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