According to Google maps (the fount of all cartographic knowledge) it's 1300km from Dieppe ferry terminal to Livorno's Imbarco Grimaldi. We gave ourselves a week to do it, planning a two night stopover somewhere en-route because we needed a laundry stop and the driver needed a break from driving day after day.
At first all went well, if you discount the fact that DFDS managed to serve me the worst plate of food I have had on a ferry, even worse than Grimaldi Ferry's recycled chip omlette served to me at breakfast on the 16th October 2015, that hitherto had taken the star prize for the most indigestible nautical fare (I take careful note of such things). Whereas the Grimaldi second hand chip omelette just looked like a greasy mess and tasted horrible, DFDS managed to serve a paella that surpassed mere inedibility, tasting so peculiar that I began to suspect that it might actually be dangerous. I managed two mouthfuls, it was enough to make me queasy for the next couple of days.
Otherwise things went well.
Day one, we made it to a Campingcar Park a few kilometres east of Soisson situated in Ciry Sasogne's former camping municipal. The sun shone, the wooded site was bathed in a mellow autumn light straight out of Keat's Ode; I took a photo tagged with a comment about the wonders of a 'simple field in France'.
Next day we headed towards a simple campsite on the outskirts of Verdun. Six days from home but a week or more from a campsite in Sardinia where we might settle down for a few days meant we required a laundry. We planned to stay put for two nights so everything could dry. Sadly, the weather had other plans. Rain was forecast for later in the evening and overnight. We did the washing anyway and luckily in was sunny enough to dry most things before it began to drizzle.
So we pressed on the next day, down the autoroute, past Nancy, then through the Vosges via the xxx tunnel. The overnight short sharp showers had morphed into a steady downpour by the time we reached Vogelgrun and the Campingcar park next to some enormous lock gates on the Canal du Rhine. No narrowboats here, just enormous bulk carrier barges big enough to accommodate a small apartment and a medium SUV aboard.
Onwards, through Basle and the Alps. The A2 through Lucerne and the San Gottardo tunnel is one of Europe's major north south routes. It can get traffic choked resulting in long delays, but we were lucky this time, no hold-ups whatsoever. We've travelled this route many times over the past three decades, occasionally we have had a spectacular, picture perfect alpine view, more often it's cloudy and overcast. Today it went one step further, thundery cloudbursts interspersed with incessant rain was the theme of the day. Luckily the traffic was unusually light so at least we weren't doused in spray much. We may not have had an archetypal snowy mountain view, the clouds were low and ominous, but waterfalls and cascades tumbled through the steep wooded slopes on each side of the road - a spectacular sight.
Today's destination - Area Sosta Tamara, a conveniently located camper stop just off the motorway near Locarno. We've used it regularly, as well as being convenient the place has a really well designed service point. We needed it as the previous one at Vogelgrun was broken and we were beginning to get a tell- tale pong from the grey water tank.
The place does have a downside - the price, you get charged by the hour and an overnight stop can easily end up costing over £30. A few days of torrential rain resulted in another issue, 'soft verges'. The place has a mixture of hard standing and grassy pitches. A few of the latter were somewhat 'furrowed' where vans had become bogged down. Ours can grind to a half on wet grass with an imperceptible slope, luckily we arrived mid-afternoon and there were still some places to park on tarmac.
Earlier, as we sped down the hill on the south side of the San Gottardo, Gill had noticed a newly opened camper stop just off the motorway. It looked to be considerably cheaper than Area SostacTamara. Maybe we should give it a go on our return journey, we wondered.
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