Category: Italy

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Roundabout Drive from Nice to Paris

This was a rather roundabout way to get to Paris, as it took us through Italy, Switzerland and Luxembourg, but it made for a great trip. We took the coastal freeway to Savon and from there, turned up to Turin, until we reached our first night’s stay just north and outside of Turin in the the Canavese Valley. There are numerous small towns in the area, situated in the foothills of the Alps. We stayed at a small B&B just outside of the town of Strambinello, called the Castello (Castle) di Strambinello. It would be just outside, west of Ivrea, off the freeway that travels from Turin to Aosta.

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San Remo-San Lorenzo Bike Path

Along the Ligurian coastline of Italy, just east of Nice, there’s a wonderful oceanside bike route that has been created from a previously removed train track path. This old coastal railway track operated in the nineteenth century and linked the Riviera to northern Europe, from Genoa to Ventimiglia, but was abandoned in 2001 and moved further inland. It currently runs 24 km from San Remo to San Lorenzo however it is a work in progress and when finished it will provide 70 km of great biking riding. For those who enjoy casual bike rides on flat surfaces, it’s a great excursion for everyone in the family.

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Sunday in Ventimiglia, Italy

It’s become a bit of a tradition now, when in Nice on a Friday and not much else is planned, to take the train over to Ventimiglia, an Italian town on the coast just on the other side of the border and about a 1/2 hour from Nice. It is quite a large market that meanders along the coastal boardwalk, featuring clothing, leather goods, scarfs and shoes at one and food booths at the other. We usually always stock up on parmesan cheese (try the samples to get the one that you like best) and wonderful salami sausages. I think it’s a decent market and enjoy going. But do avoid it in the summer months, there’s just way too many people.

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A visit to Torino, Italy

Torino (or Turin) is surrounded by the Alps by 300 degrees, situated in the large valley of Piedmonte with the river Po runs through the middle of it. Whereas Paris and even more so in Rome, it’s easy to get lost in the streets, or find yourself walking in circles, not so in Torino. The terrain is flat and the streets are laid out in a grid, broken up by magnificent plazas ordained by beautiful buildings, and a few diagonal streets leading off from the Madama Palace. This makes it very easy to get around and certainly not get lost. There is little in the way of greenery in the central part of Torino – a lot of rock, marble and brick. It is a clean city, with numerous pedestrian streets, especially via Roma, the main street of Torino.

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Road Trip: Nice to Torino, Italy

We had three trips planned for the second week of November, each depending on what the weather was going to be like. Either we’d fly to Naples (cheap EasyJet flights out of Nice) and explore the Amalfi Coast, drive east along the Liturgia Coast, or go northeast to Piedmonte in Northern Italy. On Monday morning the weather looked best for Piedmonte so we rented a car, booked the hotel rooms and were off early Tuesday morning. We had already done our homework for all three destinations so we knew what we wanted to see and do.

NOTE: The Col de Tende road tunnel may be currently closed due to construction work, scheduled to open again in 2025.

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Tuscany One-Week Tour

Piazza (Plaza) della Signora, Florence, Tuscany

In October of 2011 we visited Tuscany, first flying into Vienna for a few days and then taking the train over to Florence. We stayed in Florence for a couple of nights, then rented a car and drove down to Sienna on Highway SR222. This a beautiful drive with a number of places worth visiting along the way. From Siena we did side trip visits to Monteriggioni, Colle di Val d’Elsa, San Gimignano and Volterra. After a couple of days in Siena we drove down to Montepulciano, staying at a chateau just outside of the town, called Dionora. From here we visited Montepulciano, Pienza, San Quirico and Montalcino. A week was just about right, with three days in Florence, two days in Siena and two days near Montepulciano, to become quite familiar with Tuscany and discover which places we like best to come back for a longer visit. Here’s some of the things we recommend.

 

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Venice, Italy

We started our 2011 Tuscany trip with first a visit to Venice and ended it by driving down to Rome.

Venice is Venice. Nothing quite like it anywhere else and it should be on everyone’s bucket list. The problem with it being on everyone’s list is that it can be terribly crowded, and there isn’t a lot of room on some of those streets. Or I guess they aren’t streets but actually sidewalks and promenades.

If you go there, try to go when it is off-season, or as much off-season as Venice gets. Summer months, vacations times, school breaks and long weekends, check the calendar well before you make those reservations. We were there in early October and it was still crowded, but doable. We kept away from the main fairways as much as possible but even then, all we could think was, wow, if this is October, what is August like?

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