Italy (1 Viewer)

[cherok]

Hi all

I am in the early stages of planning a trip to Italy and have a couple of questions if anyone has experience of travelling around the country?

I'm pretty green in this sort of thing so please don't laugh but..

Would three weeks be enough to travel down to the 'heel and toe' of Italy and does anyone have any suggestions of good places to visit and sites to stay?

Also, I have thought about going over to one of the Islands maybe Sicily or Sardinia. Would it just be practical to turn up on a particular day or is it advisable to book in advance? (This would be August..)

I had heard that some of the areas in Calabria and Basilicata can be a bit dicey or is this exaggerated?

I would appreciate any advice :thumb:

 

[hilldweller]

Hi all
I am in the early stages of planning a trip to Italy and have a couple of questions if anyone has experience of travelling around the country?

I'm pretty green in this sort of thing so please don't laugh but..

Would three weeks be enough to travel down to the 'heel and toe' of Italy and does anyone have any suggestions of good places to visit and sites to stay?

Also, I have thought about going over to one of the Islands maybe Sicily or Sardinia. Would it just be practical to turn up on a particular day or is it advisable to book in advance? (This would be August..)

I had heard that some of the areas in Calabria and Basilicata can be a bit dicey or is this exaggerated?

I would appreciate any advice :thumb:

You can pick up my enthusiasm for Italy here:
Link Removed

How long is a piece of string - the Toe from Calais is over 3000 miles return, so that's 150 miles every day. Do you want to do that ? You'll "see" Italy, you'll not experience it, you'll not have a holiday. We did approximately this in Morocco this year, we have the feel of Morocco, it was a grand adventure but that's all. We don't want to go back, Europe has more to attract us.

However long you take, DO IT, you will then be obliged to return and do it properly

 

[superk]

Hi all

I am in the early stages of planning a trip to Italy and have a couple of questions if anyone has experience of travelling around the country?

I'm pretty green in this sort of thing so please don't laugh but..

Would three weeks be enough to travel down to the 'heel and toe' of Italy and does anyone have any suggestions of good places to visit and sites to stay?

Also, I have thought about going over to one of the Islands maybe Sicily or Sardinia. Would it just be practical to turn up on a particular day or is it advisable to book in advance? (This would be August..)

I had heard that some of the areas in Calabria and Basilicata can be a bit dicey or is this exaggerated?

I would appreciate any advice :thumb:

Everything depends what you want out of your trip - get there and lay on a beach or tour round mopping up the history and culture?

Your question is a bit like a foreigner asking: is 3 weeks enough to get to the Scottish Isles, is Glasgow a bit dicey and where should we go?

No problem getting across to Sicily - it's and everyday occurrence - just turn up. But whether you would have time to see anything is questionable - maybe a quick trip to Etna, Catania, Taormina but you would have no understanding of Sicily and it would have been better to fly there.

Southern Areas of Italy are different to the North and some areas have a reputation (a particularly ruthless form of the Mafia is said to operate here and even hold a convention in the mountains under the guise of a festival) but you will be unaware of activities unless you deliberately try and probe.
At the same time there are some wonderful places to visit - mostly the mountain villages - where our friends are said to operate.
East Coast is big with Italian holidaymakers so I would think August would be very busy.

We did the Heel and Toe - in about 2 weeks after getting there, Sicily in about 3 months. We spent five months overall in Italy. You can obviously do bits in less time.

If it's your first trip to Italy I would stay further North and do some of the more popular tourist areas.

Best to buy a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide to Italy to get the full picture.

Sorry about the rambling answer.


Keith

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[cherok]

We have done northern Italy quite extensively over the years by driving down and using a few weeks to travel around particular areas.

Have a bit of a love affair with the area ourselves and indeed thought about buying a property in the Le Marche area (wish we had now too seeing how prices have gone up!)

I will take some time to look at your link hilldweller, thanks.

We will definitely do some exploring but maybe with regard to what you've said, around the Le Marche and coastal areas for now as we do want to spend some time 'nosing around.'

Probably spend the last week chilling on the beach:Cool:

Leave the 'Big Trip' until we have some more time...

 

[smifee]

i avoid the touristy areas.

calabria is great. would be too hot for me at that time of the year. in 2005 the only time we came across anything to do with the mafia was that in atown called Corigliano Calabro there were no taxis and no one would say why.

there is a sosta at Adore Marina which we didn't find listed anywhere but came across the sign. it's on a promenade about 1k long & you just have to cross the road to be on the beach. in November i was the only person on the beach in the afternoons but i'm sure it must be busier in August.

less english spoken the further south you go but more people speak German.

will put some photos with lat/longs in the gallery

 

[hilldweller]

We will definitely do some exploring but maybe with regard to what you've said, around the Le Marche and coastal areas for now as we do want to spend some time 'nosing around.'

We did Rome a few years ago, cut across to the east and up that coast. Stayed a while in Riccioni, lovely place.

During the ride up the coast I was pleasantly surprised how friendly the natives were. We passed many pretty young girls all standing by the road just waving to passers-by. Really sweet. It seems to have caught on in France, similar heart warming experience this year driving up to Fontainebleau.

If you've "done" northern Italy then the 2010 thread won't interest you but please feel free to contribute to it.

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[activecampers]

Hi
See my site on my sig below which has details of our tour, loads of wild camping GPS points and other bits n bobs you may find useful

 

[hilldweller]

Hi
See my site on my sig below which has details of our tour, loads of wild camping GPS points and other bits n bobs you may find useful

Up yours sunshine, I'm not reading any more of your obscene drivel.

>> The following day we started with a short 6 mile run along the Tiber
>> The next morning, we did a 16 mile run along the Tiber right into the centre of Rome.

That's disgusting. And it gets even more depraved.




PS I've copied your link to 2010 thread, a good taste it Italy.

 

[mnk303]

No Problem

Just come back from a 2.5K journey to Lake Garda (3rd Pic), we stayed right on the lake at Camping Gardasee Lovely place only 120 spaces so you have to book early on the 15th Jan each year or you lose the lake front. Expensive at 60 euro a day + power but a nice site. A lot of Germans and Dutch with the UK being the minority. if you have a small boat you will enjoy it so much more.

The site will take motorohome up to about 9M but its a tricky site to park in and really you need to do as we do and hire a small car for getting about, not because the road are small but its hard to get in and out of the site every day.

One of the best holidays we have ever had. Food amazing, Marina was a short walk, smashing camping shop only about 2 miles away. 2 hours to Venice and then the lovely Sirmione (1st pic) a 500 year old lake side town, wonderful shops and restaurants, you can take a bus, drive and park outside or boat across, be warned gets busy so may have trouble parking a Motorhome nearer than 2 miles.

Next year we will do Lake Marjorie where we understand there are far more English and some better acc ess sites...also about 200 miles nearer.

Be warned if your motorhome is over 3500 kg you will need to park up queue at the Swiss boarder for a tax sticker cost is very dependent on your length of travel. But the wait can be an hour when busy. No one tells you a thing they just point and tell you nothing but look at the offices and you will see the coach drivers in a line.

Next year we may stay north and go round Switzerland as we found the camp site busy, small and crowed and to be honest we did not like that stretch of the journey.


On the way we stayed at a lovely French site at Colmar (2nd Pic nearby French/German Village), at a lovely camp site Link Removed, lots of Dutch and English, free kids club, pool and games, had some lovely wine tasting evenings, would go back so much to do around the area as its close to Germany, and Switzerland, some good Motorhome parking in the towns. Made to feel very welcome and can highly recommend it.

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[falcon]

Hi all

I am in the early stages of planning a trip to Italy and have a couple of questions if anyone has experience of travelling around the country?

I'm pretty green in this sort of thing so please don't laugh but..

Would three weeks be enough to travel down to the 'heel and toe' of Italy and does anyone have any suggestions of good places to visit and sites to stay?

Also, I have thought about going over to one of the Islands maybe Sicily or Sardinia. Would it just be practical to turn up on a particular day or is it advisable to book in advance? (This would be August..)

I had heard that some of the areas in Calabria and Basilicata can be a bit dicey or is this exaggerated?

I would appreciate any advice :thumb:

Hi,

I am new to the Motorhomes and to date have only travelled with the camper in the UK.

However we have a small house in Calabria and my and son and I have just been there in my car for different purposes, one of which is to sus out my next trip with my wife in the Motorhome.
The total trip from Liverpool to Scalea where my house is was 1660 miles on the shortest route via Basle and Firenze. We returned via the west coast road and through a longer route through Avingnon in France.

We spent 3 days going down sharing the driving and 4 coming back out of choice. We could have sqeezed this by a day respectively but decided to do it comfortably. When we go back end of September in the MH, I intend to allow 10 days each way to sample some of the stops on route.
The route is uneventful but be prepared for some bad driving habits south of Rome. The condition of the roads also deteriorates south of Naples. Fuel prices have now overtaken the UK and hovering around the Euro 1.20 on average.

The purpose of this post is first of all to ally any fears of the 'undesireables' in Calabria. We have had our house there for 6 years and to be honest we could have left the door open in most cases. Of course normal common precautions should be taken but in general we have never found any problems. There is anecdotal evidence by the Italians themselves that the Naples area is more subject to theiving etc. so we tend to keep away from that area.

One of the things I can say is that the Italians are very much into MH's themselves and they seem to be well set up with campsites and free sostas (aires). My neighbour there has a Ducato Roller and assures me that there are many sites across Italy including the South where it is very safe to camp.

While I was there I picked up an Italian motorhome mag Plein Air ( www.plenair.it ) which follows the same formats as our mags. You can buy the latest list on DVD Rom, containg 8600 sites across Europe for 22 Euros. This also contains the map and a program to work out the routes although of course you can do that now in Google Earth. I have ordered one of these so will happily discuss it with anybody that wants some information once I get it.

We are looking forward to our first trip to the South because it is going to give us the opportunity to stop in France and Swizerland on the way. Retirment allows us to take our time spend time in our house there and slowly work our way back in November or early December before the bad weather sets in.

Any views on road conditions across the Alps around that time would be most welcome.

 

[activecampers]

Up yours sunshine, I'm not reading any more of your obscene drivel.

>> The following day we started with a short 6 mile run along the Tiber
>> The next morning, we did a 16 mile run along the Tiber right into the centre of Rome.

That's disgusting. And it gets even more depraved.




PS I've copied your link to 2010 thread, a good taste it Italy.

You had me going there - I thought I posted the wrong link!
PS - we were in Marathon training....

 

[hilldweller]

You had me going there - I thought I posted the wrong link!
PS - we were in Marathon training....

All part of the service.

I didn't get where I am today doing marathon training.

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