Left at 8.30 and went back up the hill to the motorway. It’s toll motorway all the way past Genoa and down into Tuscany. TomTom says 350k and it should take three and a half hours driving. He doesn’t always remember that we are towing a caravan!

Lovely morning when we left, bright sunshine, amazing views of the sea and the coastline on the way.

First half was all tunnels and bridges – through a mountain tunnel then out over a high road bridge to the next tunnel. The length of the tunnels varied – some were only about 50m long, two were over 1400m with others of varying lengths in between - George thinks we must have gone through nearly fifty of them.

As we got past Genoa and round the corner the scenery became flatter for a while so we turned off the headlights which we’d had on for all the tunnels – mistake!  Some kind person overtook us then slowed down in front of us and flashed his hazards. George remembered reading somewhere that you must have your lights on at all times on the motorways in Italy. We turned them on and the car sped away – kind man because, as we found out later from someone on the caravan site, that the police fine you on the spot apparently.

Came down past signs for Pisa Airport and turned off the motorway near Livorno onto the Fi-Pi-Li Expressway (Firenze (Florence)- Pisa-Livorno). Toll 41€.

Still hot and sunny - found the caravan site without any problems – until we came through the entrance and saw the roadway disappearing down round a big, very steep turn! Stopped there and went down to look round – this site is about as different from the last one as is possible - set on a terraced wooded hillside in amongst trees and fields, loads of space and not many other people. We are going to put the awning up as Pam and Lester are visiting us here. It’s their second visit so the first one can’t have been that bad.

Chose a spacious pitch, went back to book in at Reception, then got back in the car and made our way very slowly down the hillside, no problem - but George is already worrying about how we’ll get up it again – never mind, we’re here for three weeks so will meet that when we get to it. On the plus side – we have got 10amps electricity, oh joy.

As the weather was so lovely we gave the caravan a good clean inside (Anne) and out (George) then sat in the sun with a cup of tea and piece of cake – Lovely. The awning can wait until tomorrow.

Here for three weeks. Looking forward to seeing Pam and Lester on Thursday. Planning to explore Pisa and Florence, and do some walking in this beautiful countryside.