The beginning

So the journey has begon.

On Friday the 28th of feb anna and i flew to bergamo, where we collected the rental car and drove to our hostel in bergamo. But there was something happening downtown bergamo so we had to take a detour. And we got our first glimps of the lack or some what strange/crazy  way that road sings are posted. 
We got to the hostel checked in and found a place where we would have diner. We were there at 8 o clock, if we would be so nice to come back at nine then we would have a table. We found a nice place where we had a wine and some chips  before we went to diner.  We were in the restaurant at nine it was even buisier than at 8th we got our table at 9.30 a real italien time. The restaurant was a japanese pasta restaurant (yeah right) the pasta was all right but the sushi was absolutly fantastic .

The next morning  we checked out and went to visit the upper town of bergamo, a verry nice place to see and walk around  with some nice cathedrals, shops and little cafe's.
In the afternoon we drove to milan we took a senic drive but again the road signs were making it a chalenge one moment we were 20 kilometers from milan the next 25 kilometers. at one moment we were 10 kilometers out of milan the next minute we were there. We drove towards the center of milan where we parked. And it happend to be just right on the spot  we were in the center of milan just walked out of the parking and we were right in the middle of milan. The main cathedral was really impressive.  We walked around town for a bit of seight seeing had a late lunch (pizza)  and drove towards genova.

Near genova the roads got a bit dawnting it was dark, raining and a bit misty the road twisted and turned in every direction not a really plesant way to drive.
after we enterd genova  we found out  that it is not handy to drive arround using a map from the lonly planet. That and the fact that the streetnames well lit (not) it took us a while to find the alberge, we took the round a bout several times but never took the right exit exept for thas last time.
We got at the alberge carolus (dolfijn wrote a review about it) it was a really nice B&B well only B not breakfast.  The man of the alberge gave us directions to a place for diner a self service restaurant not really good but it was cheap.

The next morning we walked around genova it was a really nice warm day we saw a great deal of genova, went to a park where there is a flowerbed in the shape of the 3 schips, the schips that columbus took with him on his trip to explore the new world.

we left for la spezia en drove the senic route along the coast a verry beautifull route we read in the lonly planet that portofino was a nice place to stop. So we did and after 10 minutes we came to the conclusion that we where in the wrong place we stopt in santa margarita 5 km before portofino. we had a stroll around the town and it was a realy nice place. We visited the local church and if you wanted to be blown away by such a beauty you should go visit that church. Because it was just a nice place to be we decided to spend the night there. We found a little hotel or alberge and checkd in the man told us that it was better to take the bus to portofino because parking was realy expensive in that place. it was already getting dark so we decided that it would be  better to go in the morning. we went out for a drink an ended up in a nice little place where we drank some wines, they should in holland have these kind of bars with our wine we got : crisps, peanuts, olives, cheese, ans sone other stuff and the wine was  €2,50 a glas. that was a pleasant surprise.
the place where we sat closed down so we went to look for a place to have diner. To both our surprise the whole town was almost closed, because it was still low season almost every place was closed.
we found a place had a big pizza, that was by the way done realy fast  in 5 minutes the pizza was on the table.


The next morning we took the bus to portofino and it was just a pitty that it was raining, because i think when the sun is out it is just one of italy treasures. just a perfect spot on the end of the bay with great scenery.
we picked up the car at the alberge and started to drive to la spezia  the previuos day i was driving and had no troubles at all. but sitting in the passenger seat and reading the map an the lonly planet was a bit to much for me all those turns an reading got to me i started to get a bit of carsickness. so we changed seat that helped a bit, but was i glad that we finaly got to la speciabut also the drive from santa margarita to laspezia was great beautifull scenery and look outs.
after la spezia we took the highway to piacenza where we had dinner and drove further to bergamo, to our hostel.

the next day it was time to turn in the rental and to say good by to anna she had to fly home. it was really strange to sit in the bus alone back to bergamo we had a realy great time in the past 4 days. Thank you anna for beeing my  travelbuddy. I realy had a good time traveling with you and mayby next year america.

The pictures will follow i could not upload them at this point mayby next time