My 1st 270 Km

So what a day it has been! once I got over the 1st shocks of driving on the right hand side of the road, and as in Italy the land of roundabouts I got very used to doing them from the right, and as there seems to be one every few hundred meter it kept the traffic a little slower for us thank goodness. We opted for the country roads as we wanted to travel south from Venice and experience some of the seaside views following down the Adriatic Ocean. I was not going to put myself onto the autostrada until I was comfortable driving over 40 km an hour so it did take some hours to travel the coast road which suited this little black duck just fine. They, the Italians drive with the white line as a guide as to where the middle of their car is! and that is a bit off putting at first. They also seem to drift so gently in and out of the traffic and the people coming in the other direct do the same, so once you work that out its less of a panic seeing someone coming towards you 1/2 on your side of the road as they just drift back to their side again, its a bit like dancing to soft music. Then these great signs that say the road is going to narrow and that little white line from the middle of the road just disappears, but apparently that's OK as it is still 2 way so just drift off the road and onto the grass, it's just that they still manage to do it a great speed. It took me a little while sitting in the left hand seat to get the mirrors correct too. Go on, out to your cars and try it but this time looking for the traffic coming to overtake you on your left, and my brain has been on the other side for the past 34 years. Oh and that cuppled with me being dislectic and not so good with my left and rights well you get this picture. So keep it slow and stick to the right, but you need to turn left and that was a challenge moving to the left sitting in the middle of the road with traffic coming at you from both direction and in your mind you know that this is all wrong. So for the first 250km I couldn't turn left to go see the ocean, Sandy said we can't keeping turning right other wise we will end up back where we started. I smile and say "what do you want to drive????Feel free but as I can't navigate that whole left and right thing it's best this way and as well there are 2 sets of eyes watching the road." So here goes, a break in the traffic, a turning lane to the town of Fano and we do it, we turn left it was an exciting moment and our reward, there in front of us is the sea. Well this is short lived as this opens up another issue "parking" hmmm and they are reverse parks! Back home no problem could do them with my eyes nearly closed but here with traffic shooting by so quick, try to get it into a reverse gear, yes yes smarties, I'm sure it would be easy for you all "in theory" so come on over and try it then we will see!!!! So it's like a miracle up in front a foreword park nose into the curb with the Adriatic Ocean just in front and we stop and I un weld my hands from the drivers wheel and get out and we go for a walk to stretch our legs......once we started our walk Sandy at that point admitted that her feet were a "bit cramped" as over the past 250 km and her sitting on the right and without a steering wheel is also a wee tad daunting and that she felt that she was trying to hang on with her feet as we did come very very close to the side of the road on many many time and didn't want to stress me too much. So that's why she was saying sweetie so move a bit more to the centre that good a bit more to the centre, like a cracked record but a beautiful softly spoken one. But I was more concerned with the traffic coming straight at me so did tend more to the far edge of the road!!!So after our walk for an hour we think that we should really make our way back to THE CAR and continue for the next 50 km as we do have a class tonight. But perhaps a coffee or something before we HAVE to go get back into that car, anything to put off the driving for that little bit longer. It was a cooler morning and the people were still not coming to the beach so we had it to ourselves.They must get huge crowds once the days warm as there were hundreds of umbrellas tied up and lined up like solders for as far as we walked and we could still see them as far as the eye could see. Walking was also made easy as they had a removable rubber path that stretched as far as the umbrellas went also, so you could walk on the beach and not touch the sand, go figure!!! Also hundreds of little dressing sheds with their own little rubber paths to each pair. They were all colour coded in batches of either soft green to line up with a soft green cafe bar or soft lemon again with their own little soft lemon cafe bar and alternated down the beach. So it's a coffee at a beach bar and now I get it , I see the price list you rent per hour a spot under an umbrella and can hire deck chair and the little change sheds a ripper business in the summer I'm sure, but for today we were happy to have no crowds as I will find them back on the road. The music at our bar was 80's and in English again go figure so we sat and listen to Michael Jackson, Madonna, Men at work, ect ! Oh and a song "I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar ar.....when I met you" hmmm can't remember the singer.... Oh and when you asked for a drink they said sorry don'ta speeka da English !!!!!!