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Published: December 14th 2016
Deiva Marina
View from beach with local residentOK, time to inflict you with a further update on our travels. For those who paid attention last time we had just arrived in Italy, in the village of Deiva Marina. The mountains here come down to the coast so it is a series of small towns and villages each size being dictated by the amount of flat land between the hills running straight into the sea. Before the arrival of the railways the normal way to approach the villages was by boat, although there were foot/donkey paths over the hills and inland now making it excellent walking country, but alas not with Frodo. The site was great, a bit outside the village but they provided a free bus service which also gave us access to the railway station. So the chaps (Frodo and Pippin) had a double first by going on a bus and a train.
For those of you that know the area, we were two train stops from Cinque Terre and for those who don’t it means “Five Lands”, five very old and attractive coastal villages linked by footpaths and now the railway, all inside the Cinque Terre National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage
Site. So leaving the dogs for a few hours in the caravan we headed off to explore a couple of the villages with our day pass allowing us to use trains and trails between them. Did I mention it is fairly famous, yes, well alas, someone had told the tour companies, blast! Here we encountered the Americans and the Australians on tour complete with guides with coloured placards herding them like sheep on and off trains, in and out of water holes and stopping to let them graze at strategically placed hay nets. Being social sorts we allowed ourselves to engage in conversation with some of the Australians at a station, one woman actually told us that the problem with Italy is that they don’t speak English well enough. We looked at each other to check she was serious which she was with her companions agreeing with her, we resisted the temptation to say “I know, but their Italian is quite good” and beat a retreat having learnt our lesson to stay clear. If you can ignore the tour groups and the fact that even in early October the villages were heaving, they are stunning, all narrow streets and very
Deiva Marina
Must be Brits, no style! old quirky building and the walks between the villages are great, if a bit steep. When we returned the dogs were fine and seem to have got over the “lets trash the caravan phase”.
One day we decided to drive to the nearest sizable town of Sesti Levante and having consulted the maps headed inland up into the mountains went west along a better road, got a bit confused so called for the aid of Daniel, the sat nav, left the mountains and arrived at the town, in all about 24 km. Sesti Levante is a typically pleasant seaside town; good beaches, harbour and old area etc. On our way back, as a reward for his good behaviour on the way we let Daniel loose again and this time he excelled himself, the site is only about 11km away! So not having the caravan and knowing we can reverse off we go. Just as we leave the town we come to a set of traffic lights by a beach just before a tunnel, they are red and people are out of the cars chatting etc. We are puzzled, until we see the sign indicating the lights will
change three times an hour, on the hour, at twenty past and twenty to. We work out that if you arrive at the right time you could leave your car in the queue, have a quick swim and be back before the lights change. At the allotted time the lights go green and we enter an unlit, single track, twisting and turning tunnel, it is about six km long with two or three short breaks at little coves before you shoot out into the neighbouring village of Moneglia wait at another set of lights which change every ten minutes and then into another three km tunnel and out at Deiva Marina. Brilliant, but far too small to show on our map.
Next we headed to Lake Garda, via the A15. Now most of the motorways along the coast from France to Deiva Marina are just a series of tunnels and stilted road sections and none too straight, but the A15 heading up through the coastal mountains was a new experience in how to put sharp bends on a narrow two lane motorway. This was not helped by extensive contraflows with no cones between the traffic, far worse
Deiva Marina
Need an extension? for Jane being on the left and having all the lorries passing a few inches away. Obviously the Italians are used to it as they make no allowances like slowing down!
However we arrived safely at La Ca, our site at Padenghe, right on the shore of Lake Garda. Frodo and Pippin meet up with Cusco (spaniel pal) who brought along our friends Wendy and Gordon. A very good few days was had by all eating and drinking and generally catching up. Lake Garda is beautiful, especially in the north with the mountains coming right down to the lake. We visited Limone, yet more narrow tunnels but idyllic when you get there, Lazise, great market covering the entire harbour and Densenzano one of the oldest towns in the region, all by road and also took a boat across to Sirmione. Sirmione is well worth a visit, very old narrow streets, archways (we like archways when we don’t have the caravan), castle and fortifications etc., we only had a few of hours there because of the boat times which was just as well as loads of tour groups were arriving as we left with their multicoloured beacons they
will have packed the place. The other notable thing about both Limone and Sirione was the number of ice-cream shops with literally hundreds of flavours and portion sizes ranges from washing up bowls to dustbins!
At this point I really must mention the campsite La Ca, which we can only compare to Faulty Towers. The location is brilliant with a gate taking you straight onto the promenade by the lake, but the site is so cramped we had to move a boat and jet skies to get in and out of our pitch.
A sign on the gate to the lake indicated its opening and closing time, 7.37am and 9.26pm, why such odd times, no idea, mind you it did have a long list of strange rules some of which, for the life of us, we could not understand what they were trying to say. The toilets and showers were huge but for some reason two thirds of them were closed although the site was full.
But, as with Faulty Towers, the critical element was the “Basil” character, the owner and he took the role very seriously. When asked by friend
Wendy if there was a surgery or doctor in the village he just shrugged and said “don’t know”, when asked if you take dogs on the ferry boats he just shrugged and said “don’t know”, when asked where to get rid of waste water he just shrugged and said “don’t know”. He was singularly the most unhelpful, grumpy site owner we have come across. Another of his rules stated he would only permit one person at a time into the office which also held all the tourist info leaflets so you had no chance to browse, especially as the office was only open from 9-11 in the morning and 3-5 in the afternoon. Oddly the site gave visitors a gift of free post cards and a plant when leaving, cannot have been his idea.
As you can imagine we managed to fall out with him, I went to pay at about 11.05, as he was dealing with someone else I duly waited outside and entered as they left at 11.10 and ask our genial host if I could pay. He said no as he was now closed and I must come back between 3 and 5. I
Sestri Levante
Did it, didn’t it? stated that I was trying to give him money and it would be helpful to me if I could pay and he responded by shouting “I suppose in England site offices are open 24 hours a day!” I explained that a big site like this would probably be open 10-12 hours a day when he started screaming that I must respect the time and ushered me out of the office, Jane who was sat in the car asked me what all his shouting was about!
When I returned at 3pm he would not look at me but pushed the bill across the desk. I was surprised to see he was charging me €4.70 per night for a second dog, when I asked him where he displayed this price, as it was way higher than anywhere else we had been, he snatched the bill back from me and changed it to €2.50 a night. The whole transaction took place without him saying a word to me or looking at me, oddly we did not get a gift don’t know why not?
Our next stop was meant to be Innsbruck and then on into Germany, but
Sestri Levante
Forgot me trousers again! the weather was looking bad and when faced with wet and below 10° in Austria and 20+° on the med we headed south again, this time back down on the A7 and E25 which is a perfect road, far superior to the A15. We stopped for a couple of nights at Pietra Ligure, very pleasant site and has a small but good old area of the town, otherwise it looked very tired and somewhat dilapidated.
And so back into France and onto Saint Aygulf just outside Frejuz. Large flat area surrounded by mountains, great for walking and beaches etc. and Frejus old town is well worth a wonder round. Spent a relaxing week here prior to starting the trec north, stopping just north of Lyon having successfully negotiated the tunnels under the city for a second time and then on to Chalons-en-Champagne for a couple of nights to get the dogs wormed and their pet passports completed by a French vet. Here the vet showed concern about Frodo’s heart condition and recommended that we see our vet as soon as we got back home. Chalons-en-Champagne is a convenient place to stop but also well worth a visit
Vernazza
We have just left there with its old churches and cathedral as well as very fine plazas and parks. Our final stop in France was a bit short of Calais at Licques and then the ferry to Dover. We crossed on Thursday 20
th a few days before the Jungle was cleared on the Monday, what a depressing sight it was, how desperate must these people be?
So here we are at home doing repairs to the caravan in readiness for catching the ferry on 15
th Jan to Spain. Sadly the vet’s news on Frodo was not good, his heart condition was such that he would never exercise again and his arthritis was stopping him sitting or managing to walk on any rough ground or slopes etc. Even to lie-down was an effort and he fretted when Pippin was taken out. His only pleasure was eating and being petted and even that was an effort. Finally he was rapidly losing weight which the vet said she did not think we should put him through the trauma of trying to establish why. Still his friendly disposition came through wagging his tail whenever he saw you, regardless of the discomfort he was in.
Vernazza
Are we going there? Diary note Wednesday 9
th November – Donald Trump elected as American President and Frodo put to sleep, wrong way around!
Frodo’s great loves were playing beach cricket and chasing sticks, when we were fed up with throwing them he would approach random strangers, place the stick in front of them and sit wagging his tail looking up at them with big, brown, teddy bear eyes, this worked surprisingly well. Once the ICC changed the beach cricket rules so that you were dismissed if caught by a dog after only one bounce he immediately became the leading wicket taker, mind you he was rubbish at batting! On the other hand Pippin is an armchair sportsdog, she would sit and watch the beach cricket but never wanted to join in. I think Pippin still expects him to appear around the corner at any time, but seems to be coping and quite happy.
Well that’s nearly it, we are thinking of starting a blog, the advantage for us being we can post photos and for you that you can ignore it or just look at the photos! I didn’t want to do it this time when
reporting on Frodo, perhaps when we get to Spain. We will need a name, wondered about “Can’t sit still, probably the piles” other suggestions welcome.
So from Frodo “thanks but no more sticks”, Pippin is trying to eat twice as many treats and Jane and I, children and grandchild are all fine.
We hope all is well with you and yours
Love to all, take care
Terry and Jane
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