1 Motorhome, 2 Lads, 1 massive trip: 3rd November

Monday 3rd November

Did anyone else notice that we’re currently in November? When did this happen? Where has the year gone? Where has Italy gone for that matter? Since my last blog, Eric the Motorhome has visited Naples, Rome, Orvieto, Siena, Florence, Pisa, Parma, Mantova and now Venice (We tagged along too to keep him company). The three of us have seen all that and more in the space of 2 weeks - sounds pretty daunting really, and it’s hurting my brain just thinking about it. But there’s no denying though that these last two weeks have been nothing short of superb. Once you get your head around the Italians and their horrendous driving, you realise how much the country has to offer; Rich heritage, superb food, stunning coastline and beautiful towns.

We didn’t spend the night in Naples, only a day visit. To be honest the town wasn’t a particularly spectacular place, and I can’t say I enjoyed it much. The lasting memory I have of the day is driving through a ridiculously small street up a very steep hill right in the town centre, certainly not suitable for Motorhomes and barely even suitable for mopeds. We got stuck, got shouted and honked at, got very stressed but we did manage to survive. That’s all I wish to say on the matter really, oh apart from that we got lost for 2 and a half hours trying to get away from Naples itself. Not a good day.

After stressful drives around Brindisi, Bari, Pompeii and now Naples we were feeling a little, well, stressed.

The beach was calling, and we found a superb one just up the coast from Naples near Formia. We weren’t sure which town we were in, if there even was a town, but we didn’t care and spent a long day sunbathing and preparing ourselves for the onslaught of more hellish driving on the crazed roads of Italy in the general direction of Austria. The weather in general has been quite fortunate since Greece - it’s worth pointing out - especially for this time of year. In the past two weeks we’ve only had the odd miserable day.

I’m pleased to announce that from Rome upwards people with automobiles in Italy don’t all appear to have a death wish, and our driving has been much easier and relaxed, with many more Aires signposted making things easier for us Motorhomer’s. Rome was as magnificent as I’d exp

ected. We parked outside the town centre in an expensive Aire listed in the Camperstop Guide and caught the tram to the centre for just 2 Euros. 30 minutes later we arrived at Termini station and were able to use our tram ticket on the underground which we duly did. Ottaviano Metro station is a 5 minute walk to Vatican City, which by the time we arrived at midday was already heaving with tourists. There was a queue about a kilometre long just to get into St. Peters’, we didn’t join it. I would have liked to seen St. Peters’, which is apparently (please correct me if I’m wrong) the Worlds largest church in the Worlds smallest country but after examining the extraordinarily long queue we decided we’d rather spend the time wandering the st

reets and seeing the sights of Rome. We had use of the Metro if we wanted, but only needed it once to get to the Vatican - Rome isn’t a huge city, or if it is then we didn’t notice for the amount of points of interest around Rome to keep us occupied. The Pantheon was ten times larger and more breathtaking than I’d expected it - and ten times as busy - and the Fontana di Trevi (pictured) was probably the second most beautiful sight in Rome, coming in closely behind the Coliseum ruins.

A few very pleasant days were spent exploring Orvieto and Siena respectively, which were both charming old towns and certainly worth mentioning. In fact they deserve more than just a mention, but if I wrote in detail about every place we’ve visited in Italy I’d have to write near-on 10 pages - the country really is packed to the rafters with interesting towns, villages, historical sights and even beaches. We could probably spend 6 months just travelling around Italy alone.

We haven’t been completely rushed off our feet though, because we quite uncharacteristically stayed in Florence for 5 nights. This was partly by choice, and party forced upon us. The night we arrived in Florence we - as seems to be the way in every place we visit now - drove into a car park which was too tight and not built for Motorhomes, so had to reverse out onto quite a busy road. I jumped out and stopped the traffic to allow Mike to easily manoeuvre Eric onto more suitable ground. Mike lowered both electric windows to hear my instructions and we got out no problem, however as we drove away neither of the windows were returning to their closed positions. Very confused and getting slightly wet, we frantically pressed the buttons, re-started the engine and tried everything we could possibly have tried when left with nothing but a non-functioning window knob, but to no avail. The windows were stuck and there was nothing, at 10pm, that we could do about it. Thankfully - someone must have been looking out for us that night - we found a very quiet spot down a residential street close to the centre of Florence. Noise was minimal, although it was a little chilly that night.

Well we couldn’t leave the Motorhome to enjoy Florence so we had to fix the problem before we could do absolutely anything. It turns out the fuse had blown, and the second mechanic we went to easily spotted this and fixed the problem within minutes, but this took practically the whole day driving around looking for garages, and it didn’t help that the first place we visited was home to the only mechanic in Italy who didn’t know a thing about cars. Our second problem came on our third day when we thought we’d somehow managed to spill a glass of water without noticing, as the floor beneath our feet inside the Motorhome was wet. Turns out that, despite how clumsy we both are with water in the Motorhome, the internal water pump has a leak, and to this day we haven’t been able to fix it, despite going to a specific repairs centre for Motorhomes. We’ve sorted the problem temporarily by switching off the pump, and using only the water we have stored in 5 litre and 2 litre bottles. The floor is a little damp, and it’s a pain that we can’t use the taps for a little while, but you can’t have everything your way can you?

So that put a few extra days on our time in Florence, but we did stay there longer than expected even if we hadn’t experienced the technical faults. Florence is a rather small town and everything is easily reached by foot and can be walked around in a matter of hours - but it’s too beautiful to be wasted on just a few measly hours. We walked it day and night, and then went back to the next day to repeat the exercise. On our fourth day we stumbled across a second hand English book store called ‘The Paper Back Exchange’ which was a god send for us as we were r

unning out of reading material. I managed to pick up three paperbacks for 3 Euros (Robert K Tenanbaum ‘Fury’, Ben Elton ‘Chart Throb‘, and Robert McCrum ‘In the Secret State‘). The store can be found in the cathedral square and is highly recommended. For the rest of our time we simply slowly wandered the pretty cobbled streets, took in some superb street performers (musicians, no clowns or jugglers you understand) and had a few reasonably priced beers in the local bars. It’s prettier by night, as the case with many places, and Florence really has an enthralling atmosphere which made it my favourite location so far in Italy.

See what I mean? I’ve already written too much and I’m only at Florence! I could go on, and on. I

could tell you about our surprise at the lack of wow-factor of the leaning Tower of Pisa, the gorgeous town of Parma, the fantastic chocolate market found in Mantova, our hours spent losing our way in Venice or many other delightful experiences we’ve had so far in Italy, but I just don’t have the time to write it all - maybe I’ll save it for my book!

As I write this we’re the only people camped at a small but beautiful campsite called ’Al Bateo Agricamp

eggio’ in Punta Sabbioni, a 45 minute boat ride across the water from Venice. There was an Austrian Motorhome here yesterday but has since departed leaving us to feel a little lonely, but pleased as we can enjoy the brand new facilities all to ourselves. Italy started off quite stressful, very busy and a little rushed at first, but as we’ve moved north things have really slowed down and the country has shown us what a superb place it really is. We’ve seen such a vast amount of interesting places, experienced so much and eaten some brilliant Pizza. Austria is going to have a hard job impressing us more than Italy has.