Poking along in Italy

After leaving the cities of Florence and Siena we wanted to spend a little time by the ocean.  So we worked our way up from Pisa towards Genoa.  In the end we turned back inland prior to reaching Genoa but it was fun none the less.

Going to the beach can be quite the production.  Here we walked out on a pier to look back at the beach.  It is late in the season and during the week so there isn't a lot going on!  This is in a little town called Forte dei Marmi.  It has mountains directly behind it so is protected from bad weather.  Unfortunately it was rather cloudy when we visited so the mountains were hiding.

Then we went up to the town of Chiavari.  Again the beach was remarkably uncrowded.  One day we drove up to Ste. Margherita Ligure for lunch and a little walk.  It was a lovely little town built around it's harbor.

Finally we needed to start making our way towards Venice but first....  I have been a sports car fan since my 1959 TR3 so a visit to Italy obviously called for a stop in Maranello at the Ferarri Museum.

They did have a few red cars on display!  I must admit that I was disappointed by the museum.  First it is quite small and secondly there were virtually no new model production cars.  The newest cars were 8 or 10 years old.  Granted it is a museum but I know they sell the darned things.  They also had a number of race cars including F1, road racing and some lesser known formulas but again they were all pretty old.

On the way over to Maranello we kept to the back roads avoiding the motorways as much as possible.  We wanted to see Italy and you see a lot more at 60 kph than at 120 kph.  The road were generally excellent.  Well paved, well marked and with guardrails where ever one might be needed.  There were also roundabouts; hundreds of roundabouts!  If one needs practice using roundabouts, Italy is the place to go.  There were a few villages where the houses were too close together for two way traffic but they were generally handled well also.  This is a typical bit of road.

There was this one road however that had switchbacks where you are going north, you turn the corner and you are going south.  It had 15 of them, each one with a sign!  I suppose it was for bicyclists.  There was also this signl

15% Downgrade!  I think the most I've seen before is 10%.  I'm happy to say the car's brakes worked really well! 

We did get to see lots of little towns off in the distance then we would gradually get to them.  It was fun!

So that was our trip through Central Italy.  Next we are headed for the north and west.  Thanks for stopping by!