Whistlestop tour of Italy

Saturday 2nd - Thursday 7th March 2013

We picked Gareth up from Aix-en-Provence TGV station and set off along the French Riviera, crossing the border into Italy and are now doing a whistle-stop tour of Italy. The weather has been glorious - 18 degrees some days. 

We have driven along the Riviera Di Levante which stretches east from Genoa. What has become very obvious to us in a short time is how difficult it is to stop anywhere with a campervan in Italy. Almost all the car parks have height restrictions or signs excluding campervans so we have often had to drive in and out of towns we really would have liked to stop and wander round. The road clings to the coast and there are very few stopping places. We took quite a detour to visit Riomaggiore one of the Cinque Terre only to find campervans were forbidden to drive down to the village. The photo below is as close as we could get......I'm sure it was lovely close up!

Provence area

Friday 1st March 2013

We have headed south quickly and in a couple of days and a couple of hundred miles we have noticed huge differences in the flora, fauna and temperature. Olive trees and vines cover most of the available countryside. Palm trees are common place in the villages and huge reeds line the irrigation channels in the Camargue National park.

The place is also rich with Roman history – Pont du Gard, Orange, Nimes and Arles all boasting amphitheatres, arenas and viaducts. Many are restored, some quite unsympathetically, and are still used regularly for shows and bull fights to this day. We paid €8.50 each to see Nimes Roman Arena, supposedly one of the best preserved in the world, but we were quite disappointed with it. We found the town of Nimes itself to be a little disappointing too, very unfriendly for those in a campervan and lacking in character.

Arles however was a lively picturesque town famous for having been painted by Van Gogh in 1880’s. It has an amphitheatre in the middle of the town which is surrounded by railings but easy enough to view without having to pay for admission. The Arena, which is also very central, appears to have been in a constant state of renovation since 1822 .

We have spent a couple of days driving around the Camargue National Park – a huge mashy delta famous for its white horses, bull rearing, flamingos, storks, and a variety of marsh and sea birds.

On Tuesday night we stayed in the rather touristy town of Saintes-Maires-de-la-Mer and on Wednesday night we parked up at the opposite side of the delta on an almost deserted stretch of beach where the road just ends – all we could hear was the waves lapping on the shore. We sat out on our deck chairs watching the sun going down.

We are really being spoilt with beautiful sunrises and sunsets. 

Heading south (until the icicles melt)

Monday 25th February 2013

Back in the 80’s as we sat on the quayside on the tiny island of La Gomera in the Canaries about to set sail across the Atlantic Dave and I got talking to another yachtie. He was an old salty sea-dog type and, amongst other things, we discussed provisioning, expected passage timings and ‘routes’. To this day I remember him saying that he would head south until the butter melted….. (then presumably he intended heading west!)

Well today we came as far south as it took for the remaining icicles on the front of the van to melt! It’s been a long cold 3 months in Les Carroz and the van has had tons of snow fall on it’s roof (which Dave has had to brush off on a regular basis) and icicles formed on any overhanging piece of bodywork. Leaving yesterday we headed south for Chambrey but found ourselves heading into yet more snow showers. By about 3.30pm the roads were becoming quite tricky so we parked up in St Laurent du Pont. Overnight the temperature dropped to minus 7 but by the morning the roads had been cleared and we continued on our route.

Avoiding the toll roads has saved us quite a bit of money but local French roads signs are very small and you don’t get much advance warning on junctions. Our Sat Nav is also very old and there are a lot of new roads ‘she’ doesn’t know about. We have ‘her’ on mute so god knows what she is saying as we drive off across what ‘she’ probably thinks are fields . We have made a few wrong turns but generally manage to get back on track – even if it takes us a bit longer we are loving the French countryside, villages and towns, you miss so much on the motorways.

Our route today took us along the Isere river valley and then along the mighty Rhone and through miles of vineyard country. With beautiful blue skies and a warm sun at about 3pm the final icicles fell down off the bodywork above the cab area!! Time for celebration!

Tourist barge on the Rhone at Tournon (vines on the hillside)

We didn’t find an Aire in Pont St Espirit but parked up on the road alongside the Rhone. As darkness fell a beautiful golden full moon rose above the river.

Pont St Esprit (Rhone)

Moving on........

Saturday 23rd February 2013

So we are back on the road again - a little sooner than expected! We've been in the Alps for just under 3 months.

The hours were very long and the work was hard but no worse than we expected. The chalet and workload was big but we introduced a system to ensure all the work was covered and we were assisted by a lovely young Scottish girl who worked between the two chalets. The turnarounds were almost always back to back with new clients often arriving before the previous clients had left! We had great feedback from all our clients, they liked us and they liked the meals and cakes I made. But not everything ran smoothly and we've decided to move on.

On a positive note we have learnt a lot and had a great time, we have had lots of lovely clients, I have learnt to ski (well sort of!) and……...I have lost over a stone in weight (so much for CGB – Chalet Girls Bum).

Watch this space as we set off down the hill for the last time. We are heading first for the south of France to meet up with Gareth, then up to Geneva to spend some time with Owen and then meeting Mum & Sue in April. Can’t wait…..