Our initial experience in Italy was that of winding roads and views of the blue Mediterranean. The drivers were crazy but I was too exhausted from our trek through the Gorge du Verdon that I didn't care... besides our car was bigger!! We had headed for Sanremo because it was the only Italian name we knew (close to the border) based on the brand of pasta sauce we had bought before. We quickly learned that 40km in Italy takes 2 hours (avoiding tolls) enduring 50km/h on crazy winding roads offset by the amazing scenery.

Arriving in Sanremo we accidently pulled into a van site where we decided to stay and were straight away amazed at the quality of the place. Unlike France they had seats on their toilets, toilet paper and heated blocks. In the morning as we prepared to leave the car failed to start due to overuse of the battery. We were rescued by the campsite staff who brought their truck around to give some juice to our battery (through our underperforming jumper leads) and while we waited for the charge to increase we became surrounded by fellow Italian campers. A grand conversation then began between all those who spoke Italian and luckily one Italian translated it as "we all have our own idea on how to fix this and will wave our arms and offer our advice until it is fixed". Everyone was extremely nice in their arm waving and soon we were on our way... even after swapping our undersized jumper leads with a fellow Italians equally undersized leads to see if it would help.

Learning earlier that it would take twice as long to get to our destination of La Spezia by avoiding tolls we thought we would pay the extra to get there faster by using the tollways, as well as figure out how much they would cost in Italy. 20km in the traffic came to a stand still as we began to experience our first motorway traffic jam followed immediatley after with the fuel light going on. We progressed a little further until we stopped again within a tunnel and after several of these instances we decided to take the next exit to refuel and try our hand again going the scenic route. Our next few hours were spent traversing the Italian coast passing through town after town all with a view of the Mediterranean.

We finally arrived at the outskirts of Genova (one of the many cities in Italy we could not enter due to the mass Low Emission Zone rules throught the country) and worked our way up through the hills to the campsite. Driving down a one way street high up in the hills we came to the closed gate of the site with the only thought running through our head being "How will we reverse the car back down out of this closed campsite...". To our relief the gates began to open and we entered a sanctuary in the hills over Genova. We spent the night calming our frazzled nerves with a few beers while chatting to Rencio, our host.

In the morning we headed off for the final leg to La Spezia where we planned on walking the Cinque Terre national park which would take us through 5 small Italian towns built into the hills with their doors at the mediterranean. The drive was another long one and the scenery became even more startling due to the snow that had fallen the night before, which seemed to us to be a contradiction, having snow right next to the Mediterranean and it seemed the weather was taunting us after our adventure a few days before.

Upon arriving in La Spezia, with the day almost gone and no tourist information centre to be found we parked the van to resupply only to find us we came back to leave that the car immobilizer didn't believe we were who we said we were and refused to start the car. This wasn't something new and  from experience we knew that it would start eventually so we stopped to have dinner and pass the time. An hour in there was a knock at the door and the local business was closing up, putting in place the high restricted barriers and wanted us to move. We tried to let them know that the car wouldn't start across the english/italian language barrier to no avail so went to show the man where the car started at first turn... We quickly left, tail between legs, and headed a little out of La Spezia to camp on the cliffs above the Mediterranean just outside the first town for the walk, Riomaggiore.

We woke to sunny skies and headed off to the town to get the day underway. The first hurdle for the day came when we were advised that the first leg of the walk was closed due to landslides, so we headed back to La Spezia to catch the train to the point we could walk on as well as get more information. As we came closer to the city the van started making a lot of noise and after pulling over we realised that the muffler had snapped off, so we headed to the closest mechanic. He advised us to take it to the Ford dealer and at this point the notorious immobilizer bug showed up again, so we walked to the nearest shopping centre for lunch while we waited for the car to become more agreeable.

After we left the first mechanic we arrived at the Ford dealership to find that it closed for several hours in the middle of the day, dragging out the frustration of not knowing if the car could be fixed for a reasonable amount. Finally we were able to book the car in, with the assistance of a couple of interpreters of varying skill, but a new muffler would take 11days to arrive. This gave us a fantastic opportunity to jump on the train, headed for Rome and beyond, while we waited. The journey was uneventful until we arrived in Rome at midnight to the disturbing spectacle of row upon row of homeless people as we walked to the hotel where we were staying for the night.