Day 22 Brescia (Italy) to Nice (France).

I wasn’t going to do a blog today as there’s no rally to talk about but there are a few things I can report on.

Mark in a relaxed mood in Nice

Last night was like it was the end of the rally.  It’s a week until the rally recommences in the UK, so it's like another rally that will start in Wales in a week's time. 

The Belgians were shouting gin and tonics last night.  The hotel ran out of gin but the Belgians went and brought their own supply in from a service van. They insisted on big glasses and kept topping them up.  I staggered to bed and slept until 6 am.  Dead to the world as they say.

Brescia to Nice is only 417km of motorway so we left the motorway to take a shortcut which looked like a major road on the map.  It turned out to be very slow and twisty, but looking at old waypoints on the GPS, I noticed we had been there before in the London to Cape Town rally (2012).

The GPS let us down a bit getting through Genova (known to us as Genoa - without the 'v').  A key turn we had to take was immediately after a tunnel, and it takes the GPS a little while to get satellites again after a tunnel. Having missed a turn, we were then faced with leaving the motorway at the next exit, (12km further on), pay the toll, make U turn, (ie get to motorway on ramp on the other side), rejoin the motorway, take another ticket, drive 12km back, leave motorway, pay another toll.

This happened nearing Genova.  

The beach at Nice, near our hotel.
I suspect there are better beaches elsewhere

Then later as we approached Nice we ran out of Euros to pay tolls and the toll machines were refusing all our credit cards.  We stopped before the next toll gates and I went to find someone to negotiate with.  While I was doing, that the service truck arrived and gave us €20 to get us through. 

After that we missed another exit and again went through the exercise described previously.

In general, navigation didn’t go smoothly today, but it was a day that didn’t matter. 

Credit cards were also problem at petrol stations in Croatia.  None of our cards would work except for my Amex card which required a signature.  At toll booths, none of our cards work.

Here's how things look at the end of the stages so far:

Staying at Nice again tomorrow so I am yet to work out what I’ll do to fill in the time. St Tropez and Monte Carlo are close.