Friday 18 September - Ceriana Again

[Photo: Ceriana town house plans]

I am writing this sitting in the Peugeot in a carpark, listening to the rain on the roof. Its been raining since quite early on our short drive here, with huge claps of thunder, but right now seems to have eased off. The car thermometer reads just 15 degrees. We woke this morning with about a 50/50 feeling for Ceriana. On the plus side, the building is large, and we know we would enjoy the process and result of doing it up. We'd probably make a decent lump of money for our troubles. The town is very Italian, and it has a reasonable range of services. On the negative side, Ceriana is a tired town, quite gloomy and poky in places. The locals are mainly older, and it might be difficult to find much to do outside working on the house. We would expect to come here for maybe 4-5 months, for 2-3 years. There is none of the seaside holiday atmosphere of say the Diano valley, but of course not the prices either. And the whole process of actually doing the purchase in Italy puts me off – sorting out lawyers, powers of attorney, deposits, registration and so on. Riccardo and Gill have very kindly offered to help in any way they can. They will be invaluable to have as contacts if we go ahead. Apart from that we have really enjoyed their company, and learning about their much-loved sons Giuliano and Marco and their families. We have much in common.

We got to Ceriana about 1145am, parked in our old carpark, and walked back to town in the rain. Thankfully Geometra Matteo (geometra is used as a title here, also professore, dottore for anyone with a degree) was at his desk, so we had quite a chat (perhaps more of a grilling from his point of view) trying to work out some of the rules and costs. Plumbing is 250€ a point , e.g. per toilet, basin etc. A full rewire might be 1500€. These both sound easily manageable, though of course don't include fittings. Found out some of the rules for bedrooms, as we would have all three bedrooms basically internal, which is not in the rules, at least not officially. Arranged to meet the agent at 3pm to take Matteo through for a rough check.

With a couple of hours to fill in, and nowhere to go, and rain falling steadily, we went back and sat in the car. Karen curled up on the back seat and started snoring, I did something useful and wrote up the diary. At ¼ to 3 we headed back to the agent through the rain. Partway along we had to go through a narrow stretch, with a road full of deep puddles. Unfortunately a car chose that moment to  zip through, and we both got an unexpected shower. I got totally blasted from the crutch down, and Karen let out a fearsome 4-letter shriek when she got struck. We must have been feeling OK about things as we found the whole thing very funny, if a little damp.

Arrived dripping to see the agent, sat down and started going through the details of the property. There had been a previous official project for it, so Alessandra had proper plans. She went through these with our geometra. Lots of talk back and forth then we went off with Matteo to view the property. We took a good hour to go through it from bottom to top. In general, the structure was pronounced sound and generally dry. However the room sizes, heights and lack of windows were a major issue, all outside the commune's rules, and the new roof and deck needed a lot of work to meet the commune's requirements. His recommendation was to let it go, an opinion we shared. In a way a great relief, as we didn't need to think about it any more, and could get back onto our travelling. But we were also disappointed, as this looked our best chance of finding a place in Europe. We haven't given up on the idea, but suspect the chances have been knocked back a lot. Matteo had been so good we got him a big bottle of limoncello as a thank-you.

It was lovely to get back to the car, with plain ordinary travelling ahead of us, no plans, and a GPS to make it easy. Woohoo! Off we went down the hill. Almost got cleaned out by a Suzuki Swift which came round a blind corner on our side of the road, doing a hundred miles an hour. Not really sure how we missed it, but no problem. I'm getting pretty blasé about sneaking past obstacles and other cars with only a mirror's width free. New Zealand will seem like a breeze when we return.

Down to San Remo, the GPS set back on small roads and aimed for Nice. By now it was after 5pm, so we thought we would try to find a place to stay just inside the French border. As it happened, we couldn't find anything suitable. It is a lot harder finding places to stay with a car, as you are past them before you can see them, and somebody has to leap out and ask prices while the driver has to loop around or find a park (mostly impossible). The 2-star hotels were 70€+, and travelling by car you never see pensiones at all. Couldn't find anything by the time we reached France, so we carried on. Quite odd that you simply drive through the border and in the space of a few metres the language, culture, food and customs have totally changed. Time to try and force the Italian out of my mind and replace it with French.

Eventually found our way to Menton, deliberately taking roads one back from the main road to increase our chances of finding an hotel. Ended up at one just outside the Menton Railway Station, perfectly reasonable and comfortable. Wandered about to stretch our legs, then ate a menu du jour meal at our own hotel. Pleasant service, the owner gifting me a paper I'd been trying to read. Between us we had a potage, a really nice strong fish soup with croutons and aoli and cheese, mince-stuffed tomatoes and aoli-covered fish, washed down with a well-deserved beer. All up a funny sort of day, both disappointing and a relief.