Small delights and minor irritations

Somewhere south of Bari the trip counter notched up 1500 miles, almost half of it over the past three days in Italy. I still think what I said in the previous post about the improved standards of driving on the Milan 'tangenziale' holds true, but I'm hundreds of miles south of there now on the very lumpy-bump SS379 and happy to report that here in Puglia driver behaviour is as atrocious as ever with comical near misses occuring every couple of minutes.

Italy can be a frustrating place for visitors to navigate. Simple stuff gets over-complicated, like re-fuelling. The price of diesel displayed by the side of the motorway (€1.849) might be available if you are determined and intrepid. The first two lines are serviced by smartly attired attendants, at their pumps the price of diesel is €2.199. Only if you drive beyond them and squeeze onto the awkwardly positioned self service pumps by the cafe does the price match the advertised one. Even then, it's not really serve yourself, as soon as you lay a hand on the nozzle an attendant materialises beside you, takes it from you, expertly inserts it, engages auto-fill, then meticulously squeedgees your insect encrusted windscreen. So even when you get to pay the lower price you are still obliged to tip the attendant. It's a small thing, but here, as in other situations hidden complexities abound, little traps set to surprise simple minded northerners used to a more WYSIWYG culture.

But in the end Italy always works its charm, and you recall the small delights fondly while ignoring or forgiving the ambient low level aggravation. Also, you wise-up, with experience its possible to maximize the delights and dodge the pitfalls. For example Searchforsites and the Acsi App list scores of places to stay on the overdeveloped Adriatic coast. You don't need to consult the luke warm reviews to know most will be over-crowded, over-rated and overpriced in August. However, we studied our map carefully and spotted, just to the north of the Gargagno, two salt water lagoons. They seemed a little off the beaten track, development looked to be more limited within the Parco Nazionale Del Gargano di Lesina and the area appeared more soulful and empty compared to the concrete sprawl to the north. There were only two sostas and one rustic campsite in the area.

We chose the one in Lesina itself. The town appeared small on Google maps, which indeed it proved to be, but its narrow streets are closely packed into a rectangular grid and historically it was a place of some importance.

In the early modern period it was an archbishopric and even today some substantial, but ramshackle mansions are scattered about among the smaller cuboid houses.

Now the town specialises in inshore fishing on the big lagoon. Lesina's small fishing fleet is unusual in so much all the traditional small fishing boats are painted black or grey, whereas in most other places in the Med the clinker built craft tend to be painted white with jolly coloured symbols on the prow to ward off the evil eye. 

Viewed from across the water, with its big white church and hotchpotch of buildings from different eras Lesina looks handsome. 

We liked it a lot, there was something about it that reminded us of the seaside places in Sicily we visited, such as San Vito Lo Capo.

Italy can be quite touching at times. When I wandered up to Lesina's big church to take a photo I noticed all the lamp-posts around it were decorated with white ribbons folded into rose shapes.

They framed photos of a young couple who married here a couple of days ago. I thought the tradition was a lovely sentimental gesture, an unassuming example of Italian values, the deep seated sense that family and community are intertwined, and no one gets embarrassed about overt expressions of romance

It was very hot, on the sunny side of the street well over 40°. We were the only people out and about. However there was good reason why we were wandering the stifling empty streets . Google maps claimed that Gelago, Lesina' best regarded gelateria re-opened at 4pm. 

When we arrived on the dot it was still closed, but there were hopeful signs, two women were sitting on tall stools on the pavement outside, and soon after we arrived a car drew up, its occupants lowered a darkened side window and peered at the shuttered entrance expectantly. About five minutes later a young man arrived, unlocked the place,  glancing around, somewhat surprised that a small queue had assembled on a searing hot Wednesday afternoon in the dog days of late August, a week after Italy's schools had recommenced signalling the end of the busy summer season. 

I don't why the others had turned up, but we had to be his most intrepid customers having read the rave reviews about the place over a week ago back at home. These better be as good as they claim, I remarked to Gill, we've driven over 2000 kilometres in anticipation. 

We both chose a scoop of the Bufalo mozzarella, ricotta and pistachio gel, Gill combined this with a pistachio creme, I went with the owner's suggestion, a flavour called 'Gargagno' which was a creamy vanilla with orange looking highlights which turned out to be kumquat. Of course we filched a smidgen of each other's just to compare.

Our verdict - good but not outstanding, 8/10, but in a different league to anything you might come across north of the Alps. 

Like many places you end up staying in Italy the sosta in Lestina was a tad idiosyncratic. You can't really fault its location, to the rear of a low cabin style restaurant on the esplanade which runs along the shore of the lake to the south of the town.

For some reason the pitches were crowded together, narrow bays separated by high kerbs which made reversing into them tricky. There are no facilities, neither a grey water emptying point nor chemical WC dump.  One toilet shared between the 20 or so pitches - it costs €15 to park overnight,  basically it's an expensive car park.

The real downside of place only emerged at bedtime. The interior of our bedroom windows' fly screens were covered in small mosquitoes, the opposite of what is meant to happen, the mesh is meant to keep them out rather than trap them in! Small plastic fly swat at the ready I set about eradicating the problem, when the body count passed the half century mark I stopped counting. A salt water lagoon in late August, we should have known better, we had a similar mossy Armageddon when we parked at Marsiellian Plage on the Etang de Thau some years ago.

The place had other irritations. The restaurant seemed to be hosting some kind of kids disco, the high decibel soundtrack was suitably puerile and interspersed with competitions and kareoke. It finished about 10.00pm. only to be replaced by an event at the football club behind us. The matches went on until midnight with much cheering and chanting. Then they had a party with a full-on DJ set accompanied by enthusiastic whooping. Around threeish the music stopped, then the revellers took to their hot hatches and drove up and down the lake front road peeping their horns and performing tyre squealing handbrake turns. At some point I must have dropped-off, because the next thing I remember was waking at first light when every hound, pooch and lapdog in the area began to bark, howl or yap simultaneously. 

Italy is lovely, but it is not peaceful, sostas are often near noisy public spaces, but campsites can be frenetic too, especially in the summer. You can end up feeling frazzled and exhausted. The thing is it's not the irritations you remember, but the small delights.

Like the moment I hopped out of the van to catch the sunset but missed it by moments.The photo faithfully records the magical afterlight, but not the excitable euro-pop pumping out right beside me. The kids seemed to be having a great time though....

Over the hills and far away

Ever since we arrived in Turckheim storm clouds had gathered ominously. Though it remained hot and sticky overnight, apart from the occasional rumble in the distance, the promised thundery downpour never materialised.

Next morning we headed south through Switzerland. For the most part its sublime landscape was hidden in a sticky fug. Denied scenic distractions you get to better appreciate the sheer variety of the country's industrial sprawl. Factories and warehouses cover slivers of flat land squeezed in between the invisible mountains. Art Deco styled hydro electric generating halls, a small pharmaceutical factory whose pure white concrete walls and asymmetric fenestration nodded towards le Corbusier, a funky bathroom showroom in day-glo cladding, a minimalist glass cube in buffed steel and darkened glass adorned with a tiny gnomic logo - something techy I decided, a data processing company maybe... all these delights were duly noted, as we mused that such things better represent the realities of the country, rather than dolorous cowbells, buxom milkmaids or a yodelling herder sporting a jaunty hat with a feather. 

Even so, when we reached the southern end of Lake Luzern and the sky cleared a bit, it was the view of cloud wreathed mountains that Gill snapped from the cab and not the minor masterpieces of late twentieth century industrial architecture.

Our original plan had been to drive straight through Switzerland and stay overnight at a free aire near Como. However, we had not factored-in just how traffic choked Swiss motorways would be on the last Saturday in August as the caravanners of northern Europe headed homewards from the Italian Lakes and Tuscany. Luckily, as we were heading in the opposite direction, most of the jams were on the opposite carriageway, apart from a 30 minute holdup as we approached the St. Gotthard tunnel. It would be early evening before we reached Como. There were only few places to spend the night in the area, and if they were full we faced the prospect of trying to find a sosta near Milan; experience had taught us to be very wary of driving around Milan in a motorhome.

Instead we parked-up near Locarno at the northern end of Lake Maggiore, the bit that is just in Switzerland. We were in luck, Area Sosta Tamara had plenty of space, a sprawling piece of ground behind a petrol station, part gravel part grass. At first sight it looked a bit ramshackle, but the facilities are well designed, it has ehu, and the adjacent main road has little overnight traffic.

It's perfectly positioned, a day's drive from France, with the Italian Lakes or Ligurian coast within easy reach. I am sure we will use it again. Next morning was bright and sunny. As we crossed the Italian border it became clear that the final Sunday in August signals the end of the Summer hols for much of Western Europe.

Both sides of the motorway were busy, short delays at every toll booth as the Dutch, Germans, Swiss and Scandinavians headed north; whereas we joined a mix of homeward bound Italians and a few motorhomes arriving from over the Alps, like ours, driven by retirees heading south for a late summer break in Tuscany or the Italian Lakes in 'slow sad September'.

As the Milan 'tangenziale' looms, if you don't feel a twinge of trepidation then you have not given it the respect it deserves. In truth, compared to a quarter of a century ago it's become somewhat less dodgem -like; indeed Italian driving has calmed down quite a lot, the younger generation now seem more respectful of speed limits and lane markings. It could also be the case that as Italian drivers improved the standards of British driving deteriorated. There seem fewer 'complete dicks' behind the wheel on Italian urban motorways these days than at home, so the M25 is now more of a free-for-all than the motorway encircling Milan.

We headed east down the Po valley. It made the news a couple of weeks ago during the recent drought with pictures of the mighty river reduced to a series of puddles. I don't know where they were taken but it certainly was nowhere near Piacenza. As we crossed the river, moving from Lombardy into Emilia Romagna, the Po was flowing freely and the winter wheat, just beginning to sprout in the prairie sized fields beside the motorway, was emerald green. The only evidence we saw of a water shortage was the odd brown leaved tree here and there making late summer look like early onset autumn.

Like the motorway to the north connecting Turin to Venice, the A1 heading southeast towards Bologna is lined with factories great and small. Northern Italy truly is one of the EU's industrial powerhouses. Whereas on the motorway north of here you pass one light engineering works after another, the one we were on now specialises in food manufacturing. This is not surprising given the fertility of the Po valley, and the world renowned products produced by its cities. We passed them one by one, Parma (ham), Reggio (parmesan cheese), Modena (balsamic vinegar). The area is a landscape re-imagined as a larder.

Much to Gill's delight we passed a big Barilla factory on the outskirts of Reggio. One of the complex's wings, a low windowless structure, stretched alongside the motorway for what seemed like half a kilometre. We decided it housed the world's biggest spaghetti maker.

For long stretches the line serving Italy's equivalent equivalent to the TGV runs parallel to the autostrada. Reggio's station is an astounding building resembling a piece of abstract origami on a monumental scale.

We stopped on the outskirts of Modena at Camper Club Mutina. We've used the area twice before, it's brilliant. The sosta is run by a local association of motorhome owners, it includes a storage facility for members and an excellent service point. There are also two dozen or so touring pitches with hook-up and a small shower block. It costs €18 per night. Surprisingly it is never busy, popular though with petrol heads as it's only about 6km from the Enzio Ferrari museum.

However, we discovered the one downside of using the place in August. We were plagued by wasps and flying beetles, the scores of mossie bites flared-up a day or two later.

Next day marked the beginning of the final week of the Italian school summer holidays. Lots of tourists, native and international on the move. As we approached Bologna's tangenziale the traffic grew noticeably more dense. The opposite carriageway ground to a halt and stayed that way for 10 kilometres or more.

This route south is new territory for us, the last time we took  the ferry to Greece from Brindisi we travelled down the spine of Italy using the E45, a somewhat potholed dual carriageway that follows the upper valley of the Tiber. This time the autostrada down the coast through Emilia Romagna and Marche is an altogether more impressive affair, in part reminiscent of the motorway along Andalusia's Costa Tropical in the way it bulldozes its way though the coastal hills in a series of short tunnels and vertiginous viaducts.

I love the way no matter how you familiarise yourself beforehand using real maps or virtual ones, the actualities of travel are always surprising. The road atlas told me that on the first part of the journey past Ravenna and Rimini we would cross a broad plain between the Adriatic and the Appennines, but only driving it revealled how productive the area is, a patchwork of fruit farms, wheat fields and vineyards stretching all the way to the smoky blue mountains in the distance. One lump of rock looked distinctly pyramidal, it turned out to be San Marino, one of the smallest, richest and oldest states on the planet. 

As we approached the border between Emilia Romagna and Marche the landscape became more undulating. We snaked our way through a series of small valleys, each hill dotted with trees, some topped with an ancient farm, it reminded me of the Chianti. 

Straight through Marche and onwards into Abruzzo. The topography changed again, the hills becoming rounded and grassy. 

"It looks like chalk," Gill mused, then added, "but it can't be, I'm sure Italy has no chalk landscapes." She was right on both counts. We consulted a geological map later, we had driven through an area of 'clays and marls interspersed with sandy arenaceous and conglomeratic deposits'. I have no idea what that means but it sounds a whole lot more impressive than 'chalk'. I am guessing here, but the resemblance between the two landscapes probably results from them both being friable rocks readily eroded into rounded forms by the action of wind and rain over millennia. The result of all this geological speculation for me was decidedly unscientific - the opening lines of Dylan Thomas's poem 'In the White Giant's Thigh' spilled through my head uninvited. Why? It must be three decades since I last read it.

Through throats where many rivers meet, the curlews cry,

Under the conceiving moon, on the high chalk hill,

And there this night I walk in the white giant’s thigh

Where barren as boulders women lie longing still

To labor and love though they lay down long ago.

These days my brain is like a junk shop, full of ancient unwanted stuff, like something  you would get in some down-at-heel suburb, the place next to the takeaway with alarming gas cookers and rusty fridge freezers cluttering the pavement outside.

Maybe driving day after day does funny things to you, a kind of profound dislocation sets in 'derailing' your habitual train of thought. It's odd, but curiously liberating.

The coastal plain south of Ancona is only a few kilometres wide. You get a good view of it from the autostrada which hops and skip across the low hills behind the littoral. The view is not particularly prepossessing, a mundane sprawl of low-rise resorts stretching as far as the eye can see. They are not horrible, merely profoundly unlovely.

We were heading for a particular spot of unloveliness  - Cologna Spiaggia - there are many places to stay in a motorhome hereabouts, in high season they are packed, the campsites manic and overpriced, the sostas likewise. Reviews for 'Gulliver camper' were more positive than most, so we headed there. The woman on reception was friendly and helpful, the facilities adequate but clean, still it cost €29 and you had to pay for shower tokens. 

The real downsides were not the place's fault, the disco at the big campsite next door went on until midnight, the first goods train creaked, grunted and squeaked down the nearby line at 5.06 am, others followed at regular intervals until they were replaced by the whoosh of the Bari -Ancona express at about 7.30. Under normal circumstances I would probably snoozed a bit, but it was hot and sticky. Annoyingly Gill slept through it all.

As I've said before, I love the sea but hate the seaside - the coast commodified. The public beach at Cologna Spiaggia is about the size of a tennis court, dwarfed by neighbouring kilometre long stretches of sand where hired beach umbrellas predominate. Not our thing.

One night only we decided. Next day, another 240 miles, two more regions, Molise then Puglia, Brindisi our port of departure is in Puglia, but some distance to the south, still almost 300km away. We opted to stop in Lesina, a small port on the salt lagoons just to the north of the Gargagno peninsula. When we arrived in the early afternoon we were the only motorhome in its sosta.

Maybe high season ended here last weekend, we speculated. We hoped so.

A chunk of Belgium, a dash of Luxembourg squeezed between two slices of France.

I'm re-imagining our journey as a eurosarnie, wholesome, but not especially delicious, definitely a bit of a door-stopper, two thick crusty slices of France, with a bland Benelux filling squeezed between.

We opted for the crossing to Dunkirk as we planned to head south east towards Switzerland through Belgium, Luxembourg and France's 'Grand Est'. Given recent horror stories in the media about gridlock around Dover and half day long delays, the ease with which we swanned straight into the terminal off the A20 from Canterbury was a welcome surprise. The only evidence of the former carnage was virtual, Dover docks east roundabout now appears on Google maps as a tourist attraction.

Its delights have been reviewed, positively mainly, which says more about the state of the rest of the nation than the inherent charm of the place itself. 

I do love British humour, we may have lost our claims to politeness and good manners and reputation for tolerance and pragmatism, but our wry, ironic take of life still remains, God knows, we need it right now.

Last month's meltdown at Dover docks has resulted in all the ferry companies instructing vehicle owners to arrive two hours before departure. It was a beautiful day, so hot that even the seagulls took to skulking in the shadows. I escaped the air conditioned cab momentarily to take a photo of the vintage VW camper parked in front of us then spent the rest of the time fiddling about with the blog. The ferry arrived as scheduled and we departed on time.

The crossing was one of the clearest I can remember, with a deep blue sky and the kind of scintillating light and crisp horizon line more reminiscent of the Mediterranean than the Channel. Not even a northern 'blue Med day' can alleviate the grim industrial sprawl and half abandoned freight sidings beyond the Dunkirk ferry terminal, but soon we were heading east; the big skies and wooded plains of France's 'Pays Bas' are unspectacular, but on a hot August afternoon they exuded an absorbing timelessness, as if the landscape was passing through us, rather than the other way round.

Lille loomed, dense traffic put paid to any further romantic notions. At least there were no hold-ups and we crossed the conurbation in a matter of minutes. We were heading for Hon-Hergies, a small village on the French side of the Belgian border about 20km south of Mons. Gill's sisterJackie has lived here for about thirty years. La belle France's northern border is not commonly considered as a scenic highlight, but the woods around where she lives are lovely and the village itself an attractive mix of red brick farmsteads and scattered cottage-like 'longères'. Jackie and her family have lived in one of these traditional houses for over two decades, it has character and a big garden with fruit trees and a veg plot. 

By chance we arrived the day before our niece's birthday prompting a slightly premature celebration, eating outside as the sultry evening darkened into a warm summer night.

An area near the village Mairie has been purloined as an informal moho overnight stop, officially it functions as the cemetery car park but it is listed and reviewed on Park4Night, though it doesn't feature on Campercontacts or Searchforsites as an officially sanctioned aire. 

Generally we avoid ad-hoc sleepover spots, but we make an exception with this one as it's only five minute walk from Jackie's house. The last time we stayed here back in April a planning notice had been nailed to a nearby telegraph pole announcing that part of the area was earmarked for redevelopment as a depot for the municipale. We wondered if that might put the kibosh on the motorhome parking, but no, only the area adjacent to the parking bays has been excavated and filled with big piles of hardcore. Indeed, at 5.40am my slumbers were disturbed by the arrival of an articulated tipper truck which emptied a few tons more about 20 metres from my head. Come 7.30am a white van arrived, the driver strolled across to the excavator nearby, sat in the cab and flicked laconically through his phone. By law noisy building work is banned before 8.00am. in France. We decided to exit before then heading about 4km up the road to the official aire in Bavay to breakfast in peace.

We were clear about our route south, one night in the capitainerie at Pont-a-Musson in Lorriane, two nights at Camping le Medieval in Turckheim then through Switzerland via the St Gothard tunnel. One question remained - how to get from here to Lorraine, there were three possibilities all more or less equidistant - straight south towards Laon and Reims, or a short hop north to join the Belgian motorway at Mons then onwards to Luxembourg, alternatively there's an N road from Bavay to Mauberge then onwards through the Ardennes to join the motorway just beyond Dinant. We opted for the latter route for no particular reason, though it could be marketed as 'la route de biere', as we passed signs to Chimay, Abbey de Leffe and Orval.

Both the main roads and the motorways through southern Belgium were quiet. We passed a sign saying 'Luxembourg Belge'; both Germany and Belgium have areas called Luxembourg, it's a tad confusing, I guess the Grande Duchy must have been grander still in the past. As we approached Luxembourg city the traffic became denser and the cars posher. It must be quite frustrating to own a high end Merc. with a top speed of 155mph yet be doomed to drive it on a crowded urban motorway where you rarely get to go over 50mph. It leads to collective minor frustration with lots of shiny saloons and SUVs jostling between lanes with inches to spare. We sailed through with a lumbering grandeur you might associate with an elderly walrus swimming slowly through a frenetic shoal of mackerel.

 

We followed the signs to Metz, heading back into France. Pont-a-Musson is a small industrial town on the Moselle.

Though big barges still pass occasionally they are out-numbered by leisure craft. As well as managing the large marina the town's capitainerie has places for 30 motorhomes. 

There were a few places left when we arrived around 4.00pm. By evening the 'complet' sign had gone up.

It's a laid back place. We unloaded our folding chairs and joined the other motorhomers relaxing in the shade of the trees on the river bank. Evening fell, the cloudless sky went orange, it cooled a little, but the temperature remained around a somewhat sticky mid-twenties all night.

The couple next to us were Swedish but had re-located to Rousillon just before the pandemic. We chatted about our travels, they had British friends who owned houses in the south who were struggling with the Schengen rules. We explained the complications we had experienced. 'You did vote for this though' they observed. I suppose in the eyes of Europeans we are all tarred with the Brexit brush, the situation of the disenfranchised 48% now a footnote in history, disregarded both at home and abroad. 

Onwards! A shorter drive of 175kms or so to take us to Turckheim in Alsace and a two night stay in Camping Medieval, all familiar territory. It was motorway to Nancy, then south towards the wooded hills of the Vosges. We found a pretty picnic aire with vacant tables but we opted to eat in the van. The sun was fierce and temperatures in the mid-thirties. After a couple of hours of cab aircon inside was much cooler. 

Usually we use one of the cols - Bonhomme or Bussang - to cross into the Rhine valley. However, with scorching temperatures and the van fully laden the long climbs and hairpin bends risked  overheating the engine. We opted to use a tunnel just to the east of St-Die, it's narrow, badly lit and costs €12, but in the circumstances it was the sensible choice.

We are used to Camping le Medieval being half empty out of season, at this time of year there is a bit of a scramble for emplacements and the booking system almost guarantees that the place you have chosen has been allocated to someone else by the time you get back to reception. In 34° degrees this results in grumpy campers prompting an officious approach from the staff. It's a shame, it's a nice site next to a pretty wine village.

Our last visit was in springtime. The site was besieged by nesting storks. They are not nesting any more but haven't all headed back to the Sahara yet. The remaining few strutted about between the pitches. Up close they seem surprisingly tall.

Next day it was not quite so hot, but a bit cloudy and humid with a thundery forecast. We decided to take a quiet stroll around the village then find somewhere to have a relaxed lunch. 

Turckheim is one of those impossibly pretty places, consequently gets packed with tourists. What saves it from being ghastly like Grasmere or Bourton-on-the-Water is the fact it is also a flourishing wine town. This gives it a reason to exist over and above its undoubted Instagrammable charm.

For some reason I find super-cute half-timbered Germanic looking places a tad creepy. As a child I remember being terrified by fairy stories, maybe the pictures in the book looked like Turckheim or Titisee in the Black Forest.

 At least Turckheim doesn't have cuckoo clock shops, for me they are truly the stuff of nightmares.

After a bit of on-line research Gill concluded that 'L'Autrefois' was the best place to have a tarte flambé. They were very good, we opted for a goats cheese with honey variety rather than the traditional one. 

Two other memorable things about our lunch, firstly, our choice of Alsace wine to accompany the tarte was perfect, Gill had a pinot blanc and I chose pinot gris, or maybe it was the other way around, in truth you would need a more sophisticated palate than ours to differentiate between the two. 

The final memorable things about lunch - the  lovely Polish waitress, friendly, attentive and charming. The impressive young people from Eastern Europe who staffed British hospitality - another sad loss due to Brexit, we mused. 

Here endeth the eurosarnie, our final slice of France. Over the Alps tomorrow, not that we are likely to see them, low cloud and thundery showers are in the offing, it's a relief though when the thermometer drops into the mid-twenties - a cooler interlude. 

Temperatures in the southern Adriatic are still in the mid thirties and forecast to stay that way. Still, at least I should be able to take a dip to cool off.

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It's a big one!

The moho is packed, parked outside on the pavement half obstructing the cul-de-sac. The estate where we live was built in the mid 1980s; the planners seem to have assumed that in the future people would scoot about in Smart car sized vehicles not bulbous SUVs or 7m. motorhomes. 

Thankfully our neighbours don't complain, they know we only ever park our small monster truck outside our house half a dozen days of the year, before we head-off or overnight when we return. I'm excited, Dover to Dunkirk next Tuesday, Brindisi to Corfu early next month, it's a big one!

Circumstances have conspired to curtail our autumn wanderings over the past three years. In 2019 we took a five week break in Languedoc and the Costa Brava; we had a great trip with our daughter Sarah and partner Rob. They carried on, catching the ferry from Barcelona to Civitavecchia, we headed home as we had major building work scheduled to start in mid-October. In the event it was delayed for nine months after our builder suffered a fall working on another job.

The following year we headed to Elba and southern Tuscany. After months of lockdown foreign travel felt liberating but fraught, the paperwork confusing and nagging doubts remained - are we being foolhardy? Our offspring definitely thought so and were forthright about telling us. In retrospect perhaps they were right but our urge to travel proved stronger than an instinct for self preservation. Last year we repeated the trip to Costa Brava, now vaccinated it didn't seem quite so risky, but mask wearing and rules about social distancing meant it felt far from normal, new or otherwise.

I can't quite believe it is seven years since we were last in Greece, the bright October days we spent wandering along the unfrequented roads of Arkadia and Argolis were the most beautiful we have travelled. It's sad to think we will never be able to experience such freedom again, we simply mooched about Greece, Sicily and Italy from September to the the following May, flying back home for a month at Christmas and a couple of weeks over Easter. Schengen visa rules preclude a repeat attempt.

We have 70 days left of our 90 because we took an impromptu trip the Normandy and the Loire last month. In order to 'wipe the slate' for next winter's trip to Spain starting late in January 23 we need to be back from Greece by the end of October 22. Consequently we have to leave for Greece in late August, two weeks earlier than usual. This has its downsides, mid 30s temperatures south of the Alps and high season prices in camp sites - a pain, but unavoidable.

Nevertheless it's an exciting prospect, even more so after a health scare a fortnight ago threw the whole trip into doubt. Anyone who has read our first few blog posts will know it was a health issue back in 2013 that resulted in us buying a motorhome in the first place as a kind of consolation prize. My sky high blood pressure and pending cardiac appointment put the kibosh on a carefully planned road trip road trip from Las Vegas to Vancouver taking in the highlights of the US West Coast.

Finally, after a two year hiatus, the more routine functions of the NHS have re-started. I was called in for a long overdue health check, which followed the exact same script as the one back in 2013 - the result of the blood test was fine, my cholesterol had reduced a bit, as had my weight - all good, until the practice auxiliary took my blood pressure, it was almost off the scale; she went into blind panic mode, checked that I was not seeing flashing lights, suffering chest pain or feelings of numbness in my extremities. After consulting with the practise nurse who had a conversation with her boss, it was decided that a doctor would ring me later on. A doctor speaking to me straightaway - a rare honour these days.

He prescribed a secondary medication, normally that would involve having a blood test after three weeks or so and would mean postponing our departure. We agreed on a compromise, I would have another go with a low dose of  Amlodipine. I have taken these pills previously but asked to swap to another med. due to unpleasant side effects. However the previous dose had not caused kidney failure, so restarting it would not require a blood test. I figured I would simply put up with the dodgy gastric consequences if it meant we could head south as planned.

The trip still hung in the balance until a couple days ago . As per doc's instructions I checked my blood pressure twice daily for three days and took the average - 144/87, not ideal but definitely on a downward trajectory. Another conversation with the doc - repeat the tests in a fortnight - if the numbers get close to the target for a sixty-something (135/85) stick with the 5g dose, if not double the daily dose. Greece here we come - a blood pressure monitor and a big bag of pills joining my other travelling essentials such as a snorkel, a Panama hat and a copy of Emily Wilson's new translation of the Odyssey.

 I am not saying my recent tribulations were actually the work of Nemesis, but I do appreciate at some level I have had a deserved cumuppance. From time to time I've written some snarky stuff about the tendency of older travellers to dwell at length and in graphic detail on their various ailments. Sadly it seems I have joined them. From my late 50s to mid 60s I actually felt I had become younger.  Freed from the pressures of a demanding job and able to roam around as I wished I felt more energetic, healthier and positive than I had been in decades. Sadly you are not going to be able to out-fox time forever. It's tricky to untangle the deleterious effects of lockdown and Covid from signs and symptoms of ageing, but for whatever reason I am not so perky as I was this time last year. It's true, 'lifestyle changes' can keep you healthier, but in truth nothing can prevent you getting older, so the imperative becomes to do stuff now because later might be too late.

We locked up, ran through our mental checklist of things we might have forgotten, Gill snapped a goodbye photo of the neighborhood as I drove off, I did remember to stop so she could hop aboard! 

Dover docks now, via Canterbury's New Dover Road Park and Ride ..

... then tomorrow across France, non-stop though Switzerland, south of the Alps - a long drive down the length of Italy's Adriatic coastline. Twelve days and 1600 miles later we should be on a ferry from Brindisi to Corfu, the Ionian coasts of Italy and Greece beckon, all new territory - Heels for Dust!