Last night, it rained. A lot.
This morning, it’s wet, cool and very, very foggy. Well, we are at about 900m above sea level here. The forecast for the next week is pretty awful (very unusual for here in July), so we’re looking to head further South.
Trying to research our next stop not being aided by VERY idiosyncratic internet connection. Goodness knows where we’ll end up!
Yesterday, we did a bike ride. The sheet of paper giving the rough route, kindly provided by the campsite said “It’ a easy route”. They lied. The first couple of hundred metres should have been a big enough omen of what was to come.
It would have been a great ride but for the fact that recent & current forestry work had all but destroyed much of the trails, with 3 foot deep tyre & caterpillar track ruts in many places.
Oh, and the impossibly steep climbs! They’re ok; you can push up them, but when you have impossibly steep climbs with huge ruts it’s a different matter. Joy started getting concerned about the thought that we’d have to come back down those climbs going in the opposite direction!
In truth, it was a great ride with the highest point being at 1210m above sea-level. The weather held out long enough for us to have a picnic in the sunshine at a slight clearing at the top. We never met a single other person on the trail except – right at the top, we saw the couple from the caravan opposite us at the campsite: they had walked up with their dog. We went on a few hundred metres before heading back. Oddly, we didn’t pass them again so not sure where they went (but they were back in their van last night!).
In some parts, we followed the Roman road (Flaminia Militare): some parts exposed and protected by signs, but most of it still buried. Perhaps a good thing as the unprotected parts have been eroded and most of the stones washed away where they are liberally strewn across the trail.
Here’s the route we followed.
Joy and I visited the Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof near the campsite early this evening. Over 30,000 German troops lost their lives in this area during WWII and are buried here. A large number of them are unidentified.
Very sobering, very moving, very sad, very poignant. A beautiful location, managed and carefully maintained by the German War Graves Commission. It lies at the top of the Futa Pass overlooking the surrounding mountains.
Yesterday (Sat, 5/7/14), we went to Florence. Never been before, and everyone had told us we had to visit. Whilst we were so close, it would have been rude not to.
To tell the truth, I’m not really a city person or a culture person: I prefer beaches and mountains, but there’s so much history to Florence, it had to be worth a look. Joy had done some research & figured out the things we were to see & do.
There was no way I was going to take the motorhome into the city, so we drove down to the nearest railway station at S. Pietro A Sieve (remember that exact spelling), about 50 mins down the torturous mountain road) and parked the van there for the day.
Italian trains are brilliant, if not always on time, though I can think of somewhere else like that! And very inexpensive at just €3.40 each for the 1/2 hr trip into the centre of Florence. In typical Italian fashion however, the ticket machine wasn’t working. It’s always a struggle to use these computer-driven machines in a foreign language, and this was no exception. Despite it kindly offering English-language transactions, it still wouldn’t work (“Can’t connect to the network at this time – please wait”. Where might I have seen messages like that before?). After a couple of attempts, and with the departure time getting closer, I let the next person use the machine – reassuringly with the same result. However, she just went round to the cafe and we observed her buying her ticket there. Problem solved.
First stop in Florence was the museum of photography which – when eventually located – turned out to be closed on Saturdays. A pity, as it had an enthusiastic write-up.
Next stop was a fairly lengthy walk to the Piazzale Michelangelo, taking in quick visits of the Basillica di Santa Maria Novella and Chiesa di S.Trinita before reaching the river (Arno). There we had a fabulous view of the famous Ponte Vecchio (bridge), before walking along the river and taking in the most expensive ham & cheese sandwich in the world.
Piazzale Michelangelo contains a large bronze statue of Michelangelo’s David. It’s at the top of a steep climb in the sun. Fortunately, the last, and steepest steps, are in the shade, but we’re both fairly moist by the time we confronted David in all his naked, verdigrised glory.
Fantastic views over the city of Florence, photos taken, italian ice-creams eaten, and then the walk back – over Ponte Vecchio (these days a series of jewellery shops) to the Galleria degli Uffizi – the enormous former Medici building that’s now a famous art gallery.
As stated earlier, I’m no afficianado of fine art, but to see the originals of some of the world’s most famous works of art like Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” and “Spring” was truly awe-inspiring, even though a clear view of it through the throngs of guided tours was difficult.
It’s now getting late having spent much, much longer at the art gallery than we thought we would. A dash back to the station to get our chosen train back, with the misgiving that we’d miss it. We hadn’t – it was delayed and still sitting at the platform. Rush to join the queue at the infamous ticket machine. My turns comes (English version kindly provided again). You have to enter your destination by spelling it out (Dropdown lists don’t seem to have made it this far). I spelled out our destination. Twice. Not found. I let the next people in the queue have the machine whilst I considered options in a slight state of panic. They faffed and farted for ages, before eventually deciding not to buy a ticket. Our train left. Naughty words ensued.
With an hour to wait for the next train, panic left & I was able to rationalise the problem and successfully negotiate ticket acquisition: You can’t request “San Pietro A Sieve”, or “SanPietroASieve” or any one of a hundred different possible permutations. It has to be – absolutely precisely – “S. Pietro A Sieve” before the automaton graciously accepted our desired destination. Tricky one this, as there was no obvious spacebar on the keyboard. Dropdown lists are wonderful things. Perhaps in the future?
Oh well, with an hour to spare, time to find a cafe & a beer. I’ve previously maintained that the most expensive beer I ever bought was a bottle Wiezenbier at Stuttgart airport. This has now been revised to a small cafe near the station in Florence where I was stripped of €14 for 2 half-litres of fizzy italian ordinariness. When we paid, the waiter helpfully advised that each beer would have been €2 less had we sat in the bar rather than outside. I was most grateful for this piece of advice and will surely memorize it for my next visit (not).
Back to the station, getting there a couple of minutes before the designated departure time. A glance at the departure board showed the train was leaving from a platform somewhere in the shimmering distance, rather than the platform in front of us where we’d arrived and from where the last train had departed. Platform 17 was a good 10 minute walk. We had 3 minutes. Deja Vu sets in. Running, with our knackered knees and with all the walking we’d done during the day, was not an entirely enjoyable experience in the by now sinking sun. We made it. The train sat resolutely out in the sticks of platform 17 for a good 10 mins more. Great. Italian trains; gotta love ’em.
4th July:
Leaving Lazise on Wed, 2nd July, and heading further South, we thought we’d try to avoid the Autostrada for a while & see a bit of the Italian countryside (and save a bit of money in motorway tolls!). A couple of hours of negotiating bizarre junctions, our SatNav wanting to take us in every alternative direction but the one we wanted, and a million small towns and traffic lights made us head back to the Autostrada.
It’s starting to get late. The Italian campsite book I downloaded to my Kindle back in Heiterwang (download took 2 1/2 hrs) suggested an interesting looking campsite north of Firenze/Florence. What it didn’t say was that the climb up to the campsite – at 950m above sea level – was pretty torturous & the road surface was so bad, a blanket 30kph speed limit was in force over the entire stretch.
However, the campsite is fantastic.
We were going to stay one night and we’re still here! Probably the best campsite we’ve ever stayed at. They have a Pizzeria for when the urge to prepare one’s own meals fails us. The toilet facilities are really something else: tiled in beautiful Italian tiles, with hi-tech, self-sanitizing loo seats (a new one on me!), high-tech temperature-selectable hair dryers, and beautiful Italian design wash basins. And everything is spotless.
The views & sunsets are something else:
The staff are also the most friendly and helpful campsite staff we’ve ever encountered.
Yesterday, we got the mountain bikes out and decided to get adventurous by following a trail [sic.] leading to a section of Roman road that had been discovered only relatively recently. The staff had suggested the trail should be ok for mountain biking: the very first bit of track off-road suggested otherwise, at least for Joy. A helpful dutch lady walker we met at that point said that after this first bit it was much flatter. We believed her. She was either lying or delusional. We pressed on regardless. Even I took the safe option of dismounting at one or two sections. Worryingly, the trail seemed to be going mainly steeply downhill. The worry being the knowledge that we’d have to go back the same way!
Roman road sections discovered. Sign showed the section was dated back to 187 years BC. One really gets a feeling of the smallness of our time and space when confronted with such antiquity. The ride back did involve a certain amount of pushing uphill, but we made it without incident.
We stayed in Lazise-Colà for 2 nights – it was wonderfully warm (~30°C), breezy and mostly sunny. The 2nd evening provided us with a good view of what looked like a spectacular thunderstorm in the distance.
We got the bikes out and cycled round the lake. A bit. Well, it was hot. We got lost. Call it adventurous, but it seems to happen to us a lot on our bikes: We follow what seems like a sensible, marked trail leading in the right direction. Then there’s a series of junctions with no waymarking.
We make a choice and follow it, and inevitably end up carrying bikes through undergrowth or whatever. This time, we ended up in a vineyard. Fortunately, I spotted a break in the fence between the vineyard and a metalwork shop, and our escape was assured.
There was a path around the lake – more of a footpath – and was sandy & hard going at times. But Garda was as wonderful as I remember it from the past.
A trying couple of days in some respects… We left Kathryn’s on Saturday afternoon, thinking we’d get to the Austrian border by the evening. Unfortunately, the “A8; Stuttgart richtung München, am Aichelberg zwischen Merklingen & Mülhausen” (a well-known and feared traffic announcement in Baden Würtemberg) traffic jam bit us hard (“wegen Bergungsbearbeiten”). In short, we covered just 8km in over 3 hrs, and any thoughts of getting to Austria vanished. In fact, we only made 60km all day.
Eventually we got to the head of the queue, just to find the Autobahn was closed & all traffic was being taken off onto the side roads. After about 5km, we happened across a “Wohnmobilstellplatz” in Bad Ditzenbach: This is akin to the French “aires” (see my earlier post) insofar as you can park up overnight for free, or for just a modest fee.
Yesterday morning, we set off relatively early (for us) and hammered (relative term for our motorhome, approx = 60mph) down past Ulm (stopping first in Blaubeuren to admire the bare cliffs). Before we got as far as the Algaü, it had started to rain and get colder. We stopped at Heiterwang – just over the border in Austria – at another Stellplatz; this time with great facilities, and a Gasthof attached! Wienerschnitzel mit Pommes for me & a Tyrolean version of Käsepätzle for Joy; both excellent.
The food was accompanied by the host who entertained us with the piano accordion, guitar and his singing.
The wireless internet was – however – troublesome to say the least, taking several hours to try to download an Italian camping book. The rain, in the meantime, had completely failed to ease up.
Overnight, the rain continued to not ease up. Quite the opposite, in fact. The temperature dropped to around 6 or 7 degrees, too. The main skylight in the van – the one that had leaked previously and had allegedly been fixed – leaked. The waste bin was pressed into service as a water collection device.
This morning, it was pretty damn cold, and still pouring down. When we stayed in Heiterwang several years ago – camping in a tent – we had a similar rain problem then (though not as cold). We came to the same conclusion this time as we did then: head to Italy asap.
However, the scenery around Heiterwang is stunning, even in the rain – and is worth seeing despite the cold:
As we were getting ready to leave this morning, a group of Belgian bikers – all on big Harley-Davidsons – who’d stayed the night in the Gasthof, were leaving. As a special goodbye, the landlord climbed up to the roof with his baritone saxophone, and played them out!
Quite bizarre, but not to be missed.
We then pressed on down through Austria, via Innsbrück, and over the Brenner Pass into Italy. It’s about a 50mile long descent from the Brenner, and it was getting warmer all the way – just what we needed.
We eventually arrived at a Sosta (an Italian version of an aire) in Lazise, near the bottom end of Lake Garda. Al fresco dinner with a glass of wine watching the sun set. We feel we’re there.
Dunno what’s going on with their wireless internet, though: my phone connected immediately with no problem. My Kindle won’t connect at all. Joy’s phone won’t connect and the laptop won’t connect. Most strange. Joy’s phone eventually managed to connect but we don’t know why, but no such luck with either the laptop or the Kindle. So what, I don’t hear you cry? Well, I would have liked internet access on the Kindle ‘cos I have the Times & Sunday Times app on there, and the laptop ‘cos I can’t write this blog from my phone! In the end, I was able to use my phone as a WiFi access point for the laptop, and this is the happy result.
Cheers!
Been at our daughter’s for 3 days now, and it’s been great to see them. Also gave us chance to replace the lost part of our toilet cassette – the part that contrived to drop off into the toilet disposal point in Longwy!
After an excellent BBQ, along with Mark’s parents, granddaughter Emily insisted on sleeping in the van last night with Nanny…
…and actually managed to sleep all night!
Now it’s time to move on. Although we’d originally thought we’d get down to Naples (Pompeii & Herculaneum), we feel the delays in the UK have now made this unfeasible without running into main holiday times. We’re also now a little more experienced in knowing how long it takes to get anywhere at the van’s ponderous speed (or lack thereof).
Tuscany is now in our sights, though exactly where is uncertain. We’ll probably take in 2 overnight stops on the way. Not sure where we’ll have an Internet connection again, nor when. Keep looking…
We’re in Germany. Ehningen, to be precise.
Two days without any internet connection and I feel like I’ve been cast adrift. What were those days like before the Internet? I guess I’ve been in the IT industry so long, I can’t remember. We even had company-wide internal email in HP in 1983. Now, If it feels completely unnatural not to have permanent, wireless access.
Arrived in Calais around 2:15am, local time. We never intended to get the late ferry but – without having booked the early ferry (believing we could just rock up & pay at the gate) – we found the price of the earlier ferries had gone up from £43 to £105. So we booked the late ferry at £43 still.
We spent out first night away in the stunningly exotic location of Calais docks departure area. We’d read that it was possible to park up there overnight, the trick being to leave the arrivals area, drive out of the docks to the 1st roundabout, then double back to the departures where you could park up in a motorhome. Ok, so we were tired; we managed to get into the freight terminal amongst several hundred trucks from Rumania, Poland, Latvia, & goodness knows where else. We were politely shown the exit – the gate of which slid open majestically to allow us through to the outside world. A second stab at it saw us successfully entering the “departures with no tickets” area, complete with large car park sectioned-off for cars, motorhomes, buses, hang gliders, rubber dinghies, illegal immigrants, etc. It was almost full. We managed to park our beast in a slot designed for a Smart car, adjacent to an old, UK-licensed Astra with blacked-out windows and completely flat tyres, that clearly hadn’t been parked-up there anytime recently.
In the morning, we thought it would be nice to drive to an “aire” a few miles out of Calais, towards Dunkirk. We’d bought ourselves a guide book to all the French aires, and the one we selected sounded like a great place for breakfast. We’ll never know. We never found it. I think we covered 50% of the N of France coastline but had to give up in the end.
So we chose another one from the book, a little further along the route. We found the town. We even found the street, but we couldn’t find the aire – nor the cemetery it was allegedly next to – until our 3rd pass. Excellent. We even managed to find a friendly artisanal boulangerie close by.
By lunchtime, we hit the road proper: Lille, Namur, and a whole string of other places until we arrived at our next chosen aire at Longwy. In France, but we’d gone in & out of Belgium & Luxembourg several times in the 30 mins before arriving. With a name like that, it could have been in Wales.
I can’t figure out what drives the French to offer these aires. To cynical Brits, it seems odd that French local communities should go out of their way to provide (usually) free parking, often with water, electrical hookup, and chemical toilet emptying facilities. What’s in it for them? Many of these aires seem to be in provincial towns of little touristic interest, so I don’t really get it. Don’t get me wrong; I think they’re a fabulous institution, and maybe they are run out of true altruism for the traveller. But in the UK, they’d be barricaded, there’d be height barriers, £20 overnight parking fees & the threat of clamping for non-compliance. Which would you prefer?
Today, we drove again in & out of France, Belgium & Luxembourg for a while (Note: Luxembourg is THE place for less expensive diesel fuel. We even came across a bizarre section of road where – on one side of the road were – quite literally – ten or eleven gas stations next to each other. On one side of the road only. That side of the road was in Luxembourg, the gas station-free side was in Belgium.) before crossing into the land of speed-unrestricted motorways.
I’ve said this before of Germany: The fact that large stretches of Autobahn have no speed limits is – of itself – no great safety problem in my mind as long as all the traffic is doing more-or less the same speed. The trouble comes when you have a string of BMWs, Mercs, Audis, Porches, VWs all doing over (say) 160km/hr (around 100mph), when a truck (or even a ponderous motorhome like ours) doing 60km/hr going uphill pulls out to overtake another truck doing 59km/hr. That’s a closing speed of 100kph (or 60mph). And the thing is, those fast cars weren’t even in your rearview mirror when you pulled out. It’s the speed differential that’s the problem. Although some idiot is always going to try sending a text message whilst doing 180. That can be a problem too.
We have to allow ourselves an extra 25% on our SatNav’s anticipated journey times: Garmin haven’t yet figured that some vehicles just can’t do their calculated avg. speeds.
Our daughter’s house is on a teeny-weeny cul-de-sac, 6 houses long, and about 3.4m wide. Our van is 2.3m wide. There’s nowhere to turn even a Smart car around in the street. The only way is to reverse in; a worrying time for the neighbours’ walls and gardens. Made it without any known damage to vehicle or property. Whew.
Lovely to see our family & grand-children again.
I did indeed take the van all the way back to the dealer’s at Weston on Wed 18th Jun, with the hope that I’d have it back today (Sat).
The good news:
The less good news:
We can live with manually switching the camera monitor on when we need it and they agreed to sort out the wiring when we’re back (in September?). So we’re now looking for a tomorrow night or Monday departure from Thornbury. Excitement is mounting. Time to start packing.
There’s a possibility that one or two of Joy’s friends may make use of the house while we’re gone – so I’ve started writing out lists of instructions for things like gas valve; water stop valve; boiler/heating; shower; fuse board location; fridge; freezer, etc. Hopefully these notes will make sense.