Slept really well up in my bunk, and woke to a beautiful sunny day. Had a large breakfast in the hotel’s ‘restaurant’ and hit the highway before 10:00. This day’s drive is about the same distance as yesterday’s but will take a few hours less to cover as we’re going on toll-motorways rather than lesser highways.

We went through the longest tunnel yet – the Tunnel de Frejus – 13 km and not cheap! When we came out the other side we were in Italy. Stopped at a rest-stop and had lunch – I had spaghetti carbonara and it was fairly good – the cheese on top was excellent.

As we drove east we saw smoke billowing into the air several miles ahead somewhere around Susa – it was so thick by the time we got there we could barely see the mountains, and the smell of fire was very strong.

We continued east, skirting Torino and went east a little north of Alessandria and on to Piacenza where we veered more southeast past Parma, then around Modena to our destination of Calderara di Reno, just a few km northwest of Bologna.

We checked in to the hotel, that luckily had a fridge for the food we’d brought, then went for a little drive northwest. Back at the hotel we had a bite to eat and didn’t stay up late.

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