Oh it's been so long!  And I have so many exciting things to recount!  Well not so exciting and only a couple things to recount, but here goes.  This past week we had a 4 day weekend for a national holiday on Tuesday.  We thought we'd try a new area to go to the sea so we headed to the area around the town of Sestri Levante south-east of Genova.   We decided to stay up in the hills behind the coast as would be quieter and less expensive.  We stayed outside of Torza, a tiny enclave of about 50 people, at an agriturismo.  (Aside:  Agriturismi started popping up 10 or 15 years ago. They are b&bs or rented rooms or apartments in country houses or old farms.  Some are basic, others are extravagant and spa-like, but the majority are decent, simple and clean places in bucolic settings.)  As this was a long weekend equal to the 4^th of July in the States, (May 2^nd is the “Day of the Republic”), we knew the coast would be crazy busy so we went all the Hell over there, 3 plus hours compared to our normal 1, because we thought, (silly us), that maybe it wouldn't be as crowded.  We were wrong.  The sea and the towns in that area of the coast don't impress me much to be honest, but we stayed in this idyllic converted farmhouse ½ hour up into the Apennines mountains and man, was it nice.  The owners made 4 small apartments out of the old farm buildings and they did a beautiful job with restoration. We were surrounded by high wooded hills and a small orchard of fruit trees. The only sounds were birds and insects and a river in the valley below us. It was heavenly.  On our first day, having never been in the area before, we wanted to find a good place for sun and surf so we drove along the coast through three or four towns, checking out the beach fronts.  At one point we came to a series of tunnels cut through the mountains that come right down to the shore, (the mountains not the tunnels).   The tunnels were built, by hand, ages ago, well before cars.  Consequently they are only 1 lane wide, not much higher than a bus and the one-way traffic is controlled by lights at either end!  When we came to the first tunnel the light was red so the guy in front of us stopped.   The guy behind us started honking and then passed us to go into the tunnel.  Then the car in front of us followed him so, so did we.  20 minutes and 5 tunnels later we came out on the other side, still alive, with a line of cars waiting to go through, stopped at a red light.  I have no idea how one line knew to go through and the other to wait when the lights were red at either end, but they did.  Scared the crap outta me.  We ended up just spending one day at the beach as there were so many people we were literally cheek by jowl.  It was noisy and hectic and very over-priced.  So we escaped back to our hilly hide-away and had a very relaxing time.  Pics and follow up tomorrow.  xxoo me