Having had 3 or 4 days of no, or very poor, internet connection, I’ll try to do a catchup…
Fri, 11/7/14
I’d said in a previous post that we’d stayed overnight SE of Rome (where we got hit by thunderstorms!)… We have this app on our smartphones called “ProMobile”. It’s a German app that’s a guide to all of the free or low-cost “Stellplaetze” (“aires” in French; “sostas” in Italian; no equivalent and mostly illegal in the UK) across Europe. These are places where you can park a motorhome overnight, or for a couple of nights usually. ProMobile is a fantastic resource that’s supplemented by the feedback from previous visitors. The only drawback is that it requires an internet connection to allow you to do searches.
So we found this Sosta on ProMobile: I liked the sound of it because the description of it included mention of an “uriges” (ancient) restaurant on site. It was off the beaten track, and on a small lake.
The access was down a steep, narrow track. Being (mis)led once again by our SatNav, we started to get suspicious when it suggested we drive into and across the lake. I always get slight panicky on such narrow tracks as there’s no way of turning the van around; it’s just too big. So as we were heading off into the wilderness, we could see this figure on the other side of the lake frantically waving to us and beckoning us back again. Great, we’d obviously missed the turn.
I did manage to turn the van around by going only a couple of hundred metres further along the track and then doing a seventeen point turn in the entrance to a field.
Very enthusiastic owner of the land and restaurant – very pedantically guided us inch by inch to the best spot (we were the only campers there). He spoke a few words of English, we still speak practically no Italian (shame!). Within a couple of minutes, his expressive abilities and broken English had told us that he had bought the land & the restaurant having previously been a dentist. He runs the place (restaurant, Stellplatze and lake) out of love. It certainly can’t be for money as he gets very little trade, which is a great shame for him. He blames the economy – which is still poor in Italy right now. He has 3 dogs & two horses which – although the horses wear rope tethers – are not actually tethered to anything, but are free to roam around eating whatever they can get their mouths on.
We decided to eat chez-host. There was no menu. With gesticulations and a mixture of broken English & Italian, we managed to negotiate a vegetarian meal for Joy, and a less-than-veggie meal for me. The giant BBQ was fired-up and dinner was on the way. Accompanied by a thunderstorm.
Next morning, one of the dogs decided it wanted to come with us.
We would have loved to have obliged, but felt the owner (whose name we never learned) might have been upset.