Nice to Genoa

We left Nice midday and travelled east along more wonderful French cycling infrastructure, past beaches, tunnels, towns, and craggy rock outcroppings. We rode into Monaco on streets which had been reinforced with fences for the upcoming Grand Prix, and ate a picnic lunch in the harbour, surrounded by yachts and public art. No gambling for us though; we rode right out of town and stopped in Menton for a final glace (gelato) on the harbour, then continued into Italy. The landscape changed almost immediately: the hills were less rocky and more green with terraced agriculture, more houses dotted the entire landscape instead of being concentrated around the harbour towns like in France, and even the plant life alongside the road felt wilder. We spent our afternoon riding and checked into a campground near San Remo for the night, where I dredged up the Italian I had learned in high school and felt my brain heat up as it accessed words and pronunciations that I hadn't used in years. We got everything set up with the desk and pegged our tent in between cobblestones and went to dinner at the campground's restaurant with our expectations firmly in check. But then we discovered that the campground's restaurant was set up to appeal to Italians: we were surprised and delighted by fine table linens and a very delicious multiple-course menu, though we've clearly got a lot of learning to do in order to eat like the Italians; even after the full day of cycling we couldn't imagine ourselves each eating a pasta course and then a meat-and-fries/pizza course! We ended with limoncello, which has become a new favourite of ours.

The next day we set out along the coast again, not quite knowing what to expect in terms of terrain or road choice. When we were travelling in France, Google Maps in cycling mode would show us the altitude gain and loss of various route possibilities, but trying to search for routes in Italy would only give us a "Cycling not available" error message. We thought that this might mean that Italy's cycling infrastructure was nowhere near as good as France's, and resigned ourselves to riding along major highways and doing a lot more figuring out on our own, but Joel found a MapMyRide route that someone else had cycled to get to Genoa and by following in that mystery person's digital tire tracks, we quickly ended up on an old rail line that had been repurposed as a bike and pedestrian path — wonderfully flat, right along the shore, and served by some beachside restaurants that only existed to serve this bicycling and walking clientele!

Late that afternoon we crested a hill and saw a storm brewing at the bottom of the hill. There was nowhere on the rocky hill to camp, so we had to turn around and retrace our ride back down from where we came to find camping. After a few false starts at several RV campgrounds that offered no grass to peg our tent against the wind, we found a campground with grass… that was closed for the day… but just as we were getting colder and hungrier and considering setting up our tent in a ravine nearby, the owner walked by and said we could set up our tent anywhere, and that he didn't make cyclists pay. We couldn't believe our luck! We made dinner before the wind picked up and played several rounds of Star Realms inside our cozy tent that night, and the next morning we again went back up the same hill as we turned back on the day before, and continued on.

At this point, we had three days and 130 kilometres to go before we were due in Genoa, so we figured we had some time for adventure. I found a vineyard that was a little inland of our route but it was well-rated, so we rode 40 kilometres along the coast and another 20 kilometres inland to Ranzo. Despite heading towards the snow-capped mountains inland, there wasn't as much climbing to get there as our GPS had led us to believe (fear) and we arrived at the utterly beautiful aMaccia winery and olive orchard by mid afternoon.

Carlotta, who runs aMaccia, and her partner Fulvio received us very warmly and we tried several of their wines as well as a surprising amount of food freshly prepared by la nonna (the grandmother). (Sadly, last year's harvest of olives was so small that they had no more olive oil available for tasting.) We learned how Carlotta, Fulvio and only two others tend to the 1000 olive trees and enough grapevines to make 22,000 bottles of wine a year, plus hosting agritourism guests during tourist season — that's a lot of work! We were so taken with the place that we asked if they did agritourism for tents too, for a night or two. They offered us a space in the olive grove further uphill and we jumped at the opportunity! We then sweated our way up (100 metres vertical gain over less than a kilometre) to our olive paradise.                                                   

We spent the next day relaxing and exploring around the grove, and finally had our first chance to read in the hammock which we've been carrying all this way. For dinner we followed Carlotta's recommendation and went down to the local osteria (homestyle restaurant) and the two of us ate a four-course meal for one, all incredibly delicious! After that we biked back up to the olive grove and collapsed, exhausted and so very sated.

The next morning we set out early, as we now had to cover 110 kilometres to Genoa that day. Taking a rest day proved to be definitely the right (and reasonable!) decision as we made good time along the coast, passing rock climbers and spectacular scenery. Despite the crosswind the whole way that occasionally felt like a headwind, we made into Genoa ahead of schedule and met our parents.

When we first started planning this cycling honeymoon, most people thought it sounded completely unbelievable. Our parents did too, and they also thought it sounded wonderful — and wouldn't it be even more wonderful if both families joined for a week, so we could all travel together and get to know each other better? (Sunday dinners together are impractical when the two families are spread out across three provinces and six cities.) Joel and I thought about it and agreed, and we figured we could get the most family members out (David and Jonathon, we miss you!) for this one-week stretch around the Genoa–Cinque Terre area.

We met all four parents in Genoa's old city, and shared a delicious seafood dinner together before Joel and I made our way back to our Airbnb after a brief detour when both our GPS and Google Maps got thoroughly confused by Genoa's tiny, winding, similarly-named streets. We were very happy to have left most of our bags at our parents' B&B when we found our hosts' building had the tiniest elevator we had seen yet — it's amazing what can be retrofitted into an older building — and we met our lovely hosts and slept well.

We spent the next day touring Genoa with parents, through palazzi (palaces) and churches (including one with an unexploded English bomb from WWII) as well as the maritime museum. Joel was particularly interested to learn there about Genoa's long and storied involvement in ship development and building (everything from galleys to container ships), and maritime trade from the pre-Columbus era right through to the present day. My brother Ian joined us for a pizza dinner, where the seven of us shared six pizzas and enjoyed many delicious flavours.

The next morning I was introduced to the artist Modigliani via an exhibit at one of the museums. I wasn't sure how I would feel about his work when I went in but I ended up liking it quite a lot. We then caught the train to Chiavari (we chose to train and spend more time with family rather than biking the rest of the day) and biked up and up and up the hill to Leivi to meet up with everyone plus Matt, one of Joel's brothers, Sarah, his girlfriend, and my brother Luke. The ten of us are staying at Mereta Castle, a four-storey beautifully-decorated 15th century stone building full of things to explore in the week ahead.

Food of note:

• Gelato! Chocolate with dark cherry, ginger, coffee with ginseng, darkest chocolate, vegan pistachio, and many more…
• Seafood lunch at a casual place where we were the only English-speaking people there.
• A four-course meal for one (shared between two people) at the osteria: an antipasti plate full of local specialties, ravioli with artichokes, tender beef and mushrooms, and an ice cream and meringue dessert.
• Seafood dinner with barely-seared tuna with papaya, delicate whitefish with butternut squash, and a mixed seafood ravioli with artichokes and vegetables on top.
• Genoese pesto. And focaccia. And delicious together too…
• Espresso (country-wide price is 1€) and limoncello, as many days as the opportunities arise.