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The forecast showed another short Mistral period and I had hopes to catch some waves at the Tuscan coast. The about three-hour drive to the Tuscan beaches on the motorway along the south facing coast of Liguria is usually a bit strenuous but full of exciting views. The motorway was built in the seventies and nowadays often a bit overburdened with todays traffic density and car and especially truck sizes.
It is a succession of tunnels and bridges running along the steep mountain flanks of the Ligurian Alpes and further east the Ligurian Apennine. While the alpine part of this coastal mountain range reaches up to 2,600 meters further inland, the Apennine part still rises to 1,500 meters. Both have in common steep flanks to the Mediterranean Sea and valleys cutting likewise steep into the mountains.
Down at the sea there is only a narrow halfway even coastal strip and most of the rare flat area is covered with towns and the odd larger city. Even space is so rare here that houses and often whole villages pinch bravely at the steep slopes in a way that you wonder how they survive the next flooding or earthquake.
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