Nesting in Italy

By 7.40 we had picked up Viv and William and were on the road. Our fears of terrible Grenoble traffic didn't materialise into any reality. It took some time for us to work out why the city seemed so deserted. it was Saturday morning. We hadn't intended to venture into the centre, but due to an error in navigation that's exactly where we ended up. It was fine and we were able to say farewell to our little ones at the central station.

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What followed our departure was a lot of travelling on Autoroutes which transitioned via a very long tunnel to Autostradas. 

Crossing the border

The only breaks in the monotony were the service areas and the toll booths

I amused myself by tipping boiling coffee over myself, requiring a lavage at a service area and a change of shirt. Wafts of coffee aroma continued throughout the journey, emanating from my shorts, which had also received a fair dose of latte.

Once again we experienced ETA creep. We had been forewarned about a big fireworks display with road closures, so we had to arrive before 4pm. Smugly we were making good time, but we made another one of those inevitable errors and got our first experience of the narrow Italian hillside routes near Bellagio. These are definitely narrow streets, and the Italians are fast, scary and sometimes reckless drivers. This detour was followed by the terrifying approach to Menaggio during which Rani and I clung to each other in fear as Mary whizzed within centimetres of oncoming traffic and vergeside rock walls alike.

 I was amazed we didn't remove our mirrors, any paintwork on our very shiny hire car, or indeed any panels or substructure. it was a miracle, and we were soon in Menaggio. 

Lis and her friend Marika were also making their way to rendezvous with us at Menaggio and we actually went within a kilometre of them at Como, but they were waylaid with their own issues involving financial deception and theft by a hire car company which won't be named here (Avis). They had been given incorrect information about return times for their vehicle and the staff at Como weren't budging after overcharging. You will hear about this in the International Criminal Court reports when their case is eventually heard. Anyway we bypassed L and M, and soon were in Menaggio. When the trembling had died down and we had all changed our underwear, we set about rendezvousing with Gemma, our apartment manager, and with L and M who had boarded the bus to Menaggio.

Gemma was quite late, enabling us to do some shopping and with impeccable timing arrived at the same time that Lis appeared. With lots of texting and racing around we eventually all ended up in the supermarket car park and Gemma ferried L and M in her car up the serpiginous climb to our abode, with us following in our vehicle.

The apartment is superb. The view is stunning. The place is spacious… luxurious. It's also very secure. After a quick tour by Gemma, she left and we started moving luggage through the 2 gates, the lockable lift and the locked apartment door at the top of 3 flights of stairs. We were pretty tired, hot and bothered so we awaited Mary's arrival at the top of the stairs, unable to enter the apartment without the key.

Warning.. the next section might be embellished for literary effect.

Mary however, was determined to use the lift rather than the stairs. You need a degree in high level management, a locksmith qualification and a forklift drivers license to be able to use this lift. Mary had none of these prerequisites, but what she lacked in skill, she made up with exclamations, mechanical sounds of locks partially engaging and outbursts of swearing. In the meantime we were  jammed together at the top of a stairwell rapidly consuming the oxygen. Al Gore would have been impressed with what we achieved in less than 10 minutes. We had our own little global warming crisis happening, and the CO2 levels hit the point of no return as we heard Mary within the apartment on the other side of our door. Cleverly she had engaged a safety device which meant we couldn't join her, but she could open the door a centimetre. We gasped for air, but it was too late, and the gap wasn't enough to sustain us. The whole holiday had been wonderful, but hypoxia overcame us and as Mary was realising she had to descend via the lift and help us from the stairwell side, we lapsed into unconsciousness. 

I can only presume that Mary eventually dragged our lifeless bodies into the apartment, because soon we became aware of being in our wonderful home for the next 5 days. Here it is.

Lis and Marika