Check-out was at 10am and there was a queue waiting to leave. It was another beautiful day and we were on the road again without too much delay heading south to Siena. It was only about 80km, so we thought we would take a short detour to a little town called SanGimignano with it’s ‘14 grey stone towers set on a hilltop and surrounded by an outer wall’. Unfortunately a few thousand other tourists thought they would do the same on a fine Easter weekend so parking was at a premium and we ended up driving straight through. We stopped just [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Florence at about 11am and the roads were chaotic! Dorothy routed us through the middle of the city and it was a mess traffic-wise. The road the campsite was on had no numbers so we had to put in the GPS coordinates so she could find it, which she eventually did about an hour after reaching the city. (I must highly recommend the Alan Rogers Camping and Caravanning Guide we bought which has all sorts of useful information on the campsites including the GPS coordinates) The campsite wasn’t the cheapest we’ve stayed at but was on a [View Full Entry]

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Lucca was another old walled town similar in size and feel to Pisa but without the big drawcard of Pisa’s Cathedral and Belltower. It was a little less commercial and a bit more old-world as a result and we were able to find metered parking inside the old ramparts so we didn’t have so far to walk. It was another beautifully fine day at about 22 degrees, which is great for walking around these old towns as the buildings always give plenty of shade. The most notable thing about Lucca was it’s Roman amphitheatre - a circular piazza about 200m in [View Full Entry]

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Luckily Dorothy had no problems with the roads since leaving Padova and we found our next campsite, with no detours, just after noon. It was less than 1km from ‘Torre Pendente’ - the Leaning Tower, so we decided to walk there that afternoon after lunch. The Leaning Tower was definitely a sight to see and not only because of it’s less than vertical stature. The Piazza del Duomo, also known as the Campo dei Miracoli (The Field of Miracles), which includes the Tower, the Cathedral and the Baptistery - were most impressive with their white carved marble and cast bronze doors [View Full Entry]

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We arrived at Rapallo late in the afternoon after a pretty wet drive. The campsite was nothing flash but it was the closest one to Portofino and we could catch a bus there. It was really hilly country with lots of steep, narrow and windy roads, apart from the autostrada which tunnels straight through the hills and spans the valleys. I’ve got to say that there are similarities between the Italians and the Chinese when it comes to driving and it seems that fortune favours the brave, not that we came anywhere near an accident, it just seems chaotic. The [View Full Entry]

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The weather when we left Austria wasn’t bad but it was quite cool and overcast, but when we came down from the mountains into Italy it was like driving into spring; clear skies and about 10 degrees warmer. The mountains were beautiful and the road was great with very little traffic. When we approached Venice, Dorothy (the tomtom) had a fit! I don’t know how long it had been since Maurice had downloaded any updates for it but the road we were on wasn’t there and we couldn’t get off it straight away as it was a toll road. We eventually [View Full Entry]

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The next day we were back on the autobahn again heading for Innsbruck and hoping to find a mechanic who could understand enough English to give us a warrant. We made a short stop near the border at Schwangau to take a quick look at King Ludwig II’s castles; Hohenschwangau, where he lived as a child and Neuschwanstein, his own creation which reputedly inspired Disney’s Fantasyland castle. It had turned out to be a relatively nice day although we were up in the clouds a bit crossing the mountains to get to Innsbruck. Once there we managed to find an OAMTC [View Full Entry]

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Within an hour or two of being on the road we were in Germany surrounded by hills and forests which were missing in The Netherlands. We had programmed in the address of an old friend Deborah from NZ who lived near Bonn. Unfortunately we programmed the wrong Gruenerweg so ended up in the wrong place! Never mind, we were only about 7km out and found it easily the second time. Deborah has a lovely place surrounded by forest and field and we had a great time over the next day and night walking through the forest and catching up. We hadn’t [View Full Entry]

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Our cabin on the Stena Hollandica was great; quiet, comfortable beds and a nice shower. We slept well, until the breakfast announcement came blaring across the intercom at 6.45am. We didn’t want breakfast so kept dozing for a bit longer. We disembarked at the Hook of Holland at around 8.00am local time and breezed through customs and back on to the right hand side of the road. We were heading for Hellevoetsluis where Sunny lives and he had been texting us since 7.45 to see where we were. Our route took us back along the other side of the estuary from [View Full Entry]

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We didn’t manage to get away from Maidenhead until about 3pm after organizing our packages for home and Jac’s EFTPOS card which wouldn’t work. Dobbie also required a little help getting started again but nothing major, so the 4 and a half hour trip was no problem and Keith and Barbara (Jac’s Godmother) met us at the offramp of the M55 and we followed them to their place at Lytham. We spent the next 2 days looking around the Lytham/Blackpool/Morcambe Bay area trying to dodge the rain, hail and snow! It was pretty cold but we managed to get a little [View Full Entry]

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