12th October 2016. Diano Marina, Italy.

We cycled into town today, it was SOOOO much quicker.  We eventually found our way down to the beach so we didn’t have to cycle on the busy road.  Unfortunately we were a bit premature for the promenade so we had to push the bikes across the beach.  We cycled along the promenade towards the next town then had to cycle on the road for a little way which was rather hair raising (I’m missing the safety of the cycle paths from previous European countries).  When we got to the town we decided that I’d got it wrong and the pretty town must have been somewhere else.  From a distance this looked very pretty but up close it was very run down.

We were pleased to find somewhere beside the beach to have lunch, it turned out to be a seafood restaurant, Restorante Restano di Gentile Mario & c, but they rustled something up for me from the side dishes on the menu, we were intrigued to see that the breadsticks came from the UK and the packets had Union Jacks on them.  It was a very nice meal, a meal of ‘firsts’ the first time I had had grilled vegetables, they were superb, and the first time we’d had a glass of wine with our lunch during the whole time we’ve been away, how grown up!  It was very nice wine.

We cycled back to the van after a bit of a detour under an old bridge (my mistake, I thought we might have been able to cut through but Darren looked at the map on his phone and there were no connecting roads, whoops!)

Darren had work to do when we got back, so it was nice to have had a bit of exercise before he settled down at his laptop.

When we arrived back at the van I Googled the photo of the town we’d been looking for and it turns out we were at the same town the only difference was that the photograph was taken at a distance, from out at sea!  And they say the camera never lies, well that’s a lie!