649 days later..

We are here....

With a view of Lago Idro looking like this...  bellissimo!

Back in Italy for the first time since autumn 2022 - 649 days ago by my reckoning, so at least 300 days too many. A civilised life demands that it is simply unacceptable not vist Italy at least once a year.

In the spirit of the promised more succinct blog - a summary of the past week -

Monday 26th August

The usual goodbye Lismore Park photo

Then a stop start August Bank Holiday journey to New Dover Road motorhome aire - slow, tedious but pleasingly uneventful.

Tuesday 27th August

We arrived early at Dover Docks and were transferred at the DFDS check-in to an earlier crossing to Dunkirk. It takes longer so we will arrive more or less at the same time as we would have if we'd stuck with the crossing to Calais, but we do gain a few kilometres as we would have had to drive past Dunkirk anyway. We were positioned on the lower car deck in the front row next to the bow doors. For the first time in forty years of using cross channel ferries we got to be one of the first vehicles off after the cyclists and bikers. For some inexplicable reason I was profoundly pleased by this, a stroke of good luck, a rare occurrence.

Our usual route to Italy takes us through Wallonie and Luxembourg then south across Lorraine and Alsace, then into Switzerland at Basle. Our first stop off tends to be at Jackie's, Gill's sister who lives a kilometre or two from the Belgian border near Maubeuge. However right now Jackie and her daughter Anna are at their other place on the Fifeshire coast. We headed instead to an aire in a canal basin at Peruweltz, a small industrial town near Mons.

It was ok, quite prettily situated and inexpensive at €5 per night, but the facilities were rudimentary. 

What can you say, it's Belgium.

Wednesday 28th & Thursday 29th August

It's a long slow haul through Belgium, Luxembourg and back onto France near Metz. Heavy traffic most of the way, trundling south in the slow lane at 90kph along with the trucks. Many other mohos heading south too. We decided to look for an alternative to our usual stopping place at the capitanerie at Pont-a-Musson. Experience has taught us that at busy times it can be 'complet' by mid-afternoon. Gill found an alternative, a camping municipal at Corny sur Moselle.

It proved to be an inspired choice. As with most 'municipals' the facilities were no frills but functional. However, the setting was bucolic, in woods next to the river.

We booked in for two nights. These days as a rule of thumb I can't drive more than three days in succession without taking a day off. It's good when there is something to do. In the case of Corny's camping municipal bike tracks run from the site alongside the river in both directions. If you felt energetic it would be possible to visit Metz which has an interesting ancient centre. We weren't feeling up to that, especially as the temperature had notched up towards the mid thirties by late afternoon. 

We contented ourselves instead with two shorter trips. The first was to a WW2 memorial. Corny sur Moselle and the nearby village of Dorny on the opposite bank, is the site of a particularly brutal battle in WW2. A series of information boards explained what happened. 

I didn't realise that after the D Day landings the allies had made a two pronged attack against German forces. The main thrust was northwards, liberating Paris then heading through the Ardennes and the Netherlands towards Germany itself. However, the US 6th army under General Patten headed directly east from Normandy across the plains of France through Champagne and Lorraine. They made rapid progress, hampered only by the logistical challenges keeping their armoured vehicles fully fuelled. The aim was to cross the Rhine and open a second front. However, the river valleys of the Meuse and Moselle presented physical barriers and the big forts of the Maginot line, now in German hands, military ones.

The Moselle, though navigable by big commercial barges, is relatively narrow in the vicinity of Corny, and it was here that Patten decided to mount an offensive sending company of lightly armed infantrymen across the river in small plywood boats to establish a bridgehead. It went horribly wrong. The area was more heavily defended than expected, Corny itself was occupied by a group of SS soldiers, highly trained and experienced. They pinned down the American bridgehead in the forest to the north of the where the campsite is now situated. Then German reinforcements attacked the US forces' flanks. Both sustained horrendous casualties over the next few days before the Americans retreating back across the river, either by swimming or using the plywood skiffs they had arrived on. Many GIs didn't make it, woefully exposed to German gunfire as they tried to make their escape. Almost 1000 US soldiers were killed, the whole debacle is explained in more detail here 

By an odd quirk of history one of the GIs who did make it over the river was Jack Kirby. He went on to create many of the most famous super heroes working for both DC and Marvel comics from the 1950s to the 1980s. Even before he was drafted he had drawn the first Captain America strip cartoon in 1940.

 

Two self portraits that Kirby produced during his military service were included on the information panel, the first as a young conscript the second one after he had been in action. Though less than two years apart he looks as if had aged a decade. 

I don't like war memorials in general, they tend to be erected by the 'winners'. I don't think wars have winners, merely victims. There is no memorial here for the German casualties, though most, just like the Allied infantrymen were young conscripts, nor any mention what became of the civilians nearby. In a week's time it will be the eightieth anniversary of the battle, the world remains as war torn as ever, it's depressing.

Next day we we cycled a few kilometres further up the track to the remains of an enormous Roman aqueduct.

Ok. It was probably constructed by slave labour, but at least it is a monument to positive human endeavour, - ploughshares not swords, wind turbines not weaponised drones; as Joni sang, "They won't give peace a chance, it was just a dream some of us had."

Friday 30th August 

The thing is we are still in high season. According to Google there are 790,000 motorhomes registered in Germany. A good proportion of them passed us as we trundled along with the trucks in the slow lane somewhere south of Nancy. The remainder sped the other way heading home. One of the advantages of using the Camping Car Park chain of Aires is that you can check online on how many places are available. Their Aire at Vogelsgrun is our preferred stopping place near the French/German/Swiss border. Every time we've checked it over recent days it has been full. This is not surprising, it's actually situated on a long thin island formed by the river Rhine to the east and the Canal de Rhine to the west. It is in France, but Germany is about a five minute walk away, perfectly positioned for the thousands of wohnmobils passing this way. 

We hatched plan B. Head for a different Camping Car Park in the Alsace wine village of Dambach, a few kilometres north of Selastat, an easy hour's drive from the Swiss border at Basel. There was room for about 20 mohos, it was occupied by about half a dozen. 

We walked into the village. It's a typical Alsace wine village, it was good to see that many of the traditional wine growers houses were still functioning. 

Little else was, aside from wine tasting opportunities most other shops had closed - the butchers, general stores, fruit and veg shops - all closed down. I guess everyone buys their essentials at the nearby E Leclerc hypermarket on the outskirts of Selastat.

We did a circuit of the old streets, arriving eventually at the market place next to the church. A stage, outside kitchen and rows of trestle tables and benches were set out. The town band was gathering by the stage, some kind of woodwind and brass orchestra. A clarinetist was practicing trills and other twiddly bits. 

Some kind of soiree was in the offing. We looked at the menu pinned to the side of a shed that doubled up as the bar.

The main thing on offer was choucrourte - a local specialty of fermented cabbage and sausages. The wine on offer was inexpensive - and given the village's many wineries almost certain to be delicious. A decade ago we definitely would have hung about to join in the festivities. These days we don't do late nights, I'm not drinking wine at the moment and my dodgy digestive system would probably not enjoy a supper of heady Alsace wine and fermented cabbage! So we left the locals to their festivities and headed back to the van.

Saturday 31st August 

It's been a day of irritating hold-ups, the first unexpected, the second and third predicted with pinpoint accuracy by Google map's traffic app.

The left side of the moho's window is decorated with a collection of Swiss motorway vignettes from 2018, 2020, and 2022. It was time to add a fourth. In the post we've sailed through the border control in a minute or two, a small army of roving cashiers on hand to take the fee and present you with a small coloured sticker with this year's date on it. Today the queue for the frontier began more than a kilometre before the border post. It was only when we reached did we discover the reason why, there was only one overworked guy on duty. Had we just experienced a rare phenomenon, a Swiss go-slow?

Onwards, the long predicted traffic jam at Lausanne had more or less evaporated by the time we reached the urban motorway which burrows under the city in a series of intersecting road tunnels. It's a piece of civil engineering that demands a James Bond car chase. 

Google was spot on about the series of stoppages on the approach to the San Gottardo, it took 40 minutes to crawl towards the entrance. Every so often caravanners would pull off onto the hardshoulder as their cars overheated. Breakdown trucks edged through, I guess with the temperature in the mid thirties it's to be expected. 

Traffic jams are a given too. The last weekend of August marks the end of the school holidays in most parts of Europe prompting a mass return of families heading north and a mass exodus south of older couples free of parental responsibilities and younger ones yet to assume them. However, this is complicated by the fact that both Germany and Switzerland stagger the long school break with some regions commencing summer holidays in mid June and others delaying the start to the end of July. So the roads are busy throughout the summer months and well into autumn because as the late summer break families head home in mid September it's only a week or so before the early summer ones are back in October because they have a two week half term then!  

If you are seeking campsites with a more adult ambiance in September and October you have to either stay in the UK or France or go further afield to Greece, the Mezzogiorno or Iberia. It's what we usually do, not because we have any issue with kids on campsites, we just prefer the culture, landscapes and food of the Mediterranean. Anyway, this trip has a distinctly Alpine 'lakes and mountains' feel, at least the first part of it has, so we simply have to accept that the roads are going to be busy and campsites crowded mit Kinder.

From the San Gottardo it's a steady 85km decline to Area Sosta Tamaro. The average fuel consumption that had notched downwards to 32.4mpg crept back up to 33mpg. Really, unless you take the van across steep mountain passes or drive it for hours on end over 60mph the fuel consumption stays much the same. Built on a Fiat Ducato chassis our moho is easy to drive, sticks to the road like glue and in rare moments when I do want to overtake on a motorway accelerates easily from from my usual sedate 90kph to 110kph, giving a pleasing little growl when you floor the accelerator. This should not surprise me, we acknowledge that German engineering is superb, but Italy too has retained an excellent engineering base. This was made clear to me about twenty years ago after our trusty Ford Galaxy developed a clutch problem when we were camping near Grosseto. When the transporter from the local garage turned up I enquired politely if they would be able to fix it within the next few days. The mechanic looked at me darkly and mustered his best English, "Italians make Ferrari, this is easy mend!".

We figured despite half of Europe being on the move Area Sosta Tamaro would have spare places even though it's conveniently situated next to the autostrada aIn Ticino, a few kilometres from the Italian border. The area claims to accommodate 80 motorhomes, we've never seen it even half full, possibly because the place charges by the hour and it's quite easy to notch up a surprisingly big bill, especially, if like us you like slow mornings, and however determined we try to be we never seem to get back on the road much before 11am. 

Of course there was space, still we figured we should phone ahead to check there were pitches at sites in Peschiera del Garda. We tried two, Camping Butterfly and Bella Italia, Both were booked-up, that the latter was full surprised me, we know Bella Italia well and have used occasionally over the past three decades. It has hundreds of pitches, if it was full then the Lake Garda area must be heaving. Do we really want to join the hordes, we wondered.

What where the alternatives? Reverse the entire trip and head for the Med, but the Cinque Terra would probably be equally busy. Gill spotted an Acsi site right on the shore of Lago Idro, a small alpine lake west of Garda. She phoned, established they had space tomorrow after 2.00pm. We have a plan.

Sunday 1st September 

With most trucks off the road at the weekend even the Milan orbital was relatively benign. The road to Idro from Brescia was narrow and winding with many dimly lit tunnels, but that's Italy, it's a very mountainous place.

We settled into Camping Venus feeling somewhat smug. It's gorgeous here, and not particularly busy. Time to stop, time to let Italy's affiliative charms sweep us off our feet. 

Camped right on the lakeside it's an opportunity to fall off my paddle board in yet another country having already done so with style and aplomb in Portugal, Spain and England. It's important to make a splash wherever you go.