Our Blog - Genoa Trip for a baptism - Part 1

We were invited to a baptism earlier this year, which ended up being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It got rescheduled for the end of July, and so we decided to make a small vacation out of it. The baptism was in Genoa, Italy, which is between an 8 and 9 hour drive. But we didn't want to drive straight through, especially with Lucy in the car, so we split the drive into 3 days on the way out and 2 days on the way back. There is quite a bit of "stuff" here, so I've broken it into two parts. This is Part 1, which will cover everything getting from Toulouse to Genoa and back. Part 2, which I will post shortly, will cover all of Genoa.

Day 1, we visited two of the Plus Beaux Villages (Most Beautiful Villages). First, we headed to the village of Minerve, which is on the southern end of the Regional National Parc of Haut Languedoc. The village is situated on top of the gorge of the River Cesse in a naturally strong defensive position. Near the village the river disappears underground in a large, naturally carved tunnel. Despite the strong defensive position, it was besieged in 1210 during the Albigensian Crusade for 6 weeks before it surrendered. We walked around the town and had lunch before heading to the village of Olarges. It is a good example of a French Medieval town, and has been occupied by the Romans, the Vandals and the Visigoths. We found it a little more deserted than Minerve, with less stores, restaurants, and cafés open. We took a break and had something to drink at a perfect time, as a short rain-shower went past. From there, we drove almost directly East to the town of Grabels, which is just a bit north of Montpellier. We stayed here overnight before continuing on towards Italy.

Day 2 started with a short drive to the Grand Motte beach, and specifically an area where dogs are permitted. Then a bit of a long drive through part of the Camargue to view the Roquefavour Aqueduct. The idea of the aqueduct was first envisaged in 1565. However, nothing was done until many years later. After the drought of 1834 and the subsequent cholera epidemics, the idea came back up. Its construction took six years, from 1841 to 1847. It took 5,000 laborers, including 300 stone-cutters and has some impressive dimensions (these are calculated from meters and rounded): 272 feet tall, 1290 feet long, and the foundations are over 30 feet deep. The architecture was inspired by the Pont du Gard, but it is nearly twice as high as the Pont du Gard. It is the tallest stone aqueduct in the world. The base has 12 arches, then 15 arches on the middle level, and the top level has 53 arches. In my picture, you can only see the top 2 levels, not the base (hidden by the trees). We drove right next to it but didn't try to stop and park somewhere to get better pictures. You can see more (and better) pictures on the French wikipedia page (don't use the English page), including a picture taken in 1861 of the aqueduct.

A 2 hour drive later, we arrived at our 3rd Plus Beaux Village, that of Tourtour. After walking through the quaint little village and getting some ice cream, we headed to our stop that night, in the town of Le Muy.

Day 3 gets us into Italy. We caught the freeway and headed directly for the Italian border. We stopped for an hour or so at the town of Bordighera to look around. We had attempted to find the town of Bussana Vecchia, but the navigation took us onto a private/closed road and then when we went back and tried to find signs, we couldn't. So we skipped that and headed to Imperia. We got caught in a downpour and had a bit of problem driving around (think Jason Bourne, Paris, and a set of stairs) but we made it out safe and sound. Our B&B that night was a bit difficult to find but the views were worth it!

On Day 4, we finally made it to Genoa. We first stopped at the town of Cogoleto after skipping our first planned stop in Cervo. In the planning, we didn't really take into account that breakfast would be a bit later in a B&B than in a hotel, and then the driving was taking a bit longer. I had mapped out the time to drive from point A to point B, but didn't add in the 30 minutes of finding available parking! So basically each evening, we looked at the planned stops for the next day and decided which one to skip. A final stop in Arenzano prior to hitting the construction on the freeway heading into Genoa. At least the toll was free! After limping along on the freeway for twice as long as it should have taken us, and taking the wrong exit, we were safely parked at the Old Port.

We stayed in Genoa for 2 days, taking time to see the sights as well as going to a baptism (which was the reason for the trip in the first place). All of this will be covered in Part 2 of the blog.

Day 7 and we are heading back to France. Our first stop was between the towns of Cogoleto and Varazze, where you can find the Passeggiata Lungomare Europa, which is an old railway path that has been converted in walkway. You get to walk through some of the old tunnels carved through the rocks. The traffic was actually worse getting out of Genoa than it was getting in, and so we skipped our next scheduled stop and went to the village of Dolceacqua. We then took "the scenic route" to our B&B, which was at a horse farm just over the French border. Interestingly enough, when we had told our host which way we drove, she said "oh no, that is the dangerous road"!

We started Day 8 a bit later than we wanted and so we ended up again changing the plan. We started at the village of Sospel, which is where our B&B was. We weren't planning on looking through the village, but the owner of the B&B talked about it and so we decided to give it a try. Next, we topped at another Plus Beaux Village, this one the the village of Ansouis. We were planning on stopping also at Menerbes, but it was just too hot to walk through another hilltop village, so we instead did a little bit of wine tasting (and buying) before getting to our B&B, which ended up being a cottage in the middle of a field!