Thirty euros. The sum seems to have a certain resonance in Florence. It was what the waiter at the Scudieri restaurant in the Piazza San Giovanni made a pair of hapless tourists pay after their dog managed to knock over a teapot and cups and turn them into more pieces than the manufacturer intended.
It was also what this ice cream shop thought a reasonable price for two cornets, albeit stuffed with generous portions of gelato.
The poor assistant leapt in fright at my oathless but loud reaction. No wonder there were so many police officers hanging around on the nearby Vecchio bridge; they were doubtless anxious to ensure the safe passage of anyone carrying an ice cream and, therefore, identifiably rich.
Thirty euros, roughly, is also what I paid for something I thought pretty much impossible to find in Italy: pizzas that looked and tasted like the sort you buy in the frozen food section at Tesco. It was at the first little restaurant to be encountered on leaving the Uffizi museum, so the owners can reasonably count on a steady steam of culturally satisfied but hungry customers who will hardly be missed if they never return. And I suppose I should concede that the bill was for two and included beer and coffees (and that the waitress could not have offered a warmer smile).
But I do hope Tadeusz Machalski, the blind guitarist picking out the exquisite notes of Les Jeux Interdits, had more than €30 to show for his efforts in the Florentine sunshine.
Florence was the ultimate destination on a trip that seemed a jolly idea at the time of conception. Let's drive along the French and Italian coastline between Le Lavandou and Livorno, I thought. We can stop wherever seems pretty or interesting before heading inland for the wonders of Firenze.
Give or take inevitable hiccoughs, the idea worked. The corniches between le Lavandou and Cavalaire, and then east of St Raphael to Cannes, are superb, with sweeping views of the Mediterranean and its coastline to make the A8 motorway an option only for those in a hurry (and even then, you have to get to it, which can be hard going). It's even better doing it by train, but that's a view that should not trouble anyone except the driver.
Lunch in Menton, just before the Italian border, offered an pleasant reminder of one of the Cote d'Azur's more elegant resorts. But onward progress, especially after the border, was slow. It was not market day in Ventimiglia, but crossing the town, and other towns and villages along the Italian coast, was slow and sometimes tedious.
San Remo, Imperia, Alassia, Albenga, Finale Linguria ... resorts came and went, but with plenty of stop-start progress and it became clear my original target of La Spezia by the first night had been ambitious.
In Spotorno, a room with a sea view was going to cost €100. We declined but ended up wishing we'd taken it. At the next stop, Savona, we were told every room in town was occupied.
We made it as far as Genoa where a simple room at the Hotel Alexander cost €110, breakfast included. They also charged €3 for wifi, not a huge amount but at odds with my strongly held belief that hotels should provide the service free. But by then, we were beginning to worry about finding anywhere to stay, and reception sent us on foot to a miracle of modest dining, Da Marietto, where faultless pasta and jugs of wine cost of €42.50 even with desserts.
To our relief, we awoke next morning to find we had not been fined €30 or any other sum for parking in one of the spaces directly outside the hotel. Parking spaces they may resemble, but you are apparently not supposed to use them.
"Don't worry," said the receptionist. "It's only Italians they fine. Even if you get a ticket, the fine won't follow you back to France."
Next day, by pure chance, we were to find the highlight of the coastal part of the trip. Forget guide books, Google searches and information from tourist boards (of which, in the case of the Italian version, there had been none, despite contact with its London and Paris offices).
This spot of luck came from a conversation on a train, and took us to what must be one of the most beautiful locations on the Italian Med, a place where paying €30 for anything was to prove tricky.
To be continued ...
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