Italy from top to toe (1 Viewer)

[cookie376]

We crossed via the chunnel this afternoon and are heading to Italy for seven weeks having no real plans other than to be in Brescia on the 12th and 13th of this month for the build-up and start of this year's Mille Miglia 1000-mile road race, after that it is pretty much take it as it comes.
We have parked for the night in the small village of Steenwerck before heading off down through France in the morning with the plan of crossing into Italy via the Col du Mont-Cenis in a couple of days, but the weather is not looking very good at present so the views going over the Alps may not be as spectacular as we had hope.

We will try and keep you updated with where we are and what we do on our travels as the days go by.

We have been to our daughters wedding in Siena stayed camping miraflores but like a car park but secure and a pool just outside portifino
Then at a lovely site camping Siena Colleverde 1.8km out of Siena walkable and a bus outside. Taxis are a nightmare in Italy !! On route home we stayed in camping sirmione lively on lake Garda and a rustic site in Como, then Tcs camping Sempbach Switzerland before heading to camping de Vittel lovely site £18 tomorrow we head home !

 

[cookie376]

Vittel

 

[vzac]

We are in Sardinia, going to Sicily in 2days. We have found Sardinia very clean except on lay-bys ( we don't stop in them anyhow). All the park ups have been clean, but we do venture into mountains rather than the popular sea side areas and it's cooler up there.

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[Two on Tour]

We have been to our daughters wedding in Siena stayed camping miraflores but like a car park but secure and a pool just outside portifino
Then at a lovely site camping Siena Colleverde 1.8km out of Siena walkable and a bus outside. Taxis are a nightmare in Italy !! On route home we stayed in camping sirmione lively on lake Garda and a rustic site in Como, then Tcs camping Sempbach Switzerland before heading to camping de Vittel lovely site £18 tomorrow we head home !

One of our next posts on this thread is about our visit to Siena which we timed it right to watch this year's July Palio di Siena.

 

[Two on Tour]

We are in Sardinia, going to Sicily in 2days. We have found Sardinia very clean except on lay-bys ( we don't stop in them anyhow). All the park ups have been clean, but we do venture into mountains rather than the popular sea side areas and it's cooler up there.

We toured the Dolomites towards the end of our trip, and yes it was nice to escape the high 30's Celsius for a while that we had been experiencing for most of our trip.

 

[DBK]

We are in Sardinia, going to Sicily in 2days. We have found Sardinia very clean except on lay-bys ( we don't stop in them anyhow). All the park ups have been clean, but we do venture into mountains rather than the popular sea side areas and it's cooler up there.

Are you going to post some photos? We've been to Corsica and Sicily in the MH but not yet Sardinia.

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[vzac]

Are you going to post some photos? We've been to Corsica and Sicily in the MH but not yet Sardinia.

I keep forgetting to take pics. But other half is videoing so will be doing a few vlogs on Wendy yer way, when we get back mid November. I will put a few pics hup when we get to Sicily, from my camera, just need to get on the computer to do that.

 

[Holly's mum]

After a nice rest at the fishing lake, we headed off for the short drive to the hot springs at Saturnia.

There we were happily travelling along a quite decent SP road, when Google said to turn left onto another SP road, which we did and honestly, it was the worst SP road we travelled on all trip, I would challenge how it was classified as an SP road, it was more of a dirt track but it was a busy road and obviously a popular route to the hot springs.

It did have junctions on it

We arrived safely at the campsite Alveare Del Pinzi AA Camper (W3W: scaffold.pallid.radio). The campsite was busy, noisy and dusty but it serves the purpose of being a short walk from the hot springs, the campsite also runs a shuttle bus service there. It is a huge site, so even though it is usually busy, you would be pretty unlucky not to get a pitch there.

We had a light lunch, got ourselves sorted and walked across the fields to the hot springs. It is free to get in but lockers if you want to use them are €5 with a further €5 deposit for the key. You need to take photo ID to use the lockers, which was nearly a problem for us, as I had only taken my purse and Paul didn't have his wallet, fortunately I realised that I had my driving licence in my purse, so crisis was averted!

The thermal waters of Saturnia hot springs flow from a natural crater, at a constant temperature of 37.5°C, all year round. The springs are set over a series of small pools, it can be quite tricky walking between them but we'd had the sense to wear water shoes, which made it easier. There was also some beach areas that you could sit on too.
It was lovely and relaxing in the water and we stayed in for around 2 hours, which was long enough and the recommended time to stay in without a break but some people had obviously been in there a lot longer, I wonder if they were all wrinkly when they got out

Overnight we had a pretty impressive thunderstorm, thankfully without hailstones!, that went on for over 3 hours but it did clear the air a bit for the following day.

As we were packing up to leave the following morning three little kittens came to say hello and help Paul wind up the EHU cable. (Have you noticed we like cats?)

 

[Holly's mum]

From Saturnia we headed off towards Siena, via the medieval hilltop town of Montepulciano, via some more interesting Italian roads.

We parked at Parking Camper Gratuito (W3W: dinner.disband.stack), which as the name suggests is free motorhome parking, on the edge of the town. There is also a Sosta close by which is €5 for 6 hours and €10 for 24 hours, but as we weren't staying overnight the free parking was perfectly fine. We arrived just before 1pm and as it started to rain heavily, we decided to have some lunch in the motorhome and wait for the rain to clear before exploring the town.

Whilst we were eating our lunch we noticed that the Italian couple in the motorhome next to us were struggling to close one of their side windows, so once we had finished eating, Paul popped round to see if he could help. A short while later it was all fixed and closed, they were very grateful and insisted that we join them for a coffee, which also involved a liquor (it was very nice) and chocolate. We spent a very pleasant hour chatting to them and I left a little tipsy, ready to explore the town.

Being in Tuscany, the views were pretty impressive.

Being a medieval town, it had the typical narrow streets

And some impressive architecture

Another stunning church interior

Cosy table for two?

Not sure what this guy had done wrong It was outside a museum of torture

We liked these planters

Some pretty impressive parking

Having spent a few hours walking around the town we headed off to Siena. There is a festival on this weekend and so everywhere was really busy. The first parking we had identified, which was an easy walk to the town centre was very busy and didn't feel very safe to overnight, so we moved to a different parking area, which was further out but there was a bus stop opposite that would take us into town the following day. We stayed at Area Di Parcheggio (W3W: quickly.husbands.chipper), it was basically a car park but it was quiet and felt safe. More on Siena next time.

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[Minnie]

Welcome to the worst night of our trip, let me explain

We had initially planned to stay a second night at the Pompeii sosta but a constantly barking dog made us decide to move to a campsite at Ercolano, where I could do some washing and we could walk to the archaeological site of Herculaneum, it was only a short distance to travel so should not have taken too long.

We left the sosta at Pompeii at 4.15 on the Saturday evening and should have comfortably been at the campsite in Ercolana by 5pm, unfortunately we were using Google Maps and it let us down badly on this journey, we were taken on some very narrow and unsuitable roads, which were 2 way and had solid walls either side!

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Fortunately there were a few gateways for the cars to pull into to let us past, I am sure they were cursing us though

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Then when we got to within 5 mins of the site, we reached a bridge that was only 2.8m high, we are 2.85m, so this wasn't going to work.

We turned our Sygic satnav on that has all our dimensions in, so should have taken us safely to our destination, WRONG!!!, it proceeded to take us on even more narrow unsuitable roads, which were still 2 way, had bits of concrete sticking out in places, lampposts, overhead hazards and the odd 90 degree corner

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We then met an ambulance on blue lights coming the other way, he had to reverse up, as we had nowhere to go, fortunately it was near a junction and a wider bit of the road.

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Just before we reached the 3m bridge.

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I walked backwards in front of the motorhome as Paul drove through, to be sure we weren't going to catch anywhere.

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And then we ended up with an even lower bridge at 2.4m ahead of us. I did walk round to the bridge to see if there was another way through but there wasn't.

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There was a small housing estate up the road to the left of this sign, where we were able to turn around and then park on the side of the road across from a football ground, where there was a tournament taking place, to decide what to do. Being a Saturday evening and with the tournament as well, there was traffic everywhere and we decided that to try and negotiate the narrow roads to get back out again was not a sensible option that evening, so we decided to wait until first light on Sunday morning, when there would hopefully be no/very little traffic about to make our escape. We used the time to research a route to get us out of our predicament and under the road & railway line (which is what all the bridges were going under).

After a night of just sleeping on the sofa's fully dressed in case we needed to move at short notice, at 5am on the Sunday morning, as it was just starting to get light and seemed quiet on the roads, we headed off on our researched route, we met just one vehicle coming the other way and that was fortunately at a wider part of the route, where we had met the ambulance the night before.

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The most annoying part was that having retraced our route out, we turned off down a road to take us under a higher bridge that we could fit under, that we had driven past the night before! If only Google had taken us down that road on Saturday night but never mind, it was what it was.

A lot of the roads in Ercolano are cobbled streets and not very nice to drive on, our poor motorhome did get tested somewhat on this trip!

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We arrived outside Herculaneum at 6am (it was too early to go to the campsite), had some breakfast and freshened up and waited for the parking to open at 8am, praying that we weren't moved on as there was no parking allowed along the road, fortunately it seems the Polizia Municipale don't start patrolling the road until after 8am. We passed the time whilst waiting by watching some kittens playing in a garden centre next to where we were parked but we don't seem to have any photo's of the kittens, so you will just have to trust me that they were very cute.

Oh my goodness how stressful
Glad you survived !

 

[Holly's mum]

We weren't sure what time the festival started in Siena (we should have done some research!) so we caught a bus into the city around 10.30am, thinking that the festival would be on all day. We asked a couple of people what time the action started and got conflicting times of 5pm and 7.30pm.
As it seemed that nothing would be happening for a while, we had a look around the city.

Each area of the city (called a Contrade) has a different flag and colours and these are displayed on the buildings of each area, along with some very decorative street lights

There was some activity related to the festival during the day, with the occasional marching and beating of drums by some of the contrades.

The racing takes place around the main city square, which has sand laid down for the event, this is watered to stop it becoming loose and dangerous for the horses to race on, although they don't seem to worry about the solid obstacles in the way around the course!

The crowd was already starting to build in the center and as it was a scorching hot day, the guys doing the water, sprayed water over the crowd too.

We found some side steps on one of the grandstands to sit on, which was in the shade and we thought we would be able to stay there to watch the whole event but an extremely officious man insisted that we had to leave around 4.30pm and our only choice of where to go was into the centre, in the sun, with the other thirty thousand people. It got to the point of being so many people in the centre that you couldn't move.
The parade of the horses, riders and associated dignitaries and others, began around 6pm. Each of the Contrades had a sizeable group of people, so the parade took about an hour and half to complete.

When they had finished their parade, they sat on the benches (empty in the photo above and now full in the photo below) to watch the race.

The poor chaps in the bell tower were up there for hours ringing the bell

The main event though is the Palio di Siena, which is a horse race held twice each year, on 2 July and 16 August. Ten horses and riders, bareback and dressed in the appropriate colours, represent ten of the seventeen contrade, or city wards. Horse racing in Siena dates from 1232. The Palio was first held in 1482 as a civic celebration. The current course was formally established in 1659 and has been held semi-annually on July 2 and on August 16 since 1701
To understand the dynamics of the Palio, it is important to know about some of its idiosyncrasies. For example: the order of the racing horses is selected the moment right before the race begins, conferring great advantage to some contenders (typically the first chosen, who take their place on the interior flank of the circular track) and disadvantage to others. The final horse to be chosen is in the most particular and also disadvantaged position—the so-called rincorsa. This horse does not line up with the others, but rather takes its place behind them. When it decides to enter the track, the race will officially begin—a final nod to the supremacy of chance and luck in the Palio, as some horses will be better prepared than others for the start in any precise moment.
The running order is also important because it determines each contender’s neighbors. The Palio is run by the contrade, or neighborhood communities, of Siena, and most of them are engaged in very tight rivalries with another contrada, meaning it is as much a priority for their rival to lose as it is for them to win. If two rivals are lined up next to each other at the starting line, they will bicker and try to put each other at a disadvantage, often weakening both their positions. We witnessed this happening and it was several minutes before the race actually started after the horses had lined up, due to this posturing and trying to gain an advantage.

We could see walking round the city during the day and being in the crowd to watch the race, how nearly everyone had a scarf or flag of their chosen contrade and the passions were running very high in the crowd. When the race finished we realised that many people in the crowd were in tears because their particular horse had not won, it is taken very seriously.
This is a link to a video of the race we watched, July Race we stood there for several hours in the heat and all for 3 laps of racing that was over in around 70 seconds. We are glad we saw it, it was certainly an experience but we wouldn't go again.

After the race was over we headed back through the crowds to the bus station to catch a bus back to the parking. We caught a bus marked as an S10, the one we had come in on in the morning and the one the official at the station said was the right one, to get us to where we wanted to go. Off we went and started to worry when we appeared to be going the wrong way. Sure enough, when we were in the backend of Siena the driver announced that we had to get off, as he wasn't going any further. So there we were at 9.10pm, it was getting dark, we hadn't a clue where we were (other than further away from the motorhome than when we started!) and having been out all day and using our phones a lot, we didn't have much battery left to find our way back to the motorhome using Google Maps. We decided we had no choice but to walk the 4km back to the motorhome, which having been stood in the heat for several hours, wasn't a very appealing prospect. We arrived back at the motorhome after 10pm, very hot and tired, only to find that the motorhome had been invaded by ants whilst we had been out! They were everywhere!! We killed as many as we could and then drove the 7 miles to Monteriggioni, arriving at 22.55pm. We killed a lot more ants and cleared as many as we could see, before falling into bed exhausted and stressed. What a day!

 

[Holly's mum]

We had planned to move to Monteriggioni in the morning anyway, to look round the village and the plan had originally been to use the day parking, which was cheaper but as we had arrived at nearly 11pm last night, we stopped instead at the Area Sosta Camper la Posta - Monteriggioni (W3W: ///tensely.certainty.tonally) which cost €16 a night, was behind a barrier and had some facilities. At 11pm last night, exhausted and stressed, we didn't care how much it cost, we were stopping there!

After the events of yesterday, we had a lazy morning, killed more ants! and then headed off to look round the village of Monteriggioni, which was only a short walk from the sosta. As we were walking into the village, we saw one of the young lads who had been stood next to us for several hours the day before, watching the Palio, in the square in Siena, what are the chances of that! He had seen us walking up and waited to talk to us, how nice.

Monteriggioni is only quite a small walled village, so it didn't take us long to look round, we had some lunch and then headed back to the motorhome.

We met a local resident

We headed off just before 4pm to our next stop at Volterra, which was only 24 miles away, so less than an hours drive and parked up at the Area Sosta Camper - Volterra (W3W: misted.begun.stereos) €15 per night and at the bottom of the hilltop town of Volterra, which we will look round tomorrow. More on that next time.

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[Holly's mum]

Volterra is a walled Medieval, Etruscan-Roman hilltop town that is located in Tuscany, so once again the views are stunning.

It's one of the larger towns in Tuscany, with plenty to do.

Being a hilltop town and the sosta being at the bottom of the hill we had to walk up 253 steps to reach the town.

Once you reach the town you are rewarded with not only the spectacular views but a really lovely town too

Some of the narrow streets had high level walkways between the buildings

There was an artisan area of the town where stonemasons and sculptors, amongst others worked to create some impressive works of art

The Roman Theater complex includes the ruins of 3rd-century baths, it looked like they were setting up for a concert, I would imagine the sound would be great in the natural bowl the complex sits in.

We spent the morning looking round the town and then headed off to our next stop, Pisa.

 

[Holly's mum]

We arrived at Pisa, via a supermarket to top up on supplies, at just before 2pm. As it was still very hot, we had a light salad for lunch and decided to delay heading into Pisa until a little later in the day when it would hopefully be a little cooler. We stayed at Parcheggio Camper Via di Pratale (W3W: agreeing.forecast.pits) €12 for secure monitored parking, which is a short bus ride (the bus stop is right outside the site) or a 25 minute walk, into the centre of Pisa.

We headed into Pisa on the bus just before 5pm, it was still hot but a little more bearable than earlier. The town was, as expected, very busy with tourists and restaurants and gift shops, etc..

The area around the leaning tower and the cathedral is lovely and the cathedral itself is stunning

The doors were very impressive

Whilst walking around the city we saw signs to the botanical gardens and so had a look round the gardens and the museum there, all very interesting and a lovely oasis of green and calm in the busy city.

The bottom of this tree looks like a dinosaur foot

We saw lots of bamboo growing wild while we were in Italy and there was some at the botanical gardens too

As it was our wedding anniversary we walked back into the central area and found a restaurant to have some dinner and watch the world go by for a bit as the temperature was a lot more comfortable by now.
We then walked back to the bus stop and found that the buses didn't pick up from there after 8pm, so we looked on our Movit app and found that there should be a bus from near the river that would get us back to the Camper parking. Well, once again we managed to get on the wrong bus and again ended up further away from when we started. So we again decided to walk back to the motorhome, it was only 2.5 km this time and it was quite pleasant by the river, with a lovely Roman aqueduct and a nice sunset.

When we got back to the motorhome, I commented to Paul that there was a funny smell on entering the motorhome. He popped straight into the bathroom for a wee and found that the toilet didn't flush, then tried the sink and found that there was no water from the taps, we then realised that the smell was hot electrics! Paul checked the water pump and it was very hot, when he put the temperature gauge on it, it registered 142.9 Celsius! We usually turn the pump off when we leave the motorhome for any length of time but hadn't on this occasion and were extremely lucky that nothing had caught fire. The full story is on this thread here.

 

[Holly's mum]

The following day was a travelling day to get us across towards Venice. We stayed the night at Area Sosta Comunale Fratta Polesine (W3W: navigate.remarry.diving), which was a basic 4 van sosta in the middle of a village, with free services. We were the only van there and it was quiet, apart from the cicada's

We were still 60 miles from Venice, so we set off early the following morning to make the most of the day in Venice. When we arrived at the parking we had planned to stay at (Porta Gialla SAN GIULIANO, W3W: belt.inserted.transmitted), there was a sign on the gate saying that they were shut for the next 3 days and they were kicking off the motorhomes that were on there previously. So a quick look on P4N found another campsite that sounded good and was within easy reach of Venice by train, so that's where we headed off to. Aladin Camp Agricampeggio Area Sosta Camper (W3W: ///respond.tells.curvy) was a lovely campsite which was run by a family, with good clean modern facilities. It was more expensive than the first site €27 vs €12 but it was a proper campsite behind secure gates, in a quiet area vs a car park behind a barrier in a noisy area.

Having checked in and got ourselves sorted, the heavens opened but as the trains only ran once an hour, we decided to still head off and walked the 10 minutes to the train station arriving (very wet!!) a few minutes before the next train into the centre of Venice, which was just a short 20 minute train journey.

It was still raining hard when we reached Venice, so we had a coffee and snack in a café near the train station, by the time we had finished the rain had stopped and we could go exploring.

Saint Mark's Basilica

Doge's Palace

Rialto Bridge

Parish Church of Saint Moisè

This gull had a good viewing platform

Being Venice there were lots of shops with masks. Some of the prices were eyewatering

This chap was giving a lovely performance on his balcony, whilst his friend was walking amongst the crowd asking for donations, you can hear a short clip of him here

What can we say about this, check out the video of it in operation here

Having walked round the city and seen all that we wanted to see, we caught the train back to where we were staying (we had more luck with trains than buses ) and had a quiet evening, well we would have done, had it not been for the noisy neighbours either side . Tomorrow we head to the Dolomites, where it should be cooler.

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[Chasnam]

My wife who is a violin player says ir sounds like he had a backing track and was probably miming.
Chasnam

 

[Holly's mum]

The next day was a driving day again to get us to the Dolomites, via an Aldi for supplies.

We arrived at Misurina just after 2pm and found that the campsite, Camping Alla Baita (W3W: chorused.replenishes.wrists) had just one space left but it was too small and unsuitable for our motorhome, so we tried the sosta across the road, Area Sosta Camper Misurina (W3W: apples.ruins.squirrels - Don't you just love some of these W3W addresses?) but that was full to overflowing too, so we headed off down the road to see if there was anywhere sensible to park for a while until hopefully some space became available on the sosta later.
We found a small restaurant, Malga Popena (W3W: secreted.adjudicate.loosening), that had a large car park. We went into the restaurant to have a coffee and admire the view and then headed back to the motorhome to have a very late lunch and wait until hopefully some of the motorhomes had left the sosta at Misurina. We started seeing a lot of traffic coming from the direction of Misurina just after 4pm, so we headed back to the sosta and got there just in time to get a space before it started to fill up again. Cost for the sosta was €20 for 24 hours and there is a bus near by that takes you up to the Tre Cime (Three Peaks) for €10 return. We will be taking the bus tomorrow.

The views from the sosta were pretty good

The effect when the sun was going down was pretty spectacular

You can see the campsite across the road in this one

 

[Holly's mum]

We were originally going to visit the Dolomites and then Venice at the beginning of our trip through Italy but the weather didn't look good and we wanted to see the views of the Dolomites, hence we moved things around and have ended up at the Dolomites towards the end of our trip. I am pleased that we ended up doing it this way round, after the previous busy 5 weeks, it is nice to take a breather and reset ourselves and the weather has played ball too.

We caught the bus up to the three peaks in the morning, the queue of traffic to get up to the car park at the top was incredibly long but we noticed that our bus driver was on the phone to someone and the next minute we were going past the queue of traffic on the wrong side of the road, right the way to the toll booth, which we drove through on the wrong side too, after that the traffic was fine to the top.

We walked from the parking up to the restaurant and had a coffee and pastry, whilst taking in the views and before heading off along the path, with the other visitors.

This is the view from the restaurant area

The path that led to another restaurant and further walks through the mountains

The scenery was just breath taking

Even in an area as beautiful as this people can't resist putting their stamp on it

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[Holly's mum]

Having spent a lovely few hours at the Three Peaks, we caught the bus back to the sosta, had some lunch, watched the F1 qualifying for Silverstone and then headed off towards the Sella pass where you can take the "coffin lifts" up the mountain to the lodge for a coffee.

On the way we stopped at Passo di Giau to take in the views.

And met some of the locals, we heard a lot of cow bells whilst in the Dolomites, you can experience them here and get a panoramic view of the area.

When we reached the Coffin Lifts we found that all the parking said no motorhomes and had height restrictions on them. We drove further down the road and found that all the parking places and layby's had notices on them saying 30 minutes only. As it was late in the afternoon, we parked in a layby close to the Lifts and walked back up to them to check them out. They seemed to be running as we got there and we hoped that we could go up that evening but unfortunately it was just the maintenance team doing some work on the lifts and they weren't open to the public.

There's a short video of the Coffin lifts here, not taken by us this time, you can see that the lifts don't stop, you have to step in and out of them whilst they are moving and they swing a bit too

I am sure the view from the top would have been stunning, as it looked this good from the ground.

We considered risking staying overnight in the layby and doing the lifts early the following morning but as we walked back to the motorhome we noticed that the other two vans in the layby had parking tickets on them, so we decided not to risk it. Having decided we would likely have to miss going on the Coffin Lifts we headed off to find somewhere to stay for the night, after a short distance we drove through a town called Plan de Gralba where I spotted a sign for motorhome parking, so we pulled in and checked it out on P4N. It is Parcheggio Camper (W3W: rips.turndown.disqualify) and cost €8 for overnight. It was close to the town, which we didn't explore but we found that there was a bus that ran from there back to the Sella Pass and the Coffin lifts, so we planned to catch the bus back up to the lifts the following morning. The views from the site were pretty good too, it was obviously an area for skiing in the season, with ski lifts and a ski centre quite close by but good for walks in the mountains too, it was busy when we stopped there. We didn't take any photo's so I grabbed this one from Google.

Unfortunately I wasn't feeling very well the following morning and so we missed out on the Coffin Lifts, which I regret and feel guilty for letting Paul down, as I know he really wanted to do them. We'll just have to go back and do them another time

 

[Holly's mum]

From Plan de Gralba we headed in the general direction of Milan, staying in the Dolomites.

Our plan was to stop on a farm for a restful day but as we got to within 600 meters of the farm, the entrance road was down a steep narrow track and we were worried that if that was the way out too, we might struggle to get back out onto the road, so we decided to carry on. We were following a German motorhome at the time and a little further up the road they turned off at a sign saying motorhome parking 2km, so we followed them, wondering if it was another way into the farm we had intended to go to. The track was very narrow but fortunately nothing came the other way, we eventually reached a campsite and stopped outside whilst I checked it out on P4N, it was €30 a night and didn't look that exciting, so we decided to carry on, the track got even narrower and we were lucky that nothing came the other way. By the time we reached a better road we were running low on diesel and so I looked for the closest fuel station on the app we had and set it to navigate there. Having filled up with diesel, we headed off again and found a parking spot on the top of the mountains just near Varena called Parking Place Squash Pat (W3W: sleepers.legislated.legs). Being so high up it had fabulous views and was lovely and peaceful, apart from the loud motorbikes and cow bells but we were used to them. The local police drove round in the afternoon and she told us that we couldn't have our levellers down, we were fine to stay there but we must not show any signs of camping. Fortunately the parking was quite level, so this wasn't an issue.

We were treated to a lovely sunset too.

After a peaceful night we headed off again towards Milan via the lakes. I needed to do some washing and the temperatures were getting too hot for us, so we looked for a campsite with a washing machine and some shade. We found Agricampeggio Paolino, near Dro (W3W: bluntest.crank.forgive) which was listed at €25 a night and looked to be nice and peaceful with plenty of shade and a washing machine. Each pitch was parking between trees and the shade was very welcome. I did some washing and we rested for the afternoon as it was just too hot to do much else.

We were parked right below a high cliff face, this was the view from our rooflight, fingers crossed for no landslips

 

[Holly's mum]

We had thought about staying at the campsite in Dro for another night but it was very noisy in the morning and we decided to move on. After I recovered from the shock of the price on paying for our stay, I was expecting €25 remember from P4N, I was told it was €35 plus €3 tourist tax, so a total of €38!! We wouldn't have stayed there if we had known it was that much, so thank goodness we didn't stay a second night.

We headed off towards the lakes and decided to drive down the side of lake Garda, this was a mistake, as we drove down the side that although it was an SS road and used by buses and lorries, it was narrow and had lots of tunnels and overhanging rocks, etc.. We had one mirror clash with a silly woman in a Range Rover who was too far over our side of the road but no damage fortunately (we lost our mirror guard on that side much earlier in the trip, so no protection ). Some of the tunnels were so long, they actually had junctions in them, we've never seen that before.

Having survived our drive alongside lake Garda, we headed to the sosta at Olginate. Area Sosta Camper Olginate (W3W: sponge.tracks.dilute), which is a large parking area on the side of Lake Olginate, which links into lake Garlate, which links into Lake Como. It was a lovely little lake and a lot quieter than the bigger ones. Parking was €10 for the night, which included services.

We were heading back towards Milan so that I could meet up with some of my ex work colleagues and friends, who live near there, which was originally planned for the weekend coming, we were currently on Tuesday, but due to the weather being so hot and we had seen reports of storms coming in, I contacted my friends to see if we could meet earlier and we set a date for the following evening in Lainate, which was less than 50 miles away.

So after a quiet night at Olginate and a huge storm in the morning, with hail and thunder so loud it physically shook the motorhome, we headed off after lunch to Lainate. We parked at the Centro Sportivo Comunale "Nelson Mandela" (W3W: silly.posts.conquest), in the car park, as I was meeting my friends in a restaurant in Lainate. Paul was having a quiet evening without me, his first for 7 weeks! I had a lovely evening with my friends, although eating quite late did not sit well with my tummy.

We had more rain overnight and in the morning we headed back into France and stayed again at Lake Cenis, in the Alps, where we had stayed on our way into Italy in June. (W3W: rollers.riverbed.infers). As well as it being cooler in the Alps, we narrowly missed the storms in Italy, which had hail stones so large that they wrecked some motorhomes (there was a thread on Fun at the time, very sad) and caused damage to some of my friends houses, smashing the glass roof on one of them, so we definitely made the right decision to leave Italy a couple of days earlier than planned.

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[Holly's mum]

It was so welcome to be in the Alps and cooler temperatures, having had the last few weeks in the mid-high 30's and then the low 40's, we needed to cool down and mid twenties felt cold, until we had a word with ourselves that mid 20's was comfortably warm not cold!

Mont Cenis was busier than when we had stopped in June and some cows had moved in for the summer. We were sat in the motorhome relaxing when the cows, that had been in the field on the other side of the road, started walking past our motorhome on the lake side. I commented to Paul that the cows looked ready for milking.

We wondered where they were going, so I went out to have a look and found that the farmer had a temporary 4 cow milking shed at the far end of the parking. The cows were all herded into the holding area and were queuing in an orderly fashion, waiting their turn to get milked and then go back to grazing again. I was very impressed.

After a quiet and more comfortable night temperature wise, we started our journey back through France to the tunnel. It was Bastille day and everywhere was very busy. We managed to find a service area to dump our waste and top up with water, having been off grid for a couple of nights, which would give us more flexibility on where to park for the night. We drove past a parking area on the edge of a forest, where there was motorhome and caravan parked, so we stopped and checked on P4N and it was marked as being okay to overnight, so we stayed there for the night. W3W: deliveries.roosters.repaving.

The following day we had a long driving day to get further up France and out of the heat of the south. We had picked a small 5 van aire to stop at near a river but when we arrived it was snug to say the least and we didn't feel comfortable staying there, so a quick look on P4N and I found an old municipal site a few miles along the road for €10, incl EHU. Aire d'Accueil de Camping-Car Le Grand Vanne (W3W: confidently.blatantly.nightlife). It was a reasonable site with plenty of space and on the edge of the small village of Tonnoy, alongside the Moselle. We walked around Tonnoy, it was a nice little village but there wasn't a lot there.

 

[Holly's mum]

From Tonnoy we continued to head back towards Calais, after the long drive yesterday we did just a 100 miles today to Pogny, which was on good roads and only took us a couple of hours. Paul had found an aire beside a canal Camperplaats Pogny (W3W: rodents.purifier.fatten). It was a lovely modern aire, it only has 2 places but some people park in the layby's along the road too. We were lucky when we got there, that there was 1 place left.

The town has even provided a couple of picnic benches, 3 wooden sun loungers and a book exchange. It's a lovely area by the canal for the locals to use as well as any campers.

In the evening we went for a lovely walk along the side of the canal, on the other side of the bridge. We found there was a parking area the other side of the bridge that had access to the river that side and had a small beachy area, where some families were parked up with children, perfect for families. We liked the quieter parking by the canal

The following morning we went for a walk round the village and to find the Intermarche that was supposed to be close by. It was a short 10 minute walk to the small shopping area, with an Intermarche and several other shops, including a café, which we didn't try out. There was supposed to be a very good bakery too but it wasn't open on a Monday and we didn't walk back up there before we left on the Tuesday. We stayed 2 nights as it was so quiet and lovely there.

When we had parked on the aire, the motorhome behind us was Bulgarian registered and as the parking was not terribly roomy, Paul had used Google translate to say that if they wanted us to move forward a bit if they wanted to leave, to just give us a shout. The couple were sat outside their van and Paul walked over and showed them his phone, the guy then turned round and said "why don't you just talk to us in English?", turns out they were a Scottish couple who had been living in Bulgaria for the last 6 years but it hadn't worked out for them and so they were heading home to Scotland.

Tuesday we headed off after lunch and drove for 3 hours to another parking spot by a canal. It was very quiet there with just a couple of fishermen for company. Rue Du Port, Marcoing (W3W: impatiently.highbrow.environment). There is an aire at the other end of the town that has services but it is used by lorries as well and we thought this parking would be safer and quieter. We didn't need services as we had used the ones at Pogny before we left. We decided that as we were quite close to Calais we would see if we could move our tunnel booking forward by one day, which we were able to do for no charge. This gave us just one more full day in France.

Paul was just about to go and set up the portable BBQ on the picnic bench next to where we were parked when along comes an old French van and parks between us and the picnic bench. You can see from the photo's below just how much other space there was available to him and even that there was another picnic bench he could have parked next to. Unbelievable! He had something to eat and then cleared off again. It's as though it's a challenge for the French to squeeze into a space if they see one

 

[Shrimp]

Just caught up. Some very good photos.
Bet you were tempted on catnapping a kitten, I would have been!

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[Holly's mum]

Just caught up. Some very good photos.
Bet you were tempted on catnapping a kitten, I would have been!

Thanks Mandy.

You know us too well, we could easily have catnapped a kitten but we contented ourselves with just feeding them and having cuddles.

 

[Holly's mum]

On our last full day in France we headed off after lunch to travel a huge 3 miles to the small village of Flesquières, to the Cambrai Tank 1917 museum (W3W: automate.telescopes.spaghetti), that contains the famous tank "Deborah 51", one of the 476 tanks engaged during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917. It is not a battle we were aware of before.
The CAMBRAI TANK 1917 Interpretation Center is located in Flesquières, in the very heart of the battlefields, where the Deborah tank was neutralized by a German cannon. Four of its crew members are buried in Flesquières Hill British Cemetery, backing onto the center.

It's a really interesting little museum, it is the story of one tank that fought the first battle of Cambrai and was dug up through the efforts of one man, who then built a museum to house it. It's very well laid out, informative and poignant. As well as the main display of the tank, which has not been restored, there are some other smaller displays and lots of informative videos and displays about the battle of Cambrai. We also looked round the British Cemetery next door, which is always quite sobering.

After nearly 2 hours looking round the museum and the cemetery, we headed off to our night stop at Gravelines.

It was our first time at Gravelines, we arrived just before 7pm and the weather was not great, it was extremely windy and as I walked round to the Lidl, it started to rain. Fortunately the rain had blown through when I came out of Lidl and I had just about dried off by the time I got back to the motorhome, which Paul had turned round as the wind was blowing the fridge out and trying to gas Paul.

We were due to get up at 5.30am to get to the tunnel, as we had an early train booked, so I was less than impressed when a British motorhomer woke me up at 3am when they pulled into the space left by the Belgiums, who had been parked next to us when we had gone to bed. We didn't hear the Belgiums leave but I certainly heard the Brits arrive. Why, when you arrive somewhere at 3am, would you start opening and closing lockers and making a lot of noise? Perhaps my shout of "you are having a F'ing laugh" was heard, as it went quiet after that and I managed to get a bit more sleep.

We were home by 10.30am and I had the first load of washing in the machine 10 minutes later back to reality

In summary we found Italy to be a beautiful country and the people were friendly. The north was cheaper than the south. The roads are often narrow and atrociously maintained, we thought Belgium roads were bad until we went to Italy. We were saddened by the amount of litter in many of the layby's. The standard of driving is as bad as we had ever heard it was. We were surprised by the amount of bamboo we saw growing wild and also the rice fields, we hadn't realised that Italy is the biggest rice producer in Europe.

We hope that you have enjoyed our blog and maybe find some inspiration for a trip of your own. Ciao

 

[rolosroller]

And

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[Holly's mum]

And

Thank you, that's good to know

 

[Shrimp]

Thanks Mandy.

You know us too well, we could easily have catnapped a kitten but we contented ourselves with just feeding them and having cuddles.

Had this come in to talk while Pip was out walking with N.

 

[Two on Tour]

Had this come in to talk while Pip was out walking with N.
View attachment 825268

Any chance of bringing it home for us please ?

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