It took about fifteen minutes and I was starting to get really anxious, but the guard finally came back with my documents in his hand and signalled that I was good to go. With a sigh of relief, I grabbed my papers, rolled up my window, and pushed down on the gas pedal to drive forward. The further away I got from the ferry, the better I felt about my new mission.
I was aware that there were going to be multiple checkpoints from Villa San Giovanni to the border of France, so I had a long way to go before I was anywhere out of the red zone. All I could do was try to avoid them to the best of my capabilities, but then again I didn't know a lot of Italy, so it's not like I knew about backroads to take in order to avoid the checkpoints, and my car's gps was limited. It was always a possibility to force myself to avoid the checkpoints by getting lost and letting the gps guide me back to the main road, but that was even riskier because I could always drive right into a trap.
