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Where is the world is Suzy Sundance ? She is parked up in a motorcaravan club sosta in the town of Modena.
After another relatively peaceful night on the sosta only disturbed by the gentle trundle of the train, a lorry driver running his engine and a family with three year old in tow . She played football on the empty car park until the witching hour . Had she been mine she would be long gone to the land of nod. And we did what we never do which is set our van alarm off waking us but the rest of the town slumbered and did not bat an eyelid.
Today was going to be Parma day. Parma Violets those lovely dragees that smell of perfume, taste like perfume and are pure perfume. Beloved of my mum and gran and me as a child. Parma ham all thinly sliced and fatty. Fantastic on Italian bread. I am sure mum would have hated it . I cn hear her voice now "It looks like and tastes like raw uncooked bacon" she would say. I have developed a taste for raw salamis and hams over the years. It has a
Baptistry worthy of any Italian town and looking better than the one in Pisa . This one another concoction of icing sugar waiting to be eaten. We could not wait to visit it.
Our plan was to stop at another sosta which we had found in our Camperstop Book. This book is the Holy Grail of stopping places across Europe. So we picked one on the outskirts of Parma. Hopefully unlike Venereale Real this one would be open. Next to a Lidl – it ticked a box – we could do some much needed shopping. It was next to a bus stop – so that was transport into town sorted. Next to the main autostrada – not so good might be noisy but handy for a quick getaway. What could go wrong? We drove onto the area and could see the Lidl. First box ticked. The camperstop was there but the doors were firmly locked, bolted and shut. It didn’t look as if it had been open for a long time . The locks rusted and the area outside was scruffy. There was a bus stop but in the vacant parking spots were not one but two fifth wheelers.
Huge behemoth of vehicles over 100K at least and around them some dirty old cars, washing hanging on lines and what looked like the travellers who lived in them. Was it going to be safe enough to leave Suzy and travel into Parma?
We ate our lunch. We pondered. In the end we decided to hit the road and head for Modena where we had sourced another sosta but this time it was run by the local camping club . Always a good bet . Whilst we ate and sat another Brit couple turned up, eyed the closed Sosta , probably cursed the Camperstop book and moved on.
The song two out of three aint bad came to mind but by the time we would get to Modena we were on sosta number 4. Three out of four perhaps.
What do people come to Modena for? Lets talk red and racing cars. Lets think of prancing horses and F1. There is not much else in Modena but for the Ferrari museum and casa Enzo Ferrari . We had not expected to come here and you do need to book so we didn’t expect to visit either. When
we travel we dislike having to book events in advance as they pin you down to days. We try to only pick one visit that cannot be moved and this trip it was going to be to a garden south of Rome only open on a Sunday. So Ferrari was not going to be graced by us this time. The one thing with this sort of holiday is that you can always come back and pick up the things you missed so may be another time we might get to see the Fiat factory in Torino and see the prancing horse in Modena.
The camping stop Mutina was easy to find in the middle of the countryside but in front of us was a locked gate . Not again we thought. I did have the foresight to get out of Suzy and check the instructions on the gate . I rang the bell and waited with trepidation expecting nothing. The gate slowly creaked open. We drove in and were greeted by a member of the Club Mutina who ran the site. An elderly guy he must have been in his 80’s . No English but with a smile as
wide as the River Po he gave us the code for the gate, took our 13 euros 50 cent fee reduced from 15 euros as we were members of Camping Club International and welcomed us to his lovely site. Free clean and effective hot showers, free water and dump, rubbish collection , a club house with free WiFi and not many people there. We were too far south for British TV but in this idyllic spot it hardly mattered a jot.
They even offered a lift into town in their seven seater vehicle. We took up the offer and were told to be at reception for 5 and they would take us in to town. Pick up would be two hours later just giving us enough time to look round the town, have an Aperol spritzer, find a bank before it was time to return to the campsite . The bank was an important one as we had just realised our Caxton Card with all our euros on it would run out at the end of April two weeks before we returned home. The new card probably was sitting on the hall carpet waiting for us to return home
Modena
I do love my clocks as we speak . Not much good there then. We have become a little too relaxed in our planning and this trip have left important things at home and not noticed that the date on our card would run out before we got home.
Our 80 year old driver dropped us off in town and said or gestured he would return to the same spot at the appointed hour to pick us up. For once we didnt actually take that much notice of the pick up point. There wasn’t much in the town. Long arcades similar to Turin or Bologna but not quite as affluent. Not a bank in sight – in fact we never found one. An official building in a Baroque style . We avoided this as we hate Baroque – ABBB – another bloody Baroque building as we say. We don’t hate all of them but there is a limit to enjoying them when they are not your style . Moving on we found the beautiful Romanesque church. It shone white in the afternoon sunlight and sat beautifully in its own little piazza. Lions adorned its doorway and a tower jutted out added much later . Inside it proved rather dull and drab.
Across the road however was a lovely little street café cum restaurant. We sat and savoured the view of the church whilst we drank small beers and the first of what hopefully would be many Aperol Spritzers. It looks like Lucozade, it fizzes like Lucozade but by God it packs a punch better than a Lucozade.
At the appointed hour we walked back to where we thought the driver would pick us up. As always we are boringly early. But then that is what us Brits do. We turn up early rather than be late. We arrived ten minutes before the appointed time. At the appointed hour we looked up and down the road but our driver did not turn up. We got caught up in a demonstration. Lots of drum banging, a bustling loud crowd spilling into the road and shouting. We never did work out what they were demonstrating for or against. We were not worrying unduly as the traffic might have been bad and held up our pick up driver or perhaps he had got caught up in the demonstration. After 20 minutes we did wonder if we were on the right road. Given that I had forgotten to pack my shoes and had also left behind shampoo and conditioner it was highly likely that we were on the wrong street. Glenn walked across the park and checked the next street returning some while later to pronounce that it was now half an hour after our expected pick up and there was no sign of our driver. Should we stay and wait for him as we criss- crossed from one street to the other or should we try to find our way back home. Without decent shoes there was no way we were walking and we had little idea of where the bus station was nor which bus to take so it was taxi back. Where do you find a taxi in a strange town without a map? Head for the railway station and hope for the best . It took us the best part of 20 minutes to find the station and pick up the taxi. Once in we headed around the city the meter adding cents by the bucket load as we got stuck in red traffic lights and traffic queues.
Eventually we ended up back on the street where we should have picked up our driver. The meter reading 4 euros 60 already and we had barely travelled five minutes. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted his van . The words Camping Mutina shouted out at me. I saw him standing there looking bemused obviously wondering where the mad English couple were. I shouted STOP loudly to the taxi driver and handed my purse to Glenn. The taxi drove on with me shouting STOP STOP until he did stop eventually but was probably thinking that I was a totally demented .Not far wrong there .
Like a demented chicken I got out of the taxi and legged it. A mad demented thing running back to our old man who was waiting for us. I did Paula Radcliffe and Mo Farah proud as I raced up the street and with a quick scusi ,momento I got our driver to stop as I ran back to the taxi to pay and pick Glenn up. Having paid up the taxi driver 10 euros for the privilege of driving two miles we eventually got home with our lovely old man from the camp site . So all was well that ended well . And we do love an adventure. It turned out we were on the wrong road but we think our driver must have been late arriving . We found this out after speaking to an Australian lady and her son who were in the taxi. They had been into town and were in the van waiting for us. They had flown in from Australia to Germany picked up a motorhome and were travelling through Northern Italy before returning home.
An eventful trip in . Would we go again? Probably not. Would we stay at Camping Mutina? Definitely . If we ever went again we more than likely would pay the money and visit the Modena factory of the stamping horse that is Ferrari .
But as always it was fun. We never make life easy for ourselves and why on earth should we? Life would be boring if you didn’t get lost on the way sometimes.
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