Menopausal Women Behaving Badly - part 3 of a diary of a tour of northern Italy and southern France

DAY 6. Genova
We are running out of time so we stop our meandering around the coast and head for the hills and the Autostrada.

Genova was hell, with cars zooming every which way. It's an ugly industrial city, grey smog and pollution with no horizon line between sea and sky, which all adds up to absolutely no sight of the sun or sense of direction.

This was not helped when the bloody windscreen wipers began to play up, only working when it wasn't raining, and then stopping mid screen for no reason whatsoever when it did rain, further hindering my visibility.

The fact that the Italian road signs seem totally illogical doesn't help either, or that we didn't know if we wanted Genova nord, sud, ouest or est. We just wanted OUT!

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there'd be a signpost to somewhere you've never heard of and navigator couldn't find on the map. Then, while she was looking, an intersection would again loom out of nowhere. Which way to go, panic, dither, help!!!!!!!!

Although we do get better with time and experience we still get lost in Genoa on our return trip. The French sign posts are much easier to read.

Things are rather tense and fraught in the car when we eventually get out of town and hit the much more charming Genova Provincale. I am an exhausted, dithering wreck so when we hit the coast and Golfo Genova I find a parking spot in a rather dreary square, utilised by mums and dads, kids and dogs, complete with their poo.

Ali doesn't want to leave the car and luggage, so I wander off, then clamber down the stone steps to the rocks and the sea below, passing an old woman feeding a one-eyed cat, and climb right down to the water's edge.

At last I do Tai Chi with my feet caressed by wet moss. The exercise and meditation do their soothing best and soon I feel relaxed and at peace with the world, and with Ali too.

Then I clamber further down the stone steps leading right into the water, where I submerge. I don't swim, just cling to the rocks and sink down, letting my head fall back into the water. It is lovely. Coffee and brandy also help.

TIP: Instead of underwear I always wear bathers beneath the layer upon layers of clothes,

... just in case I see the sea, or even if it just gets too hot and I can strip my top right down and pretend they're a coloured body stocking. Although middle aged arms are a sagging sight, I'll never see any of these people again. Which is probably a relief for them too! You soon learn how to pee, pulling the crotch to one side. We learnt that when body stockings were in vogue.

TRAVEL TIP: Never be boiling hot or freezing cold. The Hunchback of Notre Dame - or my travel vest.

My rule is simple. Travel in lots of layers, allowing yourself to strip right down to bathers if it's really hot, or wrap yourself in warm shawl and pull on thick woollen sox if it get cold.

I am not a pretty sight though. It all begins with my travel vest, a photographers jacket with dozens of different pockets. You can buy something similar at camping stores. Mine contains absolutely everything I will ever possibly need, including a Leatherman tool (with various knives, screw drivers, scissors, nail files, pliers, bottle opener - of course - and even that thing for getting stones out of horses hooves).

Then there are chopsticks, tea spoons, silver brandy flask, bag of coloured pastel pencils, pencil sharpener, spare pens, eye drops, lip salve, lip stick and eye pencil, little sketch pan, baby wallet for our petty cash, big wallet, passport, (initially the airline ticket too - it's now stashed elsewhere), a few biscuits and chewy jubes for SOS sustenance.

I always put the main wallet in one of the inner pockets so if someone does a rob and slash job through the pockets, they're only likely get coloured pencils or a box of bikkies.

AND THAT'S JUST THE FRONT BIT.
I then become the hunch back of Notre Dame. It has a large copious back pocket too, and into that goes a neatly folded big thick, purple shawl/scarf, a fine cotton sarong and a pair of sox and, when chilly winds blow, even thermal underwear.

In really spooky areas I turn the vest inside out and fold my arms around me in front, zipping up the front zip, then walk with a jaunty confident pace, whistling a happy, if nervous tune.

Obviously this looks horrific and weighs a ton, but the weight is evenly distributed over my shoulders and I never have to carry a bag and have both arms and hands free for my sketchpad and pens and to ward off robbers. In safe places I can shrug out of it and sling it on the back of a chair. Not a light chair though, or the weight will pull it crashing to the ground.

And the jacket does need to hang or it can spew bits and pieces all over the place. Although the pockets have dozens of zips and velcro fastenings, things can still tend to fall out if it isn't hung up. In the car I sling it over the top of the car seat.

It takes a while to learn to drive that jacket, and in the beginning you're forever fumbling and searching in one pocket after another. But eventually I work out a system - things for eyes and face go in one pocket, (eye drops, mask, water spray, lipstick and brow pencil), art in another, (pastel pencils, sharpener extra pens, rubber and glue stick), with knifes, spoons, chopsticks and other eateries in yet another sort of thing, with little camera in an easy to get to spot for pulling in and out and an easier still pocket the jubes and SOS chewing supplies.

* * *

FLORENCE
Thank you Lonely Planet Travel Guide. Our little hotel is only a lugging, wheeling bump bump bump across the cobble stones from the station car park, a safe but not cheap way to store our car. We don't manage to get one of the rooms with superb views over this famous city, but our room is clean and safe and we do have views down onto the cobbled street where all the action is.

When in doubt pour out a strong double brandy. 3/4 of a bottle later Ali and I are now friends again after a rather fraught and argumentative few hours driving,
so we lurch out into the Florentine streets at around 9pm.

I manage to pick up a Senegalese, very, very, very black seller of sunglasses, (talking friendly Leo babble - Leo, Susan Hartley's son, has a Senegalese dad) and he takes us to an Internet café, protecting these 2 lurching, tiddly, middle aged Aussie tourists from fellow Senegalese con men. (These and the Algerians seem to be at the bottom of the poverty ladder and are often found in sleazy areas, selling somewhat dubious watches and the like.)

We nearly get lost a few times when Ali insists on going a shorter route, we turn a corner and get completely lost. Neither of us has much memory of what we actually wrote on the net, and Mimma has no record either!! Lost in the cyberspace. I do remember that we each nodded off as the other attempted to negotiate the new, strange, keyboard.

I discover a new variation on my ice cream combo - chocolate with a touch of mint then a dribbling of Saltimbucco over the top, instead of the licorice ice cream, which is not a common flavour hereabouts. Also lusted over a Jean Paul Gaultier wondrous chiffon pants, all soft pink flowers and roses but in a loose army surplus style with lots of big pockets.

DAY 8. Florence still 412 km away
A rather frantic worrying few days. All the critical details for Mimma have been left at home in some neat little pile. But thank god for text messages and mobile phones. Ali texts back to Helen Carrol in Perth and at 5am we wake with a start when Ali's mobile phone beeps a message with her phone number at last!! After a few more dramas we make contact and directions are duly Faxed to the hotel. What did we ever do before such electronic wizardry?

DAY 9. Florence and Chianti.
We wake early and take to the streets again, sober this time, wandering with the sun rise to the Ponte Vetico, searching for the superb garden of the Pitti Palace in which to do our morning Chi Kung, only to discover the gates padlocked, shut and bolted.

So instead we stood with our backs to the an ancient stone arch and did our Chi Kung just the same, facing the gates and the trees, gently being the undulating white crane, while early morning commuters looked somewhat askance.

Later in the Chianti Hills of Tuscany I have converted darling Mimma to the gentle art and we wake each morning to stand overlooking the olive grove and gently wave our arms and move our necks, standing on one foot, while twisting and circling our ankles. We would never pass muster at Claremont park with Allen on a Saturday morning but here in Tuscany Allen's gentle words and teachings make us feel centred and at peace with the world.

Except, perhaps, when attempting to negotiate and get out of Florence and whizzing around the motorway, especially when the windscreen wipers stop, while the rain doesn't.

Getting out of Florence is a nightmare, even with clear directions. The medieval city was designed before cars were, with narrow one way streets and sign posts that say NO GO, yet cars zoom past and up them with impunity.

But we are learning to cope with these crazy roads and directions and are more patient with each other, and when in doubt we stop and check the map or the signposts. Ali is less stressed out, except perhaps when I nearly go up the back of a car while attempting to also negotiate the radio, while also spraying my face with perfumed water and try to sort out the bloody windscreen wipers that are getting progressively worse, stopping and starting for no reason whatsoever, with the back wipers going almost continually. To pacify her I pull up at a flower van with a screech of brakes, jump out and buy her a single red rose. I don't know whether that helped or not!

But I do get us out of Florence and then Ali takes over and we wind through the hilly country and zig zag in large loops around Piazza Michelangelo through a heavenly park just out of Florence on the road to Sienna, under dappled lacy green canopies of trees, with superb vista of the city.

Mimma has almost given up on us by the time we arrive around 2pm but it is like old home week, with warmth and hugs and soul mate stuff.

We enjoy a simple lunch of Parmesan cheese dipped in bitter honey, capsicum relish, buffalo mozzarella, all soft and melting and gardinaire pickled veg.

Fat strawberries glistening with sugar syrup are then slurped with red wine and it's superb.

MURICCIAGLIA, MIMMA, FRANCO AND A CHIANTI ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME
I have come bearing gifts, a couple of cartons of kangaroo meat and crocodile, bought at the Perth airport. Although they are in Cryvac vacuum packs and I have been shuffling them in and out of hotel fridges I'm still a tad worried about their state, after all, it's been quite a few days in the air and on the road.

We tentatively open the packs, rather smelly by now, but it's just the blood and incredibly the meat feels and smells fine, checked meticulously by both Mimma and me. Mimma votes me in charge with dinner so I am thrown in the deep end, coping in a strange kitchen with new friends.

I plonk it quickly in a marinade of olive oil, garlic and thyme, pan fry it lightly then make a sauce with balsamic vinegar, red wine and a luscious sweet and fruity drop made from wine must, swirling in butter at the end to enrich the sauce.

With sauté potatoes and our bitter greens the meal is magic and the company exquisite.

We meet Sandro, who is the husband of one of the other women and is a quiet professor who is won over by my olive oil knowledge, while Mimma's husband the charmer Franco is a doll - elegant, sophisticated, intelligent and left-ish, which of course I love. So we share and talk about everything, life, the universe and even 42.

A bubbly wonderful evening with new friends where we entertained and even fed our hosts.

WE HAVE ARRIVED, NOW I HAVE TO LEAVE YOU IN HUNGRY ANTICIPATION FOR THE NEXT INSTALMENT.
LOVE TO YOU ALL.
JANNI