Rapallo, Italy

Determined to get out of the cool weather and not tempt our fate with Italian roads and terraced camping, we decided to take the short-cut to Barcelona. This in mind, we embarked a quick Southern route to Genova in pursuit of a ferry to Barcelona.

Only one campground in Genova was open this time of year and it was flagged as "caution" for large vehicles. We headed a little further out to Rapallo, where there were supposed to be two campgrounds open year-round. Signs were well marked at the exit, but confusion set in as we headed to the first choice - in front, marked "camping" was for all intensive purposes, a truck stop. We wandered around a bit and up the road to the "real" campground, but the space was too small for us to readily navigate. Feeling a little baffled, Dan hopped on a bike and went off to scope the other campground. It was close by, but was chained shut with a padlock!

Not feeling comfortable at the idea of being enclosed behind a padlocked fence, we opted to stay at the "truck stop" (where there were several other motorhomes and a few that were quite obviously permanent). Power was available, but was quite obviously "gray" power - illegally tapped in to from the lines overhead. We opted to skimp by on batteries for the night.

Once the tour busses moved out, we pulled in to an end-spot. Fence on one side and Avis Rent-A-Cars on the other. Feeling pretty safe, we settled in for the night after a brief stroll around town. We awoke and found ourselves completely blocked in by some guy who parked his truck DIRECTLY in front of the motorhome. I should have taken a picture... but just imagine it - there's room enough to (barely) open our door next to the Avis cars. The truck is in front of us, blocking our exit.

We tried to call the number listed on the truck - but the poor woman didn't speak English. A truck driver who was unloading new cars took a look at our predicament and offered to call the police. Police were there immediately, but seemed unable to take action, other than to ticket the guy 35Euro for parking illegally. Fortunately, some gentelman on site to take delivery of the new cars were also the folks in charge of the 4 Avis vehicles ... they offered to retrieve the keys and move the 4 vehicles so we could manuever out of the position.

This done, we hesitantly decided to move to the other end-spot, which was now available and was located directly in front of the entrance. While we normally try to be an unobtrusive as possible, we backed in to the spot and pulled all the way forward in the space. Anyone attempting to block us would be in the middle of the entrance/exit and would likely not be tolerated by the other truck drivers.

The day was beautiful and we wandered around Rapallo, in search of Portofino. We would have been on bikes, except for the little incident with Dan's bike. In the frustration of the morning's events, he forgot that he had leaned the bike against the front of the RV... and he ran over it! Looks like we just need a new front wheel... that's 2 bikes, Dan.

We had a really pleasant afternoon looking out on the Gulf of Genoa (Mediterranean Sea). It was warm out, but the boardwalks were closed for the season. We were left with the promenade, beautiful views, and pictures on the placcards of what the place looks like in full swing (sun chaises cover the boardwalks which extend out over the water... looks like a great place to spend an afternoon sipping your favorite beverage).