FollowOur Adventure: Our drive to Florence

Again, thanks to Otsuka, we had a driver take us from Monaco to the Nice airport....What a car!

We had rented our car from Avis and like before, they were a pain to deal with...no maps of Italy and no info on the GPS. We picked out a small Toyota hybrid and it took Edna (it would have taken me longer) to get familiar with how it worked. I made another trip back down to the Avis desk, reporting additional scratches and dents. Then off we went with only one wrong turn in the parking lot!!!

On the road, the GPS told us it would be 3 hours 38 min to Cinque Terre! Our previous driver told us to NOT go over the speed limits as tourists are major targets for tickets. Our drive went smooth.... with the exception of our first toll booth area. Every time you got on the highway or off, you go through an automatic toll booth...usually with no one there. So we got to the first one and had NO idea what to do. The sign said 1 €, but we couldn't find the coin slot!!!! After much honking, someone got out of their car and showed us this giant basket to THROW the coin in! Who knew???

We went through tunnel after tunnel......some short and some very long. The speed limits were constantly changing. After about 2 hours we were struggling to keep our eyes open, so we pulled in a gas station and AutoMart and had a Cappucino and bought some Biscotti for the road.

Finally we arrived at Cinque Terre. We drove in as close as we could as it is a terraced village and the steep walk down..... meant a steep climb back to our car. We read that white lines meant free parking....blue lines require payment. We got lucky....we found one small space with a white line. Good parking job....one try and we were in! To be sure we were ok, we asked a resident who was walking if we could park there. He showed us the sign that said 3 hours free. Once in the village gates, we asked the tourist office to confirm we were ok.... I think you know where we are going with this.

So down down down we walked....after a while, we decided not to go further or we would never make it back. These were very steep walks. The photos will show you how pretty the views were. We only stayed about 1.5 to 2 hours as we did not want to arrive into Florence late. We were huffing and puffing on our climb back. And guess what was sitting on our windshield! You got it....a parking ticket! I saw the Italian police just a few cars away ( the ticket time was JUST 5 minutes earlier!!!! ) We tried to explain our case but she didn't understand. A driver stopped to do translating. They explained that all cars have cards with a clock wheel and you are supposed to turn it to the time you arrive and place on your windshield!!!! We explained we have a French car not Italian and how would we know. They said without one, we should have written the time of our arrival on a slip of paper! We also explained that we were only there for about an hour to 1.5 hours. After much argument.... We walked away with our 61€ ticket???Oh well...

Back on the road and finally in Florence. Thanks to the GPS, we turned right, left, right, left on so many streets and then into the little tiny and then smaller streets and suddenly no street names, hundreds of people going every which way and we were in the middle of who knew where in a small alley unable to move!!!! Edna stayed with the car and I got out to look for our hotel. Someone from the hotel came back with me and directed us to the hotel's parking lot. The hotel has lots of Italian charm and were so happy to be in our room. We just went down the street to a cafe that was crowded and the pasta looked good but it was awful. Disappointing for our first night but we went to bed dreaming of gelato!!!!

Our car hired just for us ... to take us to Avis!