Day 41: What Road Tolls Mean in Italy

Date: Thursday 8^th May
Staying: Camping Arenella – Deiva Marina, Italy
Distance Travelled: 137.6 Miles
Song of the day: What you waiting for? – Gwen Stefani

After a little hiccup yesterday (a fever which kept me in bed all day in the Italian heat), I woke up rearing to go this morning. Since I thought a long driving day might be a bit beyond me, we opted for the toll road.

Toll roads are always a bit of a toss up. If you take the toll road, the road will be wide, well-maintained, have frequent petrol stations and parking areas, and will usually be the shortest and fastest route. It is also the most expensive option, since you have little idea of how much money you might be forking out. The non-toll roads on the other hand are usually single-lane, winding, go through every village (forcing you to slow down to 50 every few minutes), and generally take longer. They are however free and often picturesque. Our experience so far has shown that any money you save on tolls on the free road is usually spent on petrol as you track up and down mountains or round bays in 2^nd or 3^rd gear.

As you can see, we only did 137.6 miles today on the toll road. We achieved our objective (a village not far from Cinque Terre and Portovenere), but it took us 4.5 hours, during which we didn’t take a break. Jarno is not the fastest of vans, but on a toll road you could expect us to average 80km an hour, including breaks every couple of hours. The extra 1.5 hours we spent stuck in traffic jams. Some of the time with the engine off, and Cam poking around in the back of the van (he even offered to make a cup of tea for me, and trust me, it would have been possible). The cause of all this commotion? Nothing more than a couple of sets of road works, where the highway narrowed to one lane, which just goes to show how much traffic there is around here. Tolls = €19.50.

Not to complain though, because it has been a good day nonetheless. We found our campsite without getting lost, the people here are lovely, it is less than half the price of San Remo (€15 a night), we have power (movies later), and are parked next to a little stream (if you want, you can drive through the stream and park on the other side of the campsite). The site even has a free bus that runs you to the train station for easy access to the surrounding areas. These things all combine to make the ideal site. Yes, we are easily pleased.