Italian Lakes

Friday 8^th – Monday 11^th March 2013

We were very lucky most days to enjoy warm sunny weather as we drove around the lakes of Northern Italy, although Lake Garda seemed to create it’s own weather system at times with low mist rolling in very quickly.

Each lake was slightly different, all quite well populated and extremely picturesque. There seem to be very few foreign tourists about at the moment and the whole area is slowly starting to gear up for the season which presumably kicks off at Easter.

On Tuesday we will take a ferry across the middle of Lake Maggiore and we plan to head for the Simplon Pass which climbs up to an altitude of 2005 meters as it enters Switzerland. Having checked the weather online it looks settled and the pass is open all year except in really snowy conditions. We will then travel along the southern side of Lake Geneva back into France to pick up Owen at the weekend.

Torri del Benaco on Lake Garda

Lake d'Iseo

Lake Como

Lake Maggiore

Italian cities

Tuesday 5th - Thursday 7th March 2013

Pisa – We only ever intended driving in, seeing the leaning tower and driving out again which is pretty much what we did having parked up in the coach park a short 10 minute walk away. It really is an impressive sight especially against the beautiful blue sky with very intricate carving. If you have time read up on the full history – interestingly it has always leaned since the first few storeys were built in 1173 but they carried on building regardless.

Florence – We stayed overnight in Montelupo Fiorentino, a small town on the outskirts of Florence apparently famous for centuries of ceramic production. We were keen to save on the stress and cost of driving into Florence which has strict emission controls and astronomical car park charges. With the train station just a short walk from the car park and the train tickets a bargain at €3.30 it also gave Dave a break from driving for a day. If you have unlimited funds to spend visiting the museums, galleries and churches I am sure Florence is a fantastic place but overall we were disappointed  and it had an edgy money grabbing feel to it. The Duomo is free to enter but not particularly ornate inside – our guide book describes it as having ‘the ambiance of an assembly hall’ and it certainly is more impressive from the outside with its pink, green and white marble cladding. Ponte Vecchio is the famous 13^th century bridge lined each side with expensive jewellery shops which overhang the river. I don’t know when the craze to attach padlocks to metal structures became popular but even this beautiful bridge hasn’t been spared this modern day equivalent of carving your(and your loved ones) initials onto a tree.

Venice – The rain and mist couldn’t detract from the magical atmosphere of the city. I had been here as a teenager many years ago but it was the first time for Dave and Gareth. We arrived on the Fusina – Zattere ferry direct from the campsite and just walked around the city for hours. We have now set an upper limit of €3 for visiting attractions so the free Violin Museum and the Naval History Museum at €1.55 both came within budget! We thought the public toilets in Florence were expensive at €1 per person – Venice topped that at €1.50 making the Naval Museum with it’s free toilets even more of a bargain. If you stuck with the first four floors of naval and venetian history (and we did!) there was an odd but very beautiful collection of thousands of sea shells on the top floor. Venice seemed very quiet - only once, in a small busy thoroughfare, did we feel what it must be like in the height of the season.The bars and restaurants were almost deserted and the gondoliers were plying for trade. The canals, bridges, side streets, markets and piazzas are all as you imagine and even in the low light there are photo opportunities on every corner.  

 

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.