Moneglia, Italy

03/06/2010

Nearly more time spent in tunnels today than out of them. I can't work out what is better: drive with sunnies on and not see too well in the tunnels, or drive without sunnies and be temporarily blinded every time you exit a tunnel. Moneglia is located not far north of the Cinque Terra and is a good base for a day trip there. After exiting the main highway we took the small road to Monegila, which is located right on the coast. The coastline here is very rugged, just a succession of steep mountain ridges coming right down to the sea and little villages crammed into narrow valleys. Very little flat ground. To get into Moneglia, you have to go through a series of very narrow tunnels right on the shoreline (used to be railway tunnels), a lot of which are one way with traffic direction dictated by a series of traffic lights that change every 15 minutes. The tunnels are also intended to be for bicycles and pedestrians although there is less than the width of the person between the lane marking and the tunnel walls. The locals drive through these at top speed, sometimes ignoring the traffic lights. A bit scary.

We were looking for our intended campsite as we approached the town when, while flying down one of the tunnels with a bus breathing down our tail, we whizzed past a gap of about 15 metres in the ocean side of the tunnel. This was signed as the entry to the campsite. Turning around was not an option.

After passing through Moneglia we came across another campsite that was similarly positioned but we were ready this time and roared to a halt in the driveway after a brilliant piece of Italian stunt driving. Il Rospo, which is the name of the campsite, is set right on the water's edge and it'd be hard to get a more spectacular location. If you took 3 steps from where Skippy is parked, you'd drop ten metres into the water (well, probably onto the rocks). Fortunately the cliff is fenced off. The water here is incredibly clear and blue so I'd say a swim will be on the cards at some stage. We walked back into town (this involved going through a tunnel, fortunately only about 65 metres long) to locate the train station for tomorrow morning, get outside of some gelati and check out the beach. Tomorrow, the Cinque Terra.