Blogs from Piedmont, Italy, Europe - page 6

It is hard to believe that we have spent three whole days here already, having arrived at Camping Orta, on Lake Orta, on Friday night and set up camp. It is now Tuesday morning. We spent Saturday exploring the town - enjoying a leisurely lunch at a local restaurant and taking in the views. Sunday was focussed, as always, on the F1 race, which we watched in the campsite bar on the other side of the road. Sadly Lewis's performance wasn't sparkling - although he remains in lead of the Championship by 2 points... Yesterday was stunning. A trip to Mottarone and a visit to Alpyland.... read more

What we didn't realise, before purchasing our van, was that there is snobbery in motor-homing, which, apparently, should influence what you buy (if you can afford it), instead of what you actually need. We, in our view, very sensibly, purchased our Hymer MLT-580 (Fugly) for its features and were shocked to be informed, by a very well healed couple in the show room, that they were 'only' purchasing a Carado, which, apparently, is an 'entry level' Hymer. News to us. Blissfully unaware of this fact we had reviewed the specs of all of the vehicles in the showroom and would have been happy to buy a Carado had it met our spec. Unfortunately the garages would not accommodate our bike dimensions and / or payload requirements. When they asked us what we were buying, and we ... read more

The test... Would the van hold our gear? Having bought and taken delivery of the van, we were still yet to determine, for sure, that our Honda VFR 800 would actually fit in the garage... An expensive mistake if not! The dimensions suggested it would... We drove the van home and attached the ramp with some degree of nervousness. This proved to be unfounded - although we found that we had to remove the top box frame. Now for the acid test. Would the top box (containing helmets) and panniers (essential for food shopping when away), alongside our leathers fit into the internal cupboard I had earmarked for them (the largest of the 'wardrobes' under the bed and accessed via both a lifting lid and large door). The answer was yes! Result! So here we have ... read more

Fugly is not the dream van that we thought we would buy when we were 'grown up' and which we thought we would buy on retirement. Firstly, we bought the van way ahead of retirement - we wanted to enjoy it before we were too old to, and secondly (more importantly for me), it isn't a VW! Having spent my youth aspiring to own a VW camper; and having been fortunate enough to invest wisely in both a T2 Brazilian Bay and a VW Crafter Race Van (both of which retained their value), we have enjoyed, for many years, the VW sub culture that includes events at the infamous Santa Pod raceway - and are keen to continue to do so. For this reason, only a VW would do. However, this was not to be... We ... read more

Woolly says – Having left the tusk and trunk eating baby behind for the day, an hours train ride left us in the centre of Turin.......well it would have done if either of the women had a sense of direction! Having left the station we turned right, an hours walking and we seemed to have discovered the suburbs, in the interests of helping my paws and not covering more miles than necessary I went for the sensible option of asking for directions and then having retraced most of our paw steps back towards the train line we finally found ourselves in what appeared to be a large square with some strange cows which seemed a little random. Pizzia Reale is home to The Royal Palace of Turin, originally built in the 16th century and modernized in ... read more