8th May 2010

Tuesday 8^th May.

Its 5:30am, we’ve slept for over 8 hours. We reel in the electric lead and take one final look at the view. Back down the zig zag road to the motorway that will take us to the Mont Blanc Tunnel where a young toll booth attendant asks us for 51 euros to go through the tunnel. There’s lots I want to say to her, like those stupid jokes…..”Oh and can you still get a mortgage in France these days?” or do the comparison thing “Our tunnel only costs two quid and that takes us under the Mersey…..the artery of England”. But this would be wasted and after heading into the tunnel I suddenly realise why it was so expensive. I should have realised that they’d actually closed the tunnel to all other users, we were being treated to exclusive rights to use the tunnel, no one else could go in until we’d gone through. That’s why it was so expensive. So we drove through the entire tunnel alone. Another long drive gets us to River Village Camping near Bocca di Magra on the coast of Liguria. I notice that the campsite has a promising motto… “Here everyone has fun” . Pickles yawns on the backseat and I wonder about the Italian equivalent to the Trades Descriptions Act?