Isolabona

Isolabona is a nice village. Just occasionally you have days that standout among, lets face it, a whole series of good days. We started a 100K bike ride, stopping off at Dolceacqua, this is the nicest old town I have seen. A real gem, a total maze of narrow streets, often tunnels as houses are built on houses up the hill side, all dating back to the 12th century. Medieval stories should be acted out here. Having marvelled at the town we continued but after only about 25K we had to start dodging the rally cars. We abandoned the cycling when we joined the queue for the start line, instead taking up a role as photographer, elbowing out of the way the official film crew (in Italy there are no barriers). Watching the rally cars race from the start line with the boom of exhaust and the clunk of gears turn onto the road and stop while a pedestrian strolls across a zebra crossing or the traffic lights turn red is a little bizarre. We strolled around the pits seeing smaller contestants supported by their mates under supermarket gazebos through to the big boys, with inflatable garages, lorries of spare tyres, coaches of catering. Alas the next day when they roared down the road past Bertie I wasn’t able to get the camera out in time. A walk into the hills the next day calmed down the soul after the excitement, and the constant rain didn’t dampen the experience, particular as we were offered a lift in the back of a pickup from the hill top to the town.

Campsite was €16. A little scruffy, welcome to Italy. Still the toilets were clean and the only issue with the showers was you had to leave you clothes outside it you wanted to keep them dry, a rather interesting approach in unisex showers. The entrance was interesting. You went down a slope and up the other side which in a 7.2m van leaves you totally grounded. We dropped some weight to no effect and in the end ignored the grinding screeching scarping noise until we were out of the ditch.