We will be staying for two nights in Santa Margherita following a driving trip to Tuscany and two nights in Monterossa. We are in serious need of advice about the driving and parking situation in Santa Margherita.
Please know that my friend Barbara (the driver) and I (the navigator) did northern Italy the same time last year (early July) and nearly had heart attacks driving on the road to Bellagio on Lake Como. We do not want to repeat the experience of narrow, winding, water's edge roads with speedy Italian drivers honking at us, etc. Other than that bad experience and the nearly equally stressful road to Stresa from the autoroute, we survived two weeks of driving from Milan to Bologna, Venice, Verona, Bergamo and the Italian Lakes.
We would like this year to be a little less stressful and have already decided we'd better park the car in La Spezia during our visit to Cinque Terre, but I'm not sure how difficult the roads to Santa Margherita are, and would appreciate some advice and any ideas on where to park in Rapallo if that would be preferable.
Also, any thoughts on where to park in La Spezia (as opposed to Levanto) and on the difficulty of the roads in Tuscany would be appreciated. I am assuming that since Castellina, Montalicino and San Gimgignano are hill towns, they will not be any more difficult to get to than the old town in Bergamo.
Many thanks for any words of wisdom that our fellow Italy lovers might share!