Happy birthday, Annie! Boat to Salo for market. No luck in finding a bucket for Jules, but found walking sandals for Annie. Lunch in nice bar in Salo. Boat back. Me photos. Chill. Both of us up for swim. Drinks at bar. Usual mix of poor service and contempt for customers. Drove to Trattoria La Sosta for lovely meal, but 11pm curfew meant we needed to leave before coffee. €120 for 4 include 3 bottles of wine.
The horse’s birthday, as they say in Australia. Shopping in Duo Pine, new cossie for Annie, campari, seafood for barbie. Visit Angelo – tick tick tick. Up to pool for swim.
Jules & internet. Nice potatoe salad. HUGE STORM took us by surprise.
Morning dawned bright and clear, unlike last year.
Notes: Bar Furious, but came back early, storm pending.
Blimey! Is it Wednesday already?
A peaceful morning. We dog-sat for a couple of hours, and attempted to get Jess to come in the lake. She came in ankle-deep, lifted her one foot, sniffed at the water, and decided she didn’t like it and wanted to get out. We had to wrestle with the internet for a while – the service is very sporadic on the campsite, and the best reception seems to be on the seat outside the toilet block. Perhaps not the best place to spend time.
More sitting around after lunch, while Annie went for a swim in the pool. Another visit to Angelo for some potatoes, tomatoes and lettuce. E&J round for quiz / cards / drinks after dinner.
Towards the end of the evening, the wind started picking up, bringing a refreshing coolness. However, experienced Garda goers (like E&J) sniffed the air, and muttered “storm”. Annie’s earlier glimpse of flashes across the Lake proved indeed to be lightning, and towards midnight, the sky was full of flashes as the storm approached. However, after last year’s experiences (our awning on the old van became a huge water balloon, and needed dropping down so the water could run away), we wound our awning in – just in case. We shut all of our windows and roof vents – just in case. High winds, pretty torrential rain, and some thunder and lots of lightning produced a spectacular storm, similar to last year.
Not up early, for a change!
We spent the day pottering around. We took Jess for a walk up the hill to Portese, stopping on the way back to buy some beautiful produce from the old man around the corner, Angelo, who grows everything himself in his huge back garden / allotment. And for good measure, because we bought some tomatoes, he gave us some fresh and amazingly-scented basil to go with them. All in all, we had a bag-full of lovely produce for a mere €1.50.
At tea time, Ed and Julia (E&J from now on) were going up to the village of Portese, so we thought we’d join them in a pre-dinner cocktail at the amazingly-named Bar Furious. It’s a beautiful setting, overlooking the lake, and every round of drinks comes with a plate of lovely pizza nibbles.
After dinner, it was over to E&J’s for what was going to be a game of Rummikub, but we spent the time chatting instead.
Big-ish day today. It’s the longest (distance-wise) of the journey (397km), so we started very very early, and were on the road before 7am. The traffic was reasonable, and we made good time. We had an early lunch at the services just before the Italian border, and around a 10 minute delay with a queue at the border crossing itself, and we were in Italy.
All of a sudden, the traffic seemed heavier, and we were soon in the madness that is Milan. Lorries barrelling along, overtaking and undertaking us, made this part of our journey … err … interesting. It was a relief to leave all that behind and turn off the motorway at Brescia.
We stopped at the Auchan supermarket at Brescia, and stocked up on beer and wine, and a few other bits. The weather was scorching hot, and there weren’t many other people around.
The rest of the journey was straightforward, and we arrived at Camping Eden at around 2.30pm. We had no problems getting into the site, or onto our pitch, although anything longer than our 7 metre motorhome would have difficulties. Although the pitches are wide, they aren’t very deep, and the access road is narrow. Mind you, people park their cars next to the road doesn’t help. We were glad we’d reserved a pitch near to the site entrance.
We got ourselves set up, and we were soon relaxing under the awning. Our friends Ed and Julia and their dog Jess were pleased to see us, and we had a lovely evening at their caravan.
Up bright and early, as we are wont, and we left the Camping Municipale at Metz at 7.30am, but we promised ourselves that next time we would stay on the free Aire just outside the campsite entrance with its beautiful views of the river, all for free!
We hit the motorway, drove through a bit of early morning fog, and began looking for a supermarket. It seems that very few of them had any sort of signage that you could see from the motorway, until it was too late and you were past the junction. We pushed on, stopped at a roadside aire for a cup of coffee and a short sleep before continuing. We stopped at the excellent Haute Koenigsberg services where we filled up with diesel at €1.47 per litre. Crossing at Basle, pausing only to spend €30 on a Swiss motorway permit, we drove on, arriving at our pre-booked site for the night at Camping Sursee (GPS N47.17481 E8.08649). A lovely, grassy site, friendly and helpful owners. We paid SFR30.00 for the night with electricity (around €18), they lent us an adapter for our hookup (Shuko connector needed), showers were all of €1.30 for a total of 12 minutes’-worth of tokens, and they sold cold beer from their fridge for a reasonable fee.
We walked to the lake through the forest, relaxed, chatted to some tugger from Durham next door, and relaxed some more.
Despite the proximity of the motorway, we actually had a good sleep, and we were up and on the road by 7 am.
We had a stop at a fascinating service area about an hour later. It was of unusual design, having a 2 peaked roof, and inside, there were no right angles. Everything was tapered and angled, and it was amazing to see the work which had gone into the construction of it. We breakfasted on yummy seedy rolls and cheese like true continentals, before hitting the motorway once more.
We arrived at Metz at around midday, and settled in to our camping car pitch on hardstanding close to a toilet block. Last time we stayed, we arrived much later and got the last pitch, which was actually much nicer, on grass, but it’s only a one night stopover.
We walked in to explore the town – something we didn’t have chance to do the last time – and whilst I returned to get my camera, Annie managed to find a bar to wait in by the river. On the way back to the van, I picked up some interesting-looking bread from a baker’s.
Metz as a city has seen a lot in its history, and there is evidence of this in some of the architecture of the old buildings. However, Annie was on a mission to find a bar which had a TV to watch the last day of the Tour de France. It was like the race wasn’t going on, and although she found a bar with a TV on, they weren’t interested in changing the channel from MTV. Is this what France has come to?
One high point of the walk into town was finding a covered market, and we were able to buy some beautiful fresh salad, unusual local cheeses and wine. Then it was back to the van for a late lunch / tea.
After lunch, we read and chatted and watched the rest of the campsite, particularly the groups of French families with large, double-axle Fendt caravans, tinted windows and washing machines. I don’t know if these people were travellers, but almost every group had their washing machine out, and piped up to the water taps.
The day of departure, but a work day for both of us. Significant for Annie, in that it was her final day at work before retiring from teaching after 35 years. Long time.
Since we were departing for our holidays that evening, we couldn’t have any farewell leaving ‘do’, but presentations were made, tears were shed, and we got let out early. We were eager to leave grimy East London behind, and we joined the regular Friday evening queue for the Dartford bridge across the Thames. A little while later, and our wallets a pound lighter, we were south of the river, and incredibly early (again).
After a brief diversion, trying to locate the Sainsbury’s at Folkestone (note to self: if you locate something by way of their storefinder and FlashEarth, print our a map), we arrived early at check-in. Like 3 hours early. The nice lady booked us onto the 6:44 departure, which would drop us in France an hour and a half earlier than expected. Happy days.
An uneventful, but pleasant, crossing allowed us to have a power nap or two, and then we were off the train, and onto French soil. A quick fillup at the fuel station on the exit of the Eurotunnel depot (€1.46 per litre) and we were on our way to an Aire de Service near Lille.
We were taking the ‘no toll’ route to Metz, which takes you up the coast to Dunkerque, and then a right turn towards the south east. Everything was fine, until we realised why the toll motorways (peage) were toll motorways. It’s because the road surface is smooth and even, and any repairs are done well. Off toll, and the road seems to be built by workmen with Attention Deficit Disorder – every 5 metres there’s a transverse ridge on the road where one piece of tarmac joins another. And the ridge feels as though it’s about a centimetre high. BangBangBangBangBang we went. I felt for the poor motorhome, I really did. Was it designed for treatment like this? I hoped so.
The aire we were aiming for was somewhere around, on, or at the back of, a supermarket car park. Which had retractable height barriers. Very solid, very expensive, height barriers. There was no convenient taken machine to let us in, so we turned around, and headed back towards Metz again.
To cut a long story, and some discussions, short, we stayed on a motorway service station, just inside the Belgium border, large, light and busy so we felt very safe.
