Instant Italy

It's about 40kms from Area Sosta Tamara to the Italian frontier at Chiasso, normally an unchallenging  journey, but not today. We have traversed Switzerland dozens of times over the past three decades, there always seems to be some stretch of the country's motorway system undergoing major repair. Around Lucerne, over the years, we have witnessed the moment in the mid-nineties when the urban motorway through the city was re-routed through a series of tunnels, then fifteen years later chaos ensuing from the refurbishment of the tunnels, and more recently upgrades to the refurbishment. Whatever the lacrustine delights that Lucerne may offer in our minds it's associated with a massive 'Verkehrsstau'. 

Yesterday we swept through Lucerne unimpeded. However, the Swiss being famously canny, having invested heavily in road mending Tonka toys, are not going to simply allow all this expensive kit to lie about unused. It seems most of it had been transferred to the motorway around the southern end of Lake Como, in other words exactly where we heading.

Traffic was relatively light, so there were no hold-ups. This was a pity,  because edging carefully through the roadworks would have been preferable to bombing through them at speed. There are three challenges when you drive a British vehicle through roadworks on a Swiss motorway. Firstly, the temporary lanes seem narrower than you find in the UK. In a righhand drive motorhome this requires pinpoint positioning to ensure the person in the passenger seat is not traumatised  traffic passing close by on the left. This is compounded by the Swiss habit of placing temporary crash barriers snuggled up to the kerb. Usually tl separated from the inside lane by a thin strip of asphalt which acts as narrow hard shoulder. This vanished when the two skimpy lanes were squeezed into the space normally take up by a single carriageway. At times the wing mirrors seemed mere centimetres from the bright orange markers protruding from the temporary crash barriers.

Yesterday's thundery downpours returned. In the rain the red lines marking temporary lanes disappeared. As the border neared it seemed that the Italian truck drivers, recently trapped in uncivilised northern climes where it rained incessantly and the food was terrible, were making a dash for it, ignoring entirely the temporary 70kph speed limit. Home, sweet face Bambinos and a doting nonna's cooking awaited. Truck after truck bombed past buffeting us alarmingly. For the first time ever the Milan tangentale came as a relief. At least its chaos seemed predictable.

We had given ourselves eight days to get from Dieppe to the ferry port at Livorno. Our plan had been to spend a couple of days somewhere in Alsace to break the journey. However there seemed little point sitting in a campsite watching the rain come down. So we pressed on, and now had a day in hand. When planning our trip I had found a nice looking sosta just off the autostrada north of Palma. It was situated on the edge of the small town of Fontanellatto, reviews were positive and Google maps highlighted the castle in the town centre as worth a look.

In the event Fontanellatto proved to be  much lovelier than we expected. 'Instant Italy' we agreed when we reached the old centre. It seemed curiously overlooked, no 'centro storico' signs, no mention by Lonely Planet apart from a nod to a nearby bamboo labyrinth - 'Labirinto della Masone' - dubbed Emilia Romana's quirkiest visitor attraction. The more modern part of the town consisted of a grid of neat apartmemt blocks, the place seemed to be thriving, probably serving as a slightly upscale commuter town for the nearby city of Parma. However, the ancient centre, beyond the somewhat bland suburbs proved truly delightful. Rectilinear arcaded streets, stuccoed in ochres and burnt umber led to a central square.

Dominating the space is a sizeable moated medieval fortress, adapted in later centuries into a palatial ducal residence. 

It stayed that way until 1948 when the last aristocratic owner sold his hereditary pile to the municipality.

 

It now houses a small museum boasting an early work by the Mannerist master Parmigianino. I was tempted to visit, but it involved a guided tour. I don't like guided tours, pointless in a language you don't understand. So we gave it a miss 

We found a different masterpeice of Italian culture more to our liking In the corner of the square, a really excellent gelateria. We managed two visits to the place in the 36 hours we were there.

Fontanellatto means 'place with a small spring' It still has one featuring two Gorgon's heads - it's situated right outside the gelateria - really use for sticky fingers

We also had our first Italian lunch out here at the Trattoria del Teatro. 

We both opted for tagliatelle ai porcini - what can you say? Simply delicious maybe, but a lot of knowhow and skill goes into producing something so good. 

Discovery of the day - baked parmesan rind as an appetiser- now we 're feeling bad about the hundreds of rinds we've thrown away.

The sosta itself is well designed and very eco, most of the pitches are placed beneath an enormous array of solar panels. The place is big, but there were only a few vans using it. 

We opted for a pitch in the open, simply because it was easier to reverse into it. It's a definite find, a useful first stop near a motorway junction, equally handy if you are heading south through Tuscany or towards Bologna and the Adriatic. I've said this before, but I'll repeat it anyway - it's really difficult to feel miserable in Italy, it's full of small delights. We live in uncertain times, places that feel hopeful are precious and we must treasure them.