The trip - The first week

---

I'm so far behind with my blogs that this one will try to be a quick catch up (although we are now into week three!)

Our location destination was Florence and so although the photos will reflect our dash down from Calais through France, Switzerland and then Italy I shall bunch all together in an effort to condense our travels.

We intended to move quickly, and we did, at lightning speed, well, as fast as Gino would go, Satnav Sally admonishing us to go no faster than 50mph, and hurtled through Northern France ending our first day's journey in Champagne country. A pleasant spot for motorhomes up in the vines of a small town called Trepail which unfortunately had nothing else of note for us non-drinkers. There was no cafe, no boulangerie, no shop, just a pizza machine which we did not try. How do you cook pizzas in a machine? Intriguing and seriously I think as the village had gone to the trouble of providing a spot for motorhomes, there should at least have been a boulangerie.

We kept going the next day until we got to Colmar, a beautiful town with exquisite architecture and a healthy tourist influx! Happy to find a council camping, basic and pretty uninteresting but within five or ten minutes of the old town. We oohed and aahed at the buildings, reminiscent of English Tudor architecture, and even took a touristy boat ride up and down the canal. A nice idea. With my critical hat on, the boatman could have been a little more informative about the history of the place but it was pleasant all the same. A fairly lacklustre meal later we were dossed down in Gino and ready for the next gobsmacking toll!

Driving down next into Switzerland, we stopped at beautiful Lake Sempach and had a swim in surpisingly warm water, lying on our backs with some imposing snow-covered alps in the background. We travelled through the Gotthard tunnel (108 Euros later, or was it pounds; I stopped counting) we headed down through a pretty chaotic and busy northern Italy past Milan and onto Fiesole.

There, an adventure began. We had been relying on our satnav set to our vehicle specifications but switched to google maps for our way to the campground Panoramico. Big, big mistake. Someone had previously said to beware the google instructions but having wiggled our way through some backstreets we must have thought we were invincible when google sent us off the main road up a very small lane.

"We can't get through there," I almost yelled as we approached a passageway between an old stone mansion and a stone wall on the other side. We nearly, nearly made it, but of course might not have been able to go any further as we were informed this was the way walkers walked up to Fiesole from Florence! We didn't, we tore off a rubber strip and banged our electrical outlet but the house remained standing and after some very deft reversing and three point turning (almost into a fountain) we, or should I say Graeme aka Lewis Hamilton, extricated ourselves from a nasty situation. I had envisaged tow trucks, cranes and very irate house owners turning up!

Still shaken we arrived at the campsite.

"I have been arguing with google for seven years about those directions," one of the camp attendants told us, "You're not the first and probably won't be the last! They won't change it."

My nerves all a jangle we thought three nights might be a good time to stay and catch our breath and see all that Florence has to offer.

We swam in the pool, slept well and the next morning were whisked off in the camp bus to catch the main bus down into Florence from Fiesole. Wrestling with the bus ticket machine we managed to purchase tickets.

This was my third time in Florence and Graeme's first. What should we see first, so much to see? My abiding memory was of it being so hot, sightseeing was unbearable but the day although hot was not on that scale. Florence is always full of tourists and today was no exception. Groups from all countries milled around the Duomo where we first found ourselves after being fortified by a coffee and cake at a roadside cafe. It is so majestic, so distinctive and so unmistakeably Italian that we feasted ourselves on a 360 outside view and decided not to join the queues for entry. We walked on, twisting and turning past the leather shops and stalls until we came to Palazzo Vecchio. We admired the David replica outside and the other naked statues and as there were no queues for entry, paid our monies and went in. It was a revelation of Medici wealth and power. Cosimo and Eleanor, sounding like some modern day couple from Love at First Sight, were responsible for many of the buildings on both sides of the Arno. The Medici power had been consolidated by the Cardinal influence and the family were set to rule. To be fair, they did provide much work for artists who were never out of a job in sixteenth centuy Florence, what with the frescoes in the new additions to the Palazzo and the commisioned artworks.

"You must see the Ponte Vecchio", I said and we wandered across and to the other side to Palazzo Pitti where we stood in a queue (it was in the shade) for tickets to Boboli Gardens. Eleanor wanted a garden so she and Cosimo moved from Palazzo Vecchio and after extensive additions and before the gardens were even completed she took ill and died. The gardens, however are huge and worthy of a walk around. It was very hot in the afternoon and after that we went in search of the perfect gelato. We may have found it! Sitting in a piazza supping on our gelatos we decided we would book a guided walk the next day for another dose of history. Must be time for a swim and a dinner on the Panoramico patio.

Giacomo from Guruwalk, Ciao Firenze, was a young, enthusiastic architecture student with a great sense of humour and tales to tell of competitions for the baptistry doors, the cathedral dome and the rivalry between many artists and artisans of the time. Brunelleschi desgned and built the dome to cover what had been a huge gaping hole as no-one until then could work out how to support a dome of that diameter. He was a genius! Brunelleschi that is, not Giacomo, although he may have been, I can't vouch for it.

---

Comments

[RENanDREW]

On the move!
How exciting... I saw your birthday blog but wasn't logged in to post. Happy big birthdays to you both - travel birthdays are so much more special! Looking forward to reading about your trip. I need to read up on my old travel notes, but the only thing I remember about Fiesole was an interesting cemetery and a hot chocolate so thick it held a spoon upright :)