Another day another country

We had a very nice week at Aquileia. The site was very nice and mostly
quiet, although we did have a family with a very grizzly 1-year-old opposite
us for a few days and also a small school party who were not exactly quiet
whilst enjoying the swimming pool. But apart from that it was very nice and
relaxing. I did a few cycle rides, and we both cycled out to Grado one day,
a nice and relaxing 25 miler (temp must have been +30c ). Grado is on the
coast and seems to be a major German tourist spot. It was quite a nice town
with a very pretty Centro Storico and also many a yacht in the canals and
marinas. It also has a fairly large and typically Italian organised beach
area with rows and rows of colour coded umbrellas and sunloungers, not quite
our scene. We had a stroll around and a very tasty slice of pizza, and then
made the trek back to site via an alternative route suggested to us by the
English couple from site that we had bumped into in town. The route was very
pleasant although longer than the direct way back that we had used going to
Grado, but the roads were good, quiet and flat, and we needed the exercise!
Aquileia was once an important Roman colony in 181BC and the basilica has
some amazing mosaics on the floors that are in very good condition. There
are also several other Roman sites in the town, some of which are still
being excavated. They were also staging a string of 'Mozart' concerts in the
Basilica throughout the summer, but unfortunately we had just missed one
before we arrived and the next was not for another week or so.
After our week of relaxation we chose to move on and head north across the
border into Austria. Our initial destination is Hermagor in Carinthia. The
site we have chosen to stay at is on our cheap ACSI rate until the end of
the 1st week in July, which helps us keep the cost down a bit before peak
season arrives and costs start to jump. However since being here we have
discovered that you also pay a 1.25€ tourist tax per person each night in
Austria and some sites charge an environmental charge, 1.65€, to cover
rubbish disposal. I think German sites and perhaps some in Switzerland also
charge a 'rubbish' fee. It all soon adds up and the cheap rate becomes a bit
more expensive. Oh well I guess it is a gentle introduction into the higher
prices we will pay in the middle of summer. On the plus side, the site we
are at now has a small cinema where they are showing all the World Cup
games!
Our biggest challenge now will be the language barrier as we know no German
and we don't even have a phrasebook or dictionary. Neither do we have a
guidebook for Austria, Switzerland or Germany. So we will have to hunt down
a good bookshop somewhere and tool up!

Apfel Strudel

M&S

Restless Feet Again

You kind of get used to a place and it feels like home after a while. Well
it felt like we were leaving home on Friday when we left the site at Preci.
It had only been 2 weeks but we had kind of settled in there, but we know
that there is a lot more to explore and see.
So we headed to the east coast and the town of Gatteo Mare north of Rimini.
At this point I feel the need to make a point. The roads in Italy are a mess
and quite possibly dangerous. Apart from the majority of the Autostrada
network, most of the major roads and some minor roads are of a very poor
quality, pot holed, rutted, cracked, and quite literally falling to pieces.
For a country that is supposed to have one of the top 10 economies in Europe
it is beyond belief that the road network can be so poorly maintained. It is
probably bad enough travelling in a car, but in Noddy we feel everything and
at times you have to fight to keep going in the intended direction. It will
hopefully be quite a relief when we eventually cross the border to Austria
as we hope things will be infinitely better there.
Anyway, digression over, after a fair drive on the aforementioned bumpy
roads we arrived at the site and were not too taken with it. Very pleasant
that it may have been, it was quite busy and mostly inhabited by Italians.
This I guess was not a surprise as it was near the sea and also more of a
holiday camp than a nice quiet site. So we decided to make it just an
overnight stay and then continue on our planned route on Saturday. We did
however manage to get a good shop done at the very large and smart retail
park nearby, so not all bad.
A wee problem we did notice was with Noddy and his left rear tyre. Sue had
thought it looked a bit low on Friday and we put some air in it. It was then
low again on Saturday so we put some more air in it. We decided to see how
it went as we drove and stopped occasionally to check it. We were heading
for the far north east of Italy towards the Slovenian border at a small town
called Aquileia and decided to hit the Autostrada for most of the way so as
to avoid both the slow and bad surfaced other routes. After a while on the
strada we stopped to check the tyre and it was again low. I decided that it
was prudent to set about changing the wheel rather than risk going further
especially after noticing that there was a nail imbedded in the tyre. It was
very warm on Saturday, in the high 30's C, so as you can imagine it was a
hot and sweaty job changing the wheel on a motorhome, but with Sue's help we
managed to complete the job and restore Noddy to 100% fit. We just need to
find a tyre place now so that we can get the damaged one sorted just in case
we need to repeat the operation at any time, hopefully we wont have to!
We eventually arrived at our destination and even before we got to the site
we knew it was going to be a far better place than the previous one at
Gatteo as the surrounding area was so much nicer, and we weren't
disappointed. The site is very nice, quiet (not many Italians), and we will
be able to spend a few days or a week here before continuing. Also there is
a bar just down the road with Sky so I can watch the footie, well you have
to get the important things sorted out.
Today we had a nice chat with a retired English couple who gave us a whole
list of things to see and do around here, they have been coming here for 25
years, so it can't be a bad place, and it all sounds and looks very nice.
They have also recommended a site in the North of Austria, which they say is
excellent, quiet, and cheap. It is in our guidebooks and seems very nice, so
we will probably route via there at some point in July.

Il tuo ego é fuori controllo.

Ciao

M&S

Come on England!

It seems a while since we last gave you an update on our progress and not
surprisingly we have not got that much to report. We are still at the site
in the Umbrian hills near the town of Preci and are just relaxing and
enjoying the views, oh and the odd World Cup game! The guy who owns the site
very generously brings in his own satellite box so that we can watch the
footie in a room above the bar.
We returned the other day back to Norcia to have a look at the town itself.
A very pretty old walled town, quite and peaceful except for a little bit of
hustle and bustle around the main square and the few shops that there are.
One of the shops is a great little deli with all sorts of lovely foods on
offer including a good selection of locally made salamis some of which are
made from wild boar, a must if you ever visit. We had some for lunch today,
yum yum.
One piece of luck we did have on our visit was returning to the supermarket
where we had shopped a few days earlier. When coming to pay for our
groceries we discovered that we were missing our credit card. You can
imagine what was going through our heads. We had enough cash so decided to
pay and then panic back in Noddy. The young girl on the checkout said
something to us in Italian but we didn't understand. Then the supervisor
came over and again tried to explain something to us, but to no avail. We
weren't sure what was going on. Eventually a lady from the shop next door
was called in to translate and it turned out that they had either recognised
us from our previous visit or the fact that we were English and seem to be
missing a certain piece of plastic. We had left our card there after paying
last time and they had put it aside in case we returned again. What a relief
it was to be reunited with our card and not having to try and work out where
we had lost it as well as having to cancel it. We do have a backup stashed
in Noddy but thankfully that can remain in its hiding place.
On Saturday after the excitement of the England game we had a very nice meal
in the restaurant on site. We did not go too mad with the menu, but had very
nice starters and a most delicious pizza each freshly cooked in the wood
fired oven, oh and a litre of the local red stuff and a bottle of fizzy
water to wash it all down. It was all very nice, but we did feel sorry for
the poor waiter who was running around in circles looking after everyone on
his own. He did however manage to do a great job of it.
We will be leaving here on Friday, after England has crushed T&T, and start
heading north towards Austria. We want to get there before the end of the
month to make best use of the cheap sites before prices start to climb in
Italy. We will stop at a site on the east coast near Ravenna for a few days,
perhaps even a week if it is nice, and might even watch a few more footie
games.
The weather here has been pretty good with most days warm and sunny except
when the chill breeze blows. Today has been the warmest yet, high 20's, and
tomorrow is supposed to be even better, into the 30's.

Anyway, time to go and watch France against Swisscheeseland.

Ciao

M&S

Nothing like fresh mountain air

We did indeed leave Gubbio on Friday as the bad weather had not really eased
off and it was still very wet and miserable. We were planning on spending a
day or two near Spoletto but as the weather looked set and the campsite was
not cheap we chose to leave Spoletto for another day, or another trip.
Instead we headed to our next destination in the far eastern stretches of
Umbria and the small town of Preci on the edge of the Sibillini National
Park. The campsite is perched on a hillside just outside the village of
Castelvecchio a couple of miles from Preci itself. It is a very nice site
and we have a great view from our pitch out across the fields and to the
hills nearby. The weather has improved now after wet days both on Friday and
Saturday, and it has been mostly warm and sunny with the odd downpour, well
we are up in the hills so I guess it is to be expected.
Yesterday we had a nice lazy Sunday. In the morning we took the short walk
into Castelvecchio and on the way into the village we saw two men picking
cherries from a tree, one of the many wild cherry trees around, that leant
out over the path from a terrace above. On the way back they were still
there and they called to us, broke of a small branch and dropped it down.
The fruits were delicious, especially as they were wild, and free! In the
afternoon I cycled the few miles to Preci to have a look around. It is a
very nice old medieval town perched on a hill, and despite it being a Sunday
and very quiet it has a great deal of charm. It is a real rabbit warren of
little streets climbing up to the old Palazzo at the top of the town. The
cycle was nice and despite it only being 2 or 3 miles door to door it is
quite a drop from site down to the road and then up to Preci, and then
obviously visa versa on the way back.
Today we headed off in the sunshine to Norcia to see the Piano Grande. The
Piano Grande is an extremely huge plain, which once used to be a lake, high
up in the hills (1400m or so) next to Norcia and is quite an amazing sight
once you have taken the steep winding road up to it. You approach it blind
not knowing what to expect and then suddenly you rise over a crest in the
road and it is there in front of you. What made it particularly impressive
was the recent snow capping the hills that surround the plain. In one corner
of the plain is the small town of Castelluccio perched on a small hill, and
apparently early morning the plain is covered in cloud and then slowly as it
disperses the town emerges almost ghost like from its cloudy covering.
We shall return another day to visit the town. It was mid afternoon when we
had returned from the Piano Grande and on Mondays everything closes at
lunchtime and the towns can appear quite soulless.
At least we have now sorted out one burning issue, finding somewhere to
watch a few World Cup games in pleasant surrounds as the site has a TV room
and I think the staff are quite looking forward to watching the odd game or
two over the next few weeks. So we shall stay here for another week or so
and see how it goes. There is plenty to do from site, walking and cycling in
the hills around, and also a few more small towns to check out.

Ciao

M&S

If you can't see, I'm on my soap box

We are back as roaming tourists again. We left the site at Bolsena yesterday
morning. Although we enjoyed our week there very much we ended up leaving on
bad terms with the campsite. When you check in at a site they obviously need
some ID so that they can take your details etc. and they usually take your
passports. What you can get instead is a CCI card, credit card size, that
has your details on it, i.e. name address passport number, and they use that
instead. This is what we did when we arrived, but when we went to check out
they did not have our card and could not find it anywhere. They had lost it!
Can you believe it? Typical Italian efficiency! Most campsites take your CCI
or passports etc. and put them in an envelope just for your details and then
into a drawer. This site seems to just lump all the passports etc. for the
same day arrivals into one folder, and thus our CCI card must have ended up
in someone else's passport and vanished. We were not impressed, but what can
you do.
Whilst I am in the mood, when we left the site we headed to Orvieto about
20km North of Bolsena to have a look around the old medieval town. After
driving around trying to follow intermittent parking signs we eventually
found the parking out of town that you could use. There was a huge car park,
FREE, for cars and coaches, FREE, but next to it was an area just for
motorhomes. It was an organised area with electric points if you wanted to
stay the night, but just to park there they wanted 2€ and hour. I think you
can read my thoughts. We were tempted to park in the free parking but you
can bet your socks that we would get a ticket or clamped. People say Britain
is a rip-off, think again.
Anyway, we ended up leaving Orvieto and headed back to Lago Trasimeno and
the old town of Castiglione del Lago. We only stayed a night there and went
into the town yesterday afternoon to have a look around. It's a very nice
little old town that used to be the dominant town on the lake. It is not
very big but very nice apart from a couple of the shops that are a bit
touristy and ply for trade out on the streets.
Today we headed a bit further east and north to Gubbio, about 35km north of
Perugia. Gubbio is another pretty town perched on a hillside and if the
weather improves, has been a bit wet and windy today, we will venture in
there later on this afternoon for a look. I don't think we will make it
around all of the 78 churches!
From here, probably tomorrow, we will head south of Perugia to Spoleto,
another old town, and then into the Sibillini mountains to the east.

Ciao

M&S