2025-france-part-3

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• How to stress Sue
  Drive on Italian autostradas.
  We left our Aire at Briancon and crossed into Italy, en route to Como and decided to use toll roads. Expensive, but not as costly as French tolls.
  However, the toll booths, and there were many, five I think, were awful. A very overamplified recorded message in Italian booming out, difficult to follow instructions, credit card not always accepted, and every one was uniquely different.
  And, in one place, had to navigate the most complicated set of junctions and intersections ever. Think I would still be going round in circles without the help of the ever patient SatNav.
  Another cloudless sunny day, and at one point the temperature reached the giddy height of eight degrees, the first time we have been above zero for about eight days. Now at Como, below freezing again.
• Sun 19th Jan
  Yesterday, drove slightly south of Como, where we met up with Catherine and James, plus their dog Corrie, and had a splendid evening meal and chat.
  Woke this morning to a prodigious quantity of empty bottles.
  Thence to Turin, and visited the Royal Palace.
  The staircase entrance.
  So vast, could only photo part of it.
  

  The ceiling.
  

  Then, a whole series of interconnecting rooms, all lavishly and very heavily decorated, lots of guilt work, especially the ceilings.

  

   

  

  

   

   

   

  

  

  

  An example of a ceiling.

  

  The throne room.

  

  All the floors were decorative wood, with different patterns

  

  Something a little more intimate.

  

• Cont’d
  
  

  We then came to a grand corridor, with a huge collection of armour, swords, flintlocks, and mounted knights.
  

  

  The kings favourite carriage. Sorry, I’ve forgotten which king!

  

  Another corridor.

  

  A well laid banquet room.

  

   

   

  The ballroom.

  

  Chapel of the Holy Fake. Oops, Chapel of the Holy Shroud. Presumably in this casket.

  

   

   

  The chapel dome.
  

• Mon 20th Jan

  Continued our Italian diversion by driving to Asti through a grey drizzly day. In northern Italy, with their very peculiar attitude to LPG, we managed to fill up, only took two garages.
  Went to the Palazzo Mazzetti, and was offered a ticket which included three other sites, just along the road, so went for that. Gave an interesting and somewhat quirky day.
  The palazzo.

  

  

  

  

  All we know about the palazzo is “Built over some pre-existing medieval buildings and renovated by Benedetto Alfieri in 1751, Palazzo Mazzetti is a prestigious historical palace…….”. It was an incredible maze of rooms, lots of paintings on display.
  Onto virtually next door, and our ticket opened the door to the Crypt and Museum of Sant’Anastasio. No one else there, incredibly trusting, and I hope none takes advantage of the trust.
  Anyway, this was another labyrinthine, underground this time, a jumble of different constructions built on top of and cutting into each other, with a collection of carved stones from various sites.

  

  

  The route round involved going into a basement, another subterranean maze, containing, as far as I could make out (everything in Italian), models or props for staging plays, possibly by Alfieri.

  

  Finding the next site was not quite so easy, and we ended up in a school, where a lady who didn’t speak English put us right, and we entered the Palazzo Alfieri. This is the bloke that restored the first Palazzo, and this was not in fact his Palazzo, but created, in another labyrinth of rooms to correct the memory of Alfieri, which has become corrupted. Apparently, almost every town in Italy has a Rue Alfieri, and a statue of him.
  The Palazzo was not, in fact, very interesting, and very little of the displays were translated.
  So, we moved onto the last site, the Domus Romana, gained entrance via our ticket on the automatic lock, into a very gloomy room. As we were struggling to find a light switch, a women came in, who spectacularly failed to understand we wanted to be able to see, and disappeared through a locked door, leaving us in the dark.

  

  There, a gloomy, and not very spectacular, Roman mosaic floor.
  But, an entertaining afternoon.

• Tue 21st Jan
  A slow start, went to a very convenient launderette, but had to wait for a machine to become free. Watching your own washing going round is boring enough, but watching someone else’s……..
  Set off intending to cross into France, but decided after a very slow journey to stop at around mid afternoon at a place called Cuneo, within sight of the alps, on a lovely sunny day, complete contrast to yesterdays non stop rain.
  We had time to visit the monastery of San Francisco, housing a museum. The museum had completely swamped the very old monastery, all the interesting looking bits were completely blocked by the, mostly, uninteresting displays, although there were a number of Canaletto and other fine paintings. All in all very disappointing.
  Drove two sections of autostrada with signs proclaiming it was free flow, pay online. SatNav was programmed to avoid toll roads. Spent ages finding out how to check if anything was due, had to register, and all the curfuffle that entails. Eventually found nothing was due. Good!
• Wed 22nd Jan

  Left Cuneo, and set off for the Coll Della Maddalena, one of the few passes over the alps which is open all year, and doesn’t involve a tunnel, so spectacular. Unfortunately, yesterdays sun has been replaced by cloud and some drizzle.
  Our lunch stop.
  

  “
  Looking the other way.

  

  Picnic table not used!
  And then, at the summit of the pass.

  

  Shortly afterwards, crossed the border into France, and commenced the descent. After a short while, we came across a chalet style shop, and both exclaimed “We’ve been here before!” About 14 years ago, we both remember making a crossing across the alps, returning from Italy, stopped at the shop and bought some bread. Now much better signposted, and a very enjoyable drive.
  That ends our unexpected and unscheduled dip into Italy, which we thoroughly enjoyed, despite the disappointment of Cuneo. What I won’t miss is the confusing complicated road junctions.
  Sue’s cough still bugging her, not as bad as a few weeks ago, almost seems like the norm.

• Fri 24th Jan
  Yesterday didn’t go too well. Part way through the morning, Sue decided the destination I had selected, and was driving to, was too far, and insisted we drive to Aux-en-Provence, a place we have been to a few years ago. We didn’t find anywhere to overnight then, and we didn’t this time. After driving round fruitlessly, we found a winding narrow dead end lane, and managed to park up at a wonky angle on a patch of gravel at a bend beside the road.
  Today we went to Salon-en-Provence, and a welcome level Aire. Traveled by bus into town, and easily found the tourist office. Except they had moved. After some difficulty, found the new office, and very helpful they were. Not a great deal here, but Salon used to be a major centre for soap manufacturing, and one factory remains. Didn’t sound totally gripping, but off we went, and surprisingly enjoyable. Not too photogenic.
  The ground floor display.

  

  It included a block of soap made to win an entry in the Guinness book of records in 1998. And here it is……
  

  Needs a giant bath just for the soap!
  The upstairs, drying room.
  

  Took another picture of Sue.