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.
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