Bella Lake Garda

San Gimignano was as lovely as ever, it was great walking through the walled town.  We walked into town instead of taking the bus to get our days exercise quota in.

We arrived in Bologna 3 hours after the big earthquake 20km north, knowing nothing about it.  Emailed family just in case they were worried and chilled out in the heat.

The following day we headed for Lake Garda and passed though the townships affected by the earthquake although road blocks were up to ensure you didn't go into the centre city.  Several yards had dining room tables and chairs outside where they were camping outside just to be safe.   Loads of tents in backyards to house those let homeless - very sad sight to see.

Arrived at the Lake midday, stocked up with food supplies and decided on a two night stay.  It's so lovely here right on the lake front, with two pools (toddlers and normal), friendly campers - mainly Germans and Dutch.   We must be their first NZ campers - certainly with our own vehicle and Mildred is getting loads of compliments.

It's the German mid term school holidays so loads of families.  In the evenings and mornings they play kube  and petanque, mainly the men with the children watching on.

Swimming in the lake is refreshing but far warmer than NZ lakes.  We have walked into the village and biked along the beach front.

Daryl nearly feel off his bike perving at all the topless sunbathers.
We have extended our stay and for some reason Daryl's keen to spend a week or more here, but we are limiting his eyesight to just 3 nights before heading to another lake but this time in Switzerland.
Going to Pizza night tonight.

Stunning Siena

We are now in Tuscany, a wonderful place - I could live here.

Yesterday when we arrived we were sitting at our campsite surrounded by large campervans when another VW Bay pulled in!  We were amazed and then we seen their number plate - Daryl recognised the USA plate at a glance and sure enough Larry & Loralee Brown are from the USA with their wonderful and well travelled van.  What an aspiration!  We must surely have a load more trips in Mildred.   They have been to South America, Mexico and even up to Alaska via Canada - wow all in the 10 years they have owned their bay.  We were kindly invited over for drinks/nibbles tonight - they are so like us it's amazing.

Wonderful to meet them and we hope to catch up again at Busfest.  Like us they are doing a 6 month tour, but are 1 month ahead of us.

Today we visited Siena (it's been nearly 2 years to the day since we were here last) and it's still as beautiful (bella) as ever and again we were too tight to buy lunch instead settled for a gelato (ice cream) - that was still euro 6 - but oh so lovely!

As we walked thru the old town the drummers/flag wavers came thru - this happened last time to so unless we struck it lucky it was definitely a tourist thing.

Today we had our first breakdown and totally not what you would expect.  On our way from the campsite I said to D, what about our bike pump?  He said we are only going 7 km return we are okay.  But we only got about 1.5km when we got off our bikes to cross a pedestrian crossing and when we got over it we heard this hissing sound - I thought it was a snake so jumped fair out of my skin, D looked at me and said well that was the end of the biking, we locked up the bikes and walked into town, picking them up and pushing them home on the return.

The value stem broke - and I wasn't even on it!

Not travelling far tomorrow  about 40 km to San Gimignano - where we can camp 2 km from the walled village.   

It's getting hot, but not complaining as its so much easier to cook outside with elec without rain.

Tomorrow is our 1 month mark - where has it gone?

Caio Italy!

After leaving Port Grimaud, we wound our way towards Cannes, then onto Nice.  Didn't understand Tommy's instructions too well and end up on the toll motorway heading back the way we came, we got off first exit - which was 11 km away (E $2), then got promptly back on the other side (E $1.30) to get back to where we first went wrong.
Came across this primo spot for lunch - front seats on the med just as the weather was starting to clear.

Then after a great day we realised we missed going to Monaco after Nice, by then we were 12 km from our selected campsite so decided to back track in the morning.  However the tiny road with extreme hairpin bends should have given us a clue that we'd not find a campsite at the end!  We backtracked then and did Monaco - which was almost a breeze after that previous road.

Then it was on to our next selected site, Latte just over the Italian border.

Next day we did 150 km and it took us about 5 hours.  Continuous windy roads, tunnels and one city/town lead straight into the next.  Italian drivers passing us on blind corners, 10 scooters ease past you at the lights - welcome to Italy.  I don;t think we even got into 4th gear.

Rejected first campsite for the next just out of Genova, a lovely camp in wood lined valley, just above the reserve to walk to town.  We decided on two nights, with the week's washing to do and chill out time  (plus Daryl wanted to prev at the bikinis on the beach - or should I say lack of them).

The lovely south of France

Filled with vineyards and wineries.  Weather hasn’t been the best since we have been back in France.  Heading out of Andorra was an eye opener we travelled thru snow on the road sides up high in the mountains.

We decided to pay the two lots of tunnel tolls (total 12.60 Euro) and save our motor/brakes from driving over the top of the Pyrenees.  We expected to be stopped at customs on the way out, instead no one was manning our side, and they were checking every vehicle coming in from the French border.  This meant a backlog of cars down the mountain – I reckon it was at least 10km of cars and they weren’t moving fast – poor bastards!   It was right to the end of our driver's side mirror in this photo just about out of sight.

The motorbikes were cruising up past them and one car was trying to do the same on our side of road, when we came to him he had to fight is way back into the queue and no one made that easy for him.  I think most of the cars would have an entire day’s wait.  

Tonight will be our fifth night back in France and we are very spoilt today (and yesterday) with each campsite having it’s own private ensuite – bliss! Especially after last nights toilets.

Last night a storm came through Port Grimaud, we were already with our ensuite and had moved gas bottle, 

bbq, etc into there in case we needed to move downstairs in the night - we did!  And it was a very smooth dry evaculation it was too!

Our plot flooded and so we improvised with our cooked from the sliding door - Sunday's was Daryl's night so two guesses what we got.

We had to use kiwi ingenuity  last night when the ground was too soggy to hold our canopy, out came our wooden spoon, it did the trick nicely.

Seen the first Splitty since we began this trip yesterday and a high top bay the other day, apart from that it’s all T25’s.

Adoring Andorra

Monday seen us on the road by 9 with fresh oil.

11 hours and 757k later we made it to a camp not far from Balaguer in the top of Spain, the camp we went too was crowded et we where the only ones there, talk about a ghost town.

We hope this will become our biggest day driving all trip.

Getting to Andorra, which I expected something similar to going to Mildred, was in fact a breeze.
And the shopping! and the Pyrenees!

Tomorrow we are headed for France

Tchau Portugal, Bueanas tardes Spain

Roads in Portugal are not that well maintained if they are maintained at all, it’s impossible to tell!  It took about 4 hours to do just 150km down to Porto and then across to Villa Real.  Nice camp surrounded in hills on a hill in the middle of town. Meet a lovely English couple whom kindly gave us their Lakes district address in England.

Driving through to Spain was surprisingly nice on a Sunday, with very little traffic on the road.  Loads of road works that often sent us on side roads or down the other side of the motorway.  Loads of picnic areas, but no supermarkets on the way.

As a result we are now at a lovely camp in Tordesillas with no dinner supplies!  Oh dear!  Lucky there’s a restaurant and bar here.

Time to service Mildred so trying to discreetly change our oil in the camp ground, and we’re parked right in front of reception/bar.  A bit of Kiwi ingenuity required so we are in the bar drinking sangria’s looking very innocent as the oil drains.

Ola Portugal

Despite all good intentions it’s getting harder to get up too early so we didn’t leave the camp until 10am, had a short drive of 230km (3 hours approx.) to get to Caminha where we found a lovely beachside camp, about 2km from the small town.  

We arrived at 12.30 pm (time went back an hour).  Driving in Portugal worse than Spain as police everywhere and speed limits not posted.  Tomtom had a laugh at our expense, made us leave the main road for a goat track, which ended in an extremely tight road to get back on the main route.  The mirrors of Mildred nearly touched the houses both sides!  Pleased I wasn’t driving.

Last night we took a bottle of wine to the beach to watch the sun set.  We didn’t get to see it over the horizon due to fog, but it was still very romantic.

Today we biked into town for another look around and intend on moving on tomorrow.  Nice camp site and cheapest yet €15 pn. Toilets have no seats nor t/paper!


We walked thru the town to the back streets, past all the tourist stuff and stumbled upon a better/bigger supermarket and beside it was this cafe called Befe-Come it was packed with locals, all the tables (paper cloths) full of plates of food and wine bottles.  We couldn't resist.  The two front staff where amazing coming out wtih food, wine etc flat out.  Most of the workers had a bottle of wine to themselves, before heading back for the afternoon's work.  One beer, one bottle of wine, bread basket and two huge plates of local food Euro 10.  Amazing.  To the supermarket for dinner supplies, then home.  Total cost today iclud accommodation Euro 35.


Below is a summary of our tour to-date.

iHola! Spain

The only reason we knew we were in Spain was the change of road signs and drivers!  Been here 3 days and heading towards Portugal, we are currently in a fantastic camp called Campino Vilia De Sarria , in a quaint Spanish village.

Had a mixture of rain, sun and wind.  7 pm here now and we are doing two loads of washing as so warm and windy it will be dry in no time.

Had a mixture of camp grounds, most good.  Getting by without speaking much lingo, thank goodness for both Tomtom and iTravl.

Need to do oil change soon but ‘he’s’ forgot the mixture to buy.  15/50??

South West France

Drove south towards Bordeaux in the rain, we drove unitl we hit Sun, and ended up stay in a camp near Saint Emilion, a very quaint village in the heart of wineland – my kinda of paradise!  The camp was very ‘hidehi’, with welcome cocktails, music in the bar at night and children’s entertainment  Canoes and paddle boats, swimming pools etc.

We finally got to use our bikes and biked thru vineyards to St Emilion was a lovely historic own, where we wandered the streets and went up the Kings Castle. 

Very nice to have a relaxing day, we got our washing up-to-date, Mildred got a very much needed wash (her second in a week), wheel nuts checked, oil and fanbelt etc.  over 1000 km under our belt and all is well

France

France – wow!  It was so easy taking the Eurotunnel.  At the border they didn’t even look at our passports.

Got to France and it was still raining so decided to drive south a bit – avoiding Paris and because Daryl can’t as yet accept road tolls we took the scenic route.  That was a great decision as we got to see a lot of French countryside and villages

So we decided to go into Rouen, a BIG mistake, nearly fatal to our trip and Mildred’s head.  Tomtom sent us thru this street where we were told to take the two left lanes, they went into small tunnels then up to street level, back to tunnel, we were in the far left lane of 2, the tunnel heights kept getting lower, then we came to one the side 150m 1.9m – whoa!  We are at least 2.1m high – panic!!! – quickly push ourselves over 2 lanes – they were kind to us – maybe the NZ ovals and the NZ flag on our bum helped?  We fueled up and then got the hell out of Rouen before it ruined us.

Continuing to head south as want to outrun the rain.

And so we begin....

So far all is going to plan, we arrived late Sunday to London, took the tube to our freighters on Monday and re-packed Mildred.  Apparently London had had 3 weeks of rain, but the sun shone for us as we loaded Mildie up.

It was so good to see her!

Tuesday we collected her, filled with fuel GBP 85, got groceries and headed south towards Dover.  Mildred was running like a bag fill of shit, with the stale NZ fuel on the Monday, however by the time we got onto the A40 she was purring along very nicely.

Our first camp night was in Densole, a small town (village?) near Dover.  Camping is different here, maybe it’s too early in the season, as all other campers seem to be retired folk, they all sit in their campers or caravans, cook in them, eat, etc with maybe one chair outside of a few.  Whereas we have tables, chairs, bbq, bikes etc scattered about our site and only go inside our kombi to sleep.

 Can’t believe how friendly everyone is, they’d all talk the leg of a donkey.

Went for a MOT in Dover, website made it out to be a huge business, it was a back street, overcrowded premises with no room to swing a cat.  But we got our MOT.

Now it’s off to get our cooking gas and we are already for our Eurotunnel trip tomorrow.  We wonder if we will be making history and being the first NZ reg vehicle on the Eurotunnel.   And I am to join the mile low club – if there is one.

I think we are changing our plans and heading south through France into Spain and Portugal first, instead of north to Denmark – the weather is dictating the change as it’s quite cool here at the moment.