.

We spent 3 weeks in Milano, which we both loved, but came to the conclusion that Milano food is not as good in quality or value as in Florence. We left Milano and drove to Chamonix in France so that Pam could see the Aguile Di Midi. The meal we had there was astounding. We were given a hot slab of rock and beef, lamb and duck to cook on it, together with sauces and accompaniments - sensational! And it snowed on us too.

We then drove to Savona, back in Italy, on the coast and we were the only ones in a seafood restaurant on the beach and it was amazing; a pizza with huge prawns all over it for me and Pam had a local fish dish which she wouldn't let me taste because it was so good.

After Savona a road trip going very slowly along the Italian coast to France and Monaco. Not improved by the coast road being closed and no assistance, no signs for alternative routes, not knowledge of other towns we could go through, and to make it even worse, the road along the coast had the same name for about 500 km, so we couldn't tell the GPS it was closed or it would have taken us via New York and Box Hill!!

Stopped for a meal in Cannes, and fell foul of the French attitude to tourists. They all spriuked endlessly until we had to hide in a corner and have a conference about how to proceed with their very pushy attitudes. We eventually chose a restaurant and the meal was pretty poor and very expensive.

Next stop Aix en Provence; a wonderful place, and our hotel was in the main street. The street with the carpark entry is closed to all but privileged residents, so the GPS took us around several blocks in a vain attempt to get us pass the electric bollards. We walked a few doors down and chose a cafe/restaurant on its looks and were escorted upstairs to a fabulous room with amazing architecture and art works that would put Grossi Florentino to shame.

The meal was unforgettable - entrees of chicken terrine (divine), sallops in their shells with a cheeses sauce (extraordinary), the best fish dish I have ever had and a steak with an amazing green pepper sauce that we will never forget. French food at its best. The wine, a local red caused the memories of being in France before to come flooding back. They promptly disappeared as the evening wore on of course.

Our drive from their to Montpellier was complicated by the French attitude to Autoroutes. They have blue signs, green signs, white signs and signs that you cannot see until you are past them. Pam kept on seeing exits to a place that we shouldn't have been anywhere near, so we stopped and consulted the map (GPS was resting!), and found that, despite our normally excellent navigational skills, we were on the wrong road. Once we got on the right road, which incidentally had two names and four different route numbers, we had no further problems. I must admit that French signs with French spellings mean absolutely nothing to me, especially if they mention towns that are not on the road or which are on the road but 4000 km along. I spend more time reading the map than driving.

Next stop Montpellier and a convenient visit to our old favourite Turkish for a quick escape from cooking and dishes. Not sensational but big and satisfying. Two nights later, warm weather and to celebrate a few wins with administrivial things, we went to - wait for it - an Italian pizza bar. The best pizza in years and the Pic St Loup shiraz/mouvedre matched it perfectly. Italians keeping up their reputation in France.

And then! Pam had earlier made friends with an English man whom has opened a restaurant here in Montpellier, so we arranged to meet him for lunch. He got delayed by a corporate function, but we had yet another exquisite example of French cooking. We have to go back of course.

I hope that explains something of the cultures and our attitudes to them. Next time I will try to remember the scenery and the weather.

Just a quick non-cultural comment; GPS is wonderful nowadays and it can get you right to your door without a moments stress - sometimes. Sometimes it is utterly wrong and you need to have a strategy for when that happens.

On the subject of terrorism and travel, in Europe thousands of people are travelling every day, and in the 13 months we've been away we haven't heard of any tourists being harmed by terrorists. In fact, it is more common for tourists to hurt each other. You only live once. I did read in our insurance policy that all insurance is null and void if you travel to a country that your embassy has advised against, so remember that.