Nailz on the road!!

The end of our adventures...?

2010-12-12T13:36:00.001Z

8th - 9th December

On the 8th we were still at the campsite as we had to wait at least 24 hours after the vet had carried out the tick treatment (required under PETS regulations) before we could check in to board the ferry, and the day was spent carrying out last minute jobs and ensuring we were all up together before we got back to Blighty.

On the 9th it was all very straightforward and we had a leisurely breakfast followed by coffee and Brie sandwiches (I couldn't stop buying bread and Brie, munching it then heading back for more). Soon we were on the ferry and the crossing was very quick. We were back in British waters before we knew it. We had no problems with the crossing at all and the customs staff who checked our van were very friendly with a good sense of humour. Again Nailz was the ice-breaker and he loved getting all the attention.

After a few hairy moments trying to remember which side of the road to drive on we were speeding back to Dorset on a lovely sunny evening watching another formidable sunset. We were relieved that there was no snow or ice after the horror stories we had heard while abroad and weather-wise it was comparatively comfortable.

Home!

Needless to say we are back in sunny Wimborne all safe and sound having had a wonderful five month stint abroad. We were even met with some lovely home-made soup made from the produce of the family allotment which was delicious - thanks Donna! It's very nice to be home.

Some big "thank-yous"

Our adventure would not have happened were it not for the help of a number of our very good friends. Firstly Mic and Martin, who put in such a huge effort to get Gerty fit for our trip. We really cannot thank you enough! Mic and Martin have worked in the most extreme weather conditions including electrical storms, snow, downpours, sunshine - anything you can imagine - without the benefit of a good workshop, all on a driveway, and produced something breathtakingly beautiful yet practical, subtle and graceful yet protective and hardy. Gerty is a work of art. She has performed beyond our expectations and has kept us safe and warm in some very difficult conditions. There were often moments when we completely forgot where we were, because wherever we were, we were home! Thanks guys, so very much!

"Gerty"

At the start of our adventure I did say I'd put up some photos of Gerty to show her off and with all the activity over the last five months I've not done it (I'm not sorry!!). So here she is in all her glory, with photos courtesy of another good friend of ours Charlie!

It's worth noting a small number of details which are (among) my favourite features of the van (there are too many to list).

Solar Panels
We didn't use electricity hookup once on our trip. All the power we used came from the sun (and occasionally boiling a kettle from a shower block!). Our lighting uses LED lights so our electrical consumption footprint was pretty low but it made our trip easier knowing we didn't have to rely on campsites and were using renewable energy for electric at least. I did flatten the battery once when I was using my portable studio for about 10 hours (laptop, audio interface, USB keyboard, stereo, lights - pretty much everything electrical I had with me running at once) but the battery was soon blinking away fully charged a few days later.

Wood Burning stove

This was a godsend when the temperatures plummeted as we got to the north of Italy and kept us sane as we headed through very cold temperatures in France. Lighting it in the morning was fun (it really focuses the mind when it's minus 6 outside), and evening spent watching "hippie TV" was a joy. It also meant I had a great excuse to indulge on steaks as we went round (trying the local beef was one of my highlights) as well as chestnuts which was another treat amongst many. Martin hand-made pretty much everything except the burner itself and the copper pipes which were beaten flat and used as brackets look amazing.

The Living Room interior

Bit vague I know, but when you spend a bit of time in the van you really lose yourself. Anything can be going on outside and you will be blissfully unaware, surrounded by beautifully-stained tongue and groove, French-polished ivy roots, an irish-knot engraved table and hand-made seat cushions (another big thank you, this time Marcia - they have been so comfortable!). Also have a look at the kitchen area - it's another Mic masterpiece - see the tiles and the perfect grouting around them? All done by Mic's fair hand.

The Garage

Cheers to Dave for making the lead trays which sat in our "garage" area under the wet-suits and scuba gear to catch any dripping water. They really did the job. Functionally this area was key to our trip. With space to hang wet-suits and BCD's, a wood store, a space to keep the fold-up bikes and our other equipment and tools.

...and finally

Thank you for reading and leaving comment either here, facebook, twitter or flickr - it's been really nice to get little messages from home.

So there we have it. We've been to a total of ten different countries, had a brilliant time, seen some inspiring sights, met some wonderful people, eaten some brilliant food and drunk some very nice wine, beer and brandy on the way. We can't wait to catch up with everyone (and bore you with over 30Gb of photos), so I'll now bring this blog swiftly to a close.

Will this be the end of our adventures?

No way.

Cheers!

For a FULL map of where we've been (if not the exact route), have a look here

Heading home! Cannes to Calais

2010-12-09T06:50:00.001Z

2nd - 8th December

Heading home

Although we were in a comparatively warm spot on the Cote d'Azure, we made the decision to start heading home. The wind had picked up a lot and heavy rain was forecast for the next few days. With northern Europe under a deluge of snow and ice (most of France was under about a foot of snow) we wanted to get back to Calais swiftly and safely, but after experiencing the wallet-emptying Autoroutes decided to take the slower, more scenic Route Nationale roads up the Rhone valley. From what we had learned from locals the Route National, or "N" roads, should be cleared. However we had also been told that no matter how good the French authorities where at clearing the road, if it came down in a hurry, snow would be a problem, so that meant that I could justify buying snow-chains! We also knew we would have to do a lot of driving and skimp on the sightseeing a bit, but this would leave something to see next time round.

Cannes to Avignon

On the 2nd we left Cannes and headed in leisurely fashion towards Avignon to avoid the Alps as much as possible. This meant taking the coastal road as far as St Raphael, then heading up a slightly mountainous road into the Frejus forset. After this scenic drive with wonderful panoramas of the surrounding white-topped mountains, we stopped at the scenic town of Aix-En-Provence to see the town that gave the world Cezanne. We didn't stop long as we still has a lot of driving to do to get to our scheduled stop at Avignon, which we arrived at after dark. We settled into a carpark in between two rivers as the temperature dropped to minus figures. It was a pretty cold night and we had to make some modifications to the van to ensure we retained more heat for the next night, such as covering over vents and ensuring the side door was fully sealed, which made a huge difference, and made for a more comfortable nights sleep.

The next day we were up and had a lovely walk around Avignon to the food market in the centre of town. There are loads of stalls and it reminded me a bit of Wimborne market except that all the stalls were foody stalls from seafood to spices to cheeses and meats, anything you wanted could be found here. Around the town of Avignon are spectacular defensive walls which make for an amazing backdrop. With the morning mist over the river, the scene was complete.

Avignon to Lyon

Later that day we pushed on towards Lyon, our next scheduled stopover. Not far from Orange, jut north of Avignon, we stopped off at some castle ruins perched high on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Route Nationale and the motorway, La Fortresse de Mornas. We climbed up to the ruins which afforded some superb views of the surrounding countryside.

With a couple of detours we didn't quite make it as far as Lyon before the snow started to come down pretty heavily, but we found a friendly truck stop retaurant who let us stay in their carpark for the coldest night we had experienced. The temperature was down to -6 degrees when we pulled up, so I an only guess what it was in the middle of the night!

Lyon to Dijon

The following day the carpark was frozen solid but again with a good fire we were soon warm and toasty in the van. Having survived our coldest night in relative comfort we again hit the road, where our next target point was the keen town of Dijon. After getting lost in Lyon we were soon speeding north again, with jolly tunes being played over the radio, when we were told of a traffic problem ahead on the A6 motorway. As we were on the parallel "N6" road I felt confident we would miss the problem, only to find that my French listening skills weren't as good as I'd hoped. In the distance we could see lorries and cars speeding by on the A6 as we ground to a halt miles from a junction we could use to access the motorway. Hours later we had barely moved, crawling along at a snails pace which did afford the unexpected advantage of me being able to nip across the road to pick up a delectable cream cake and walk back to where the van was!

Also on the way we came across a christmas market in full swing in a little village. We stopped by and the smell of mulled wine was everywhere. They had lots of lovely home-made crafts and nick-nacks for sale and all the clubs from the village, such as the local martial arts club, were raising money for charity by baking cakes and selling the afore-mentioned mulled wine. there was a lively atmosphere and we almost parked the van there for the night as we both had a hankering for some of the beverages on sale, but decided that we still needed to make up some time we had lost in the jam, so on we went. We ended the day in a rest aire in a little village of Beaune just south of Dijon.

Dijon to Reims

On the 5th we had a good look around Beaune which is another lovely walled town. Here they keep millions of litres of wine ageing below the streets, in the numerous wine cellars of the town. It's a really pretty place and the snow covered roofs added to the festive feel.

Again we pushed on north, this time towards the town of Reims and again we spent pretty much the whole day on the road. Everywhere was a blanket of white from the recent snow, but we had timed our trip so we would miss all the precipitation. We stopped in a little picnic spot which was covered in snow near the Champagne town of Epernay.
Just as Beaune keeps loads of wine under it's streets, Epernay is the spiritual home of Champagne. There is a road called Champagne Avenue where all the big name Champers producers have their bases. It's really big and plush, but unfortunately as we had arrived late in the day we didn't get any tasters. Ahh well...

Reims towards Calais

On the 6th we continued our trip north through the Somme area and passed a large number of war graves of British and Canadian forces. They were out in the middle of nowhere and hundreds of graves at a time, a sombre reminder of the events that took place here.

We ended the day a little more north in a picnic spot which was covered in snow with lovely views of a white countryside, just south of Ardres where our vet appointment was the following day. We awoke to the coldest morning yet, as we were exposed on a hill in the middle of nowhere though (with mysterious mountains of potatoes for company). Outside the temperature was a chilly -6.5 when we woke up and there was ice on the insides of the windows! Brrr! Once the fire had defrosted us we then arrived in the town of Guines, where we found our final campsite. We then got Nailz in to the vet for his check-up (required for the PETS passports scheme to return to the UK) which was no problem at all and the vet in Ardres was very good.

Back at the campsite we joined two other British couples (the only others on the site) for drinks, singing (once we were all well oiled) and some impromptu mouth organ playing. We had a great time, but the next morning I had a very heavy head!

Parma, Cinque Terra, Genova, Monaco, Cannes and Mandelieu-La Napoule

2010-12-02T12:42:00.001Z

28th November - 1st December

Lago di Garda to Parma

After checking out of the campsite we moved further round the Lago di Garda to a very small but elegant village called Bardolino. We spent bit of time sipping coffee in one of the many coffee shops by the harbour before heading off again towards Parma, a fair bit south. En route we stopped to visit another little town of castlemaggiore, but only for a quick pit stop. Again we passed banks of snow and were grateful that Martin had put a wood burning stove in the van for us to keep the cold at bay. It was quite a drive and with the nights well and truley drawing in it was dark before we got to Parma and again we were able to see the town during a very quiet period.
We stopped just outside the town at a little church surrounded by snow and got a fire going before bedding down in our nice and toasty home. The following morning we woke to a winter wonderland and when the sun poked his head over the snow-covered mountains the scene was complete. Again the fire came into it's own and it was a real pleasure to step out into the cold to enjoy the frosty morning and then scamper back into the warm and cosy van.

Parmesan!

We had to get some cheese from Parma and we had passed a dairy just up the road before we came off the main drag and set up camp the night before. There we found a busy (always a good sign) shop selling the farm produce and couldn't resist a taster. It was really nice and not as overpowering as I had expected. It was aged 36 months, so was the good stuff with plenty of character, but also a slight delicacy to it which made it irresistible. Naturally I couldn't decide whether I liked it or not so after a few more tasters (and a prod from Rachel) I had to get my wallet out and buy some.
Soon we were again on the road heading south towards La Spezia, on the coast, and on the journey we were surrounded by immense, snow-capped ranges of mountains. It was a fantastic journey and we took our time so we coukd admore the scenery as it slipped by.

Cinque Terra

We were heading to a part of Italian coastline called La Cinque Terra which is five villages set into rugged coastline. We walked down the small high street of Manarola to the harbour where the rough sea was hammering the jagged coastline. The village was very pretty with vibrant, colourful houses perched precariously on the cliff edge. On the edges of the village and up sheer slopes were the olive and wine groves which make the regions exports of oil and wine, reputed to be among the best in Italy, and cultivated seemingly from the rock itself. We had a wander among the groves and the maze-like paths which the farmers use to access the pretty inhospitable land.

Genova

Later the same day we were in Genova and again we hit the town during the quiete period which meant we were able to have a nice drive round the town and stop for a wander in the main square. Dominating the Piazza Vittoria is a massive Triumphal arch similar to that found in Paris and just as impressive. There was a nice vibe to the town and we enjoyed our brief visit, but we needed a place to stay and the centre of a major port wasn't it so we headed on further down the coast to Savona where we found a lovely little pace alongside the beach for the night. Also as we were by the coast the temperature had gone from a chilly -1.5 degrees inland near Parma to a comparatively balmy +11 degrees by the sea so we had a very comfortable nights kip.

The next morning brought more sun and the views of the beach with the suns rays reflecting off the sea was near perfection. We were nearing the French border and spent the day, with another brief interlude for lunch in another sleepy seaside town, cruising the coastal road down into France. It was quite a journey and included some amazing views so it took till dark to reach the border.

France

Almost as soon as we entered France we encountered it's amazingly expensive motorways and so decided pretty spontaneously that it was time to take "Gerty" to the next level - and get on a formula 1 circuit. To do this we detoured into our tenth county of the trip, Monaco!

Monaco

This was a bit hairy, driving round the little country as we didn't have a clue where we were going and at one point I managed to drive into a tiny cobbled street, almost getting stuck in a hotel driveway (one of the big name hotels too). Still, after two laps of the country, we managed to get her onto a part of the road they actually use for the F1 races - the bit by the harbour, which I was really overexcited about. I would have loved to get her through the tunnel but to be honest I couldn't find it, having no map at all. Nevermind, I'm sure Hamilton and co are shivering in their cold F1 cars (they don't have heaters, let along a wood burner) fearing for their livelihoods.

Cannes

We zipped back onto the motorway as it was getting late and we wanted to get on, coming off at Cannes. I had been expecting a polished, glitzy romantic town but I was sorely dissapointed. It was just like any slightly tatty touristy sea-side resort (maybe we hit the wrong part of town) but regardless we found our way to the coast (better known as the Cote d'Azure) and found a lovely place right on the sea-front to curl up for the night.

Mandelieu-La Napoule

On the 1st December we awoke to another beautiful view of the sun trying to break through the clouds after a rainy night. It took a while but we did end up with another gorgous day which we spent exploring the small town of Mandelieu-La Napoule, just down the coast from Cannes and walking along the Cote d'Azure sefront. On the night we made our way back to the Cannes sea-front where we had spent the previous night to fall asleep with the sound of the sea crashing onto the beach.

Pieve di Cento, Ferrara, Padova, Venice, Verona and Lago di Garda

2010-11-28T14:02:00.001Z

22nd - 27th November

Pieve di Cento

After spending pretty much the whole of the 22nd perusing an out of town shopping centre, and treating ourselves to Italian walking boots as it was fast approaching winter and we both needed a decent pair, we spent the next day exploring Pieve di Cento, north of Bologna. This was a typical small town of this area and on a beautiful day as we had it was easy to fall in love with the town. In the main square we were greeted with an open-sided van selling oranges and advertising his wares with a megaphone as he drove round the town. Also in the main square we found the communal theatre which upstairs featured a museum of lutes, guitars violins and other instruments made by Luigi Mozzani and some of his contemporaries. These were amazing instruments featuring bass strings and the standard guitar 6-strings in one amazing piece. The guitars on display were similarly beautiful. I also spotted a 12 string violin, something I've not seen before.

Ferrara

Later the same day we arrived in Ferrara, historical home of the Este family, another of the Renaissance big-hitters. Right in the centre of the town sits Este Castle, an imposing sight in this pretty little town. We arrived in the middle of an exhibition drawing attention to the Year of Biodiversity projects that have been going on around the world (and we seem to have caught a lot of them!). The exhibition was called the "Faunal Countdown" which I thought was a good play on words and it featured life-sized sculptures of various animals dotted around the town with certain twists. For example there was a rhinoceros fully loaded with all it's bags and heading out of Este castle. Another was a crocodile strung up in the centre of a courtyard with shapes of bags and shoes missing from it's skin.
Ferrara itself was another wonderful place to visit and we were very glad we decided to pop in. The town was full of old historical buildings and was full of character. We spent the night in a suburb just a little way from Ferrara so we could have another look the next day. Most of the day was spent cycling around the pretty large city walls, which Nailz thoroughly enjoyed, and later enjoyed another amble around the town.
Heading out of the town we stopped into musical heaven. It was an out of town shopping centre featuring an almighty music store on the top floor. After about twenty minutes of just walking among the rows of Marshall stacks, Fenders and Gibsons I came over all giddy and had to leave, my right hand twitching towards my wallet...
We had started to struggle to find decent dry wood and didn't have decent weather to dry any new wood we found along our way so on the way to our next destination we stopped at a house that was on the side of the road with a huge store of wood, all cut ready to go to see if we could buy some wood from them. We pulled up and were greeted by a quizzical looking lady and through my broken Italian I was able to convey our request. She could not have been more lovely and after a bit of negotiation (she said the price, I agreed, she refused to take the full payment!) we left with a massive amount of wood for a few Euros (we had to seriously re-arrange things as well as keep quite a bit in the main part of the van), as well as a bag of eggs from her own hens, some salad from her garden and some of her home-made bread which was delicious (although didn't last long at all!). Bargain! We were also told by her son (who had phoned a mate who could speak English to ensure we understood correctly) that anytime we were passing by to stop in and say hello. We werre well chuffed and now also had enough wood to have lovely warming fires night and day which was good as we had been told the weather was about to turn cold...

Padova

On the 25th we found ourselves in Padova which is a lively University city. It again was an amazing place to visit and we had timed our visit perfectly as there were a number of parties going on for students who had graduated which created a boistrous atmosphere. Rachel was even "accosted" by a lady covered in Bolognese sauce who had been "dared" to dress up as an abortion in order to promote her thesis on women's Rights. It was really funny and we had a lot of laughs pretending we didn't understand as her colleagues egged her on and took photographs. It was bizarre, but then it did involve drunk students, so what do you expect?
Padova itself was just magical. It's back-streets were like something from a Dickens novel, until you suddenly come upon a tower with an astronomical clock, while in the main square there was a huge cathedral with domes reaching to the sky. Further into the square a small river ran round the centre and was surrounded by sculptures. There was also the Basilica of San Michael which was again very imposing from the outside, and all in all the place was gorgeous and a real blend of many different styles in both architecture and life.

Venice

The morning of the 26th was spent trying to figure out the best way to visit Venice in your campervan when you really need a boat. We got it sussed by using one of the out of town park (who reasonably charged us a cheaper rate, being a van and not a campervan!) and getting the bus in to Piazza Roma. It was completely worth the effort as we were both bewitched by Venice almost immediately. We arrived at a time when the water was higher than normal (Venice regularly floods) and so we were able to take part in the ritual of walking the planks along some of the flooded streets. Nailz didn;t like it at all as the weather had turned decidedly cold and with so much water about I think he wished he had stayed in the van! But Venice is amazing and Rachel and I had a wonderful time strolling along the canals and inevitably getting a bit lost (there are good signs though to guide you to the main sights). What was amazing was the chaos on the main canal and how no-one crashed despite it looking like the aquatic version of dodgems. Even the TNT delivery man power-slide his vessel into port and jumped off with a style James Bond would be envious of. Nimble gondolas easily side-stepped other boats, Vaporettos (the Venice equivalent of a bus service) charged up and down the main canal and the whole scene, with it's plethora of different ships was quite captivating. We made it safely to the Piazza San Marco to see the Cathedral of San Marco and also the Ducal Palaces next door. Although we didn't go inside either, being happy just to wander the streets, the Palace has some curious secrets inside. This was the seat of government for the Venetian empire and although you can enter the building and see it's various rooms, you have to go behind some of the paintings and room sculptures to find the real seat of power. Hidden away are entrances to various secret corridors which is apparently where all the real governing took place, the real corridors of power. Venice was cold and wet, but absolutely amazing.

Verona

We headed out of Venice, or at least tried to but for some reason I couldn't seem to find my way out and kept seeing the same junctions again and again. We finally stopped for a much-needed coffee and directions which after a few more false starts headed out on the Autostrade towards fair Verona. It was quite late by now but as we only wanted a brief look around the place we were quite happy to get there after dark. It was another lovely walled town, this time with its own Amphitheatre, coloured in pink and white. It could hold as many as 20,000 people in it's heyday making it the third biggest in the Roman Empire, and in the dark looked very pretty.

Lago di Garda

Even later we were heading towards Lago di Garda where we spent a bit of time trying to find the damn thing, massive as it is, but we had noticed a trend for signposts suddenly disappearing and forcing you to guess left or right at a t-junction. Nevertheless we got close and bedded down for the night in what had become quite a chilly night. On the way there we had noticed about two inches of snow on the side of the road and on checking the temperature found it to be about one degree.
The following frosty morning was again a cold one and after a lovely morning fire we again hit the road to find a suitable campsite for the night. We explored a few of the small towns alongside the Lago and found a nice campsite with a lovely view of the Lake and the surrounding snow-capped mountains. It was a beautiful day and the views were extraordinary.

Bologna

2010-11-23T19:57:00.001Z

18th - 21st November

Bologna

On the night of the 18th we headed north along a small curvy road towards Bologna and stayed in a suburb outside the town. The next day we were up with the larks to move into the centre of town and head to the famous University di Bologna, the oldest university in Europe.

University di Bologna

There were a number of free museums as part of the University, and within the city (all of which are free or have a free component) and we had a lovely morning walking round a few of them. You would need a whole week to fully appreciate all of them but we made some choice selections and spent the morning and early afternoon looking around some of the Univeristy museums, marvelling at the huge numbers of skeletons, stuffed birds, nervous systems and the many other fascinating exhibits.

Old Town

The rest of the afternoon was spent milling around the old town centre and it's 666 portico's (covered walkways which become very useful in the rain!), leaning towers and wonderful, animated streets coloured in burnt oranges, reds and browns (earning the town the nickname Bologna Le Rosso - the red). The city centre is very beautiful.
We also spent a bit of time reading about the towers in the centre, on which leans at an alarming angle, rivalling the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They were built during a time of immense turmoil in the Italian region where cities were becoming states and families were vying for power and control. As figures in authority, some families have control over civic defence buildings as part of office, which lead to rival families lining up with other figures of authority and building their own towers in response. Similar to San Gimignano, it is estimated that in Bologna there were about eighty such towers as part of the landscape, although some reports and estimates put the figure at around two hundred. Apparently it was easier to invalid your rival from the top of a tower and with around eighty towers in such a small place I can't imagine what going to the shops would have been like.

Loveleto

After walking around the city centre we headed back out of the city to find a place to park up and found a lovely little place called Loveleto. Here we had a lovely little walk with Nailz in the rural countryside only 6km from Bologna. We found the perfect spot to camp for the night, in a quiet sports centre car-park when about half an hour after we arrived the local football team turned up for a spot of training. I suddenly realised how much I had missed my Monday night kickabout with the Sparkshop boys, so if you're reading this Ian, say hello to the chaps from me!

Back to Bologna

Early on the 20th we checked into the local campsite early and after quickly setting up camp headed back into Bologna for a day in the town. As soon as we got off the bus we were greeted with the hustle and bustle of the Saturday market which his absolutely gigantic. With a whole day you would struggle to see all the stalls, and unfortunately for Rachel I had other plans for today. We did spend a bit of time wandering through the endless stalls looking for a good bargain, but sometimes there is too much choice and I was very much in need of a coffee so we headed off in search of MAMBO - the Museo d'Art Moderne di Bologna. This was quite an interesting museum and again the permanent collection was free. It was quite a small collection but full of stimulating (and confusion) works. As every with modern art, I sometimes like it and sometimes just wonder what the point of it was, but it was fun having a look. My favourite piece was a black and white silhouette of a chap in a cap waving a hand in the air. Very simple but considering it was just a silhouette it showed a great deal of expression and I also liked the boldness of it. I'll have to look up the name of it.

By now we were getting quite hungry but fell foul of the Bologna three O'clock exodus. All the restaurants and Trattorias had closed for lunch (oh the irony!) so after a little while walking while we tried to find somewhere open we came across a nice little bar offering "Aperativo". This involves buying a drink such as a cocktail or spirit and helping yourself to the food laid out on the bar like a buffet. We had wanted to try this so in we went, bought our drinks and went at the food. It was a very nice spread, and having had a little tipple too we were oiled and ready to go back to the market for some last minute perusing before catching the bus back to the campsite.

On the 21st we had another day rolling round the old town and window-shopping before finding another Aperativo with a quite amazing spread. They offered a great deal where for a modest amount of Euros you got a glass of wine, coffee and full use of the extensive buffet. We eat very well and had a long relaxy lunch before wandering round the town to try and walk off what we had eaten.

Mugello Valley

2010-11-18T12:31:00.001Z

12th - 18th November
This was spent in the Mugello area, just north of Florence. We had initially stopped to try and get online at a McDonalds but some time now we had not been able to (hence the lack of updates!). In Italy you need an Italian sim card and phone number to register and use the free wifi and although we had managed to do this before, now it wasn't letting us on. No message, just no access. Still, we found an incredibly friendly Tourist Info office who gave us a lot of info on the area including info about the local Library which offers free wifi if you register - bonus!

The main towns we visited in this area of Tuscany were Barberino Di Mugello, Borgo San Lorenzo, Scarperia and some excursions into the smaller hamlets dotted around the surrounding hillsides where we went in search of preserves and cheeses and went on some amazing walks in some beautiful scenery. These towns are quaint rural working towns, and yet again everyone we spoke to was more than friendly and if they could speak English loved to tell us what they loved about England and the English, if not we still did our best with pigeon Italian and loads of gestures, smiles and nods. It's great fun.

We found a great little co-operative supermarket which makes cheese and other produce from the farmers around Vecchio and it's environs. We, of course, sampled a selection and they were quite happy to ply us with cheese and other tasters such as mice-pie style cakes, but with apricot filling and the pastry was made with ricotta cheese! Delicious. The cheeses themselves are worth a mention as they have won numerous prizes and you can taste why. We also picked up some Chiannini steak which, from the local Chiannini cows, again, is all local. In fact, very little that we have found in Italy is not local! We also did our homework on Olive oils (with the help of more of the locals) who told us that cold-pressed olive oil produces a better quality of oil over the machine-pressed (we saw the machine-pressed method the other day) and also where to buy from to get a good deal. Also that usually cold-pressed is used for salads while machine-pressed, being slightly cheaper is used for cooking.

Over the next couple of days we hope to head to Bologna - the foody capital of the world, so I'm told :-)

The Uffizi Gallery - Firenze

2010-11-18T12:25:00.001Z

11th November

Uffizi Gallery - Firenze

Went to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence after a brief stop to admire the view again from Piazzale Michelangelo. It was gorgeous in the morning sun as the mist was gently lifting over the city. After a quick coffee, on the run (Italian style) I was in amongst the man works of art. As I had got in there early there were not too many people and I was able to walk amongst the masterpieces almost at will. Later it did become pretty crowded in the main attraction rooms, such a the Leonardo and Michelangelo rooms but visiting away from peak season was a definite advantage.
The museum is separated into numerous rooms which act as a sort of timeline for art in the region. The collection was started by the powerful Medici family who controlled the Florentine city-state and patronised many works of art during the Renaissance. The Uffizi was left to the city by the Medici family on condition that it never leave Florence.
The gallery is one of the most important in the world and so is packed with masterpieces and really interesting pictures and sculptures. My highlights included the Leonardo Room with Leonardo Da Vinci's unfinished "Adoration of the Magi" which shows just how good a draughtsman he was. It looks like it has just been sketched up in black paint, but each stroke is singularly precise, nothing is wayward and the shift from background detail to the ghostly, unfinished foreground is very revealing about how he built up his paintings. It line's up alongside his famous "Annunciation" which apparently was criticised for seemingly poor proportions of the antagonists, however it seems that if you view the painting by crouching to the right of it the proportions seem spot on. This was because the painting was to be hung to the left of a church altar and was not meant to be viewed straight on which shows Leonardo's amazing skill with proportion. Also in this room was a painting by Leonardo's teacher Verrocchio - "Baptism of Christ" which shows how artists collaborated on works. One of the angels in the picture was painted by a young Leonardo and it is believed the second angel was painted by another artist working under Verrocchio. Michelangelo's Doni Tondo was the only piece by the artist at the Uffizi, but it's colour and vibrancy dominated the room. Interestingly, it is believed the Greek statue Lacoon was found whilst, or before, Michelangelo produced this work of art as one of the figures in the background is posed in the same way as one of the sons from the statue. Even the Masters aren't afraid to take inspiration (wholesale) from elsewhere. The Rapael room showed works by the artist trying his hand at differrent styles, inspired by the likes of Leonardo, Michelangelo and the new-fangled "Flemish-style" which was popular for a time. Again he was open to influence but it showed his true skill in the way he was ablt to adapt to these new styles and produce amazing works of art.
There was an exhibition on the way out to Caravaggio and the artist's that he has inspired with his dark brooding styles. One of his pieces was an ornamental shield painted with the severed head of Medusa for one of the Medici Dukes.

Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take any photos (every so often the room echoed to "Nooooo Fooootooooo!!" in a weird gravelly, other-worldy voice) so here's a picture of the Duomo instead.

Chisure, Sambuca, Firenze

2010-11-18T12:21:00.001Z

7th - 10th November

Chisure

So the next day we continued on the foody tip and went to Chisure, another beautiful village in the Tuscan countryside. This time the theme was artichokes, as well as more local produce from paintings and crafts to home-made sauces. One of the more peculiar offerings was a sweet that tasted of chocolate and looked like pork luncheon meat. It confused the hell out of me I don't mind admitting. We were able to try fried artichoke stems which was very nice, as well as local salami and white truffles which are another speciality of the region. All very tasty.

Open house!

While we were browsing the stalls we were invited to an open house just up the road. Here we found a very hospitable community of locals and ex-pats from all over the world. We couldn't have been made to feel more welcome (thank you so much!). We were spoiled with food and I was able to sample more amazing local cuisine including artichokes, 2 kinds of soups - both wonderful, more local cheese and wine. The company was even better, and it was a shame that we had to say our good byes earlier than we would have liked, but we had made arrangements the previous day with Anna Lisa to see her wine cellar, and so we had to hit the road.

Wine Cellar

Later we arrived at an ex-monastery out in the sticks and were shown around Anna Lisa's lovely home. We were also shown the church and wine cellars which also form part of the monastery buildings. She had entertained some illustrious guests here, including Ronnie Wood and some of President Obama's advisors and now it was our turn. The cellar was interesting as the central pillar contained an inscription from the time of its construction which has been translated as a prayer for the making of good wine, and also a request for forgiveness from the master mason for any faults the building may have. The wine Anna Lisa produces is named after the master mason.

Pressing olives

The next day we visited an olive press to have a look at how new olive oil is made. We were kindly shown around the press and given a very good description from a policeman from Firenze who was helping his aunt for a week (as his vacation) pick and press the olives from her land. It was interesting to see the whole process and the bright green liquid that is produced at the end.

Sambuca

On the 9th we headed towards Firenze and stopped off for lunch at a nice little village called Sambuca, but there was not a drop in sight. It was only a little de-tour but we did manage to spot some interesting wildlife, with what looked like voles hanging out with some ducks on the side of a swollen river. They seemed to be quite good friends. We ended the day on the outskirts of Firenze having had a little scout of the area and found a suitable campsite for the next day and we admired the view from Piazzale Michelangelo which was just breathtaking as the sun was going down.

Firenze

On the 10th we checked into the campsite as we had previously been warned about motor-homes with foreign plates being targeted by opportunists in Florence by our friendly policeman. It was quite a nice site surrounded by olive trees and having seen the presses in action I had more than an idea about some late-night olive scrumping (the next morning the staff were busy picking them so I had missed my window of opportunity!). We had a nice day walking around Florence with it's imposing palaces, gigantic cathedral and vast numbers of churches and museums. The Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge left standing after WWII, was particularly cool. When the Medici family (the powerful rulers of the Firenze city-state) bought the Pitti Palace they needed to use the bridge to cross to cross the river from their other Palace they ordered the resident butchers out as they were too smelly, and ordered goldsmiths in, and the bridge is still lines with tiny jewellery shops. We saw the huge Duomo, Giotti belltower and Baptistry which dominate the skyline when seen from Piazzale Michelangelo and the copies of statues of David in the Piazzale Signoria as well as many other sculptures. We were finishing up our little tour of Firenze when a really impressive electrical storm broke right overhead and combined with the particular roof-style of the Florentine buildings it created a surreal "Big trouble in little china" type vibe. Although there were some pretty amazing sights in the city, and it was very pretty in parts, I think it looked better from overhead than up in the streets themselves.

Road signs and padlocks

Another thing worth including was the creatively altered road signs. Some had been changed to feature angels, some devils and some just generally changed for a bit of fun. We had a good game trying to spot new ones as we made our way around the city. There was also an interesting tradition of adding padlocks to certain railings. People just seemed to come up, add a lock and then leave it there so gradually railings and chains were being covered in a kind of hairy padlock growth.

Castellina in Chianti, more Sienna, and Buonconvento

2010-11-18T12:15:00.001Z

4th - 6th November

Castellina in Chianti

We woke up on the morning of the fourth to another glorious view of morning fog settling over valleys covered in golden vineyards - we were in Chianti country, after all. After a little drive we entered the small town of Castellina in Chianti. This was a lovely little town with its own castle and defensive walls. Castellina and the whole Chianti region was a defensive line for the nearby city-state of Florence in it's conflicts with its main rival Sienna. This inevitably lead to an increase in trade for Castellina. The town centre was very old-worldy and on the beautiful day we had it was very charming. There were also some Etruscan tombs, consisting of a number of stone chambers dug into a mound of earth with narrow linking corridors. The Etruscans were one of the most advanced tribes in the pre-Roman era, and the dominant force in central Italy in the pre-Roman era.

Sienna again

The next day we went for a little walk in the surrounding area of Castellina as it was another superb day. Later we headed back down south towards a meat festival we had seen advertised which meant driving past Sienna again, which was good for me as I got to take more photos of the place. Even though it was only a few days ago that we had last been in Sienna, we already noticed some changes - they had put the christmas decorations up whilst we had been away! While we were there I also took the opportunity to visit the Cathedral from the inside and this was a real treat. The outside of the building may have looked like it was made of Lego, but the inside was pure Beetlejuice! The Siennese must have been incredibly wealthy to build this place ad inside it is adorned with frescoes and sculptures from some of the big names of the Renaissance. The pulpit features incredible detail depicting the life of Jesus, the floor is covered in ornate designs and there are sculptures by Michelangelo as well as some great sculptures by other great artists including one of a Saint Eustachio by Andrea Bregno. The highlight for me though was the Libraria Piccolomini. On entering you are surrounded by huge, colourful frescoes depicting the life of Pope Pio III and all along the sides of the room are huge tomes with the most intricate decoration on the pages. It was truly amazing to see.

We then headed for the hills, literally, as we wanted to be near Buenconvento as that was were the "Meat tasting festival" was taking place the next day. We found a suitable spot hidden behind a hut of some description (we had seen a lot of these pink shacks on the side of the road and I still don't know what they are for) and settled in for the night watching the clear sky for (and seeing) many shooting stars.

Buonconvento

On the 6th we woke up to some really dense fog. Pea soup doesn't even begin to describe its consistency. We were on top of a hill surrounded by fields but you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. We were in no rush to get to the Meat festival as the initial events were speeches and presentations, in Italian, of a new type of Salami so we whiled away the day playing guitar and generally amusing ourselves. Later we headed down to Buonconvento for walks around the walled town, and everyone we met was really friendly. No-one would let you pass by without a smile and a "Buonjourno". Even when we went for coffee we couldn't help getting chatting to a group of locals, although admittedly they were more interested in Nailz than us! Finally we showed up at the meat tasting session to try the new product - Chiannini pig salami. Chiannini is the local breed of pig, which has it's roots in ancient traditions in this area. It tasted lovely, and we also were able to try some new olive oil which was also nice, if a little more bitter than more "settled" olive oil (when the new oil is made it is a bright green colour but after a few months it turns clear and has its familiar taste). At the session we also got to meet a local wine maker and taste their wares, which was also very pleasing! We had a good chat with Anna Lisa and she kindly gave us a free bottle which we enjoyed with some more Piccorino cheese later back at the van. Lovely.

Lago Trasimeno, Rapolano, Sienna, Colle di Val d'Elsa, San Gimignano,

2010-11-18T12:00:00.001Z

1st November - 3rd November

Lago Trasimeno

We took our time moving on from Assisi as the campsite let us check out pretty much whenever we wanted, which was excellent for us. The weather was pretty good too so we were in no hurry. Late in the day we headed in the general direction of Sienna, but on the way we got side-tracked by Lago Trasimeno which is a pretty big lake about halfway between Sienna and Assisi. We found a great spot to park up, specifically for campers and it didn't cost anything as we had arrived late. We were up early the next morning to enjoy the sunrise over the lake.

Rapolano

We were making our way to Sienna when again we got side-tracked and ended up in the Thermal Spa town of Rapolano. We decided to park up for a while and later had a mooch into town. As we were walking into the town centre we saw a group of elderly folk walking slowly down the middle of the road. They were followed by a priest and hearse and another group of younger folk with children in a funeral procession for someone who was obviously well liked. Almost the whole town was marking the passing of a friend and everything came to a standstill they passed, the only sound was the leading of prayer by the priest and the marching of feet. It was quite a touching moment.

Sienna

We finally made it into Sienna late on and had a look around the town in the fading light. It was a very cute place with a grand sloping semi-circle as the town centre "square". Apparently everyone comes out to sunbathe on it's banks during the summer months. It also has an unusual church which has white and green horizontal stripes, giving the impression that it's made out of lego. We wandered the back streets of the town for a good few hours before heading back to the van for the night, but not before I'd had my local delicacy which I picked up near Assisi. They were really thick sausages with a combination of spices I can only guess at, but which tasted delicious. I'm sorry I can't be more descriptive than that but I was in such a rush to eat them that I destroyed the packaging. Ah well... We also got hold of some of the local cheese, a soft variety called Piccorino which was also very tasty.

Colle di Val d'Elsa

We pushed off from Sienna the next day and this time headed towards San Gimignano, another place which had been recommended to us on our travels. It was on our way there that we spotted signs for Colle di Val d'Elsa and I just had to insist we checked it out. Rachel kindly humoured me on this. It was another interesting little town and it had it's own special history spending much of it's time either being conquered by one of the nearby, more powerful cities, of Florence and Sienna. As a result it boasts it's own castle and imposing city walls and is a quaint town for a little stroll.

San Gimignano

After the little "folly in Colle" we again headed North to San Gimignano, which is now known as the "Medieval Manhatten" on account of it's skyscraper-like towers. The town, in it's heyday had 47 towers, essentially bragging about it's wealth. It now only has 17 remaining but it is still impressive as almost every corner you turn shows you more rectangular blocks stretching up to the sky. Its another quaint place and it is also fiercly proud of it's heritage and local produce of honey and saffron and especially the Vernaccia white wine, grown almost exclusively in the region and enjoyed by Popes throughout the ages (although I have it on good authority the current Pope enjoys a glass of Augustina beer from Munich).

We have been treated throughout the last few days to the sumptuous views of the Tuscan countryside turning golden in autumn, the rolling hills, vineyards and olive groves turning reddish yellows as winter approaches. San Gimignano was a particularly good vantage point for this as it is perched 334m above sea level with commanding views of the surrounding area, and we had an even more advantageous viewpoint once we had climbed onto the city walls

Solfatara, Rome and Assisi

2010-11-01T20:05:00.001Z

22nd - 23rd October

Volcano Solfatara

We headed out of Pompei and back onto the Autostrade, going beyond Naples, and lots more urban sprawl, to a campsite on the side of a volcanic crater. We arrived at the Volcano Solfatara campsite in the mid afternoon and were soon frolicking about on the crater itself, having parked about twenty metres away from it. It is an extinct volcano, I should add, but it has a very interesting history and is part of an area known as the Phlegran fields. According to the site information, Volcano Solfatara was the mythical entrance to Hell for the Ancient Romans. The Devil apparently lived under the Bocca Grande which is the largest fumerole in the crater and from this jets of sulphur vapour gushes forth at around 160 degrees centigrade. The rocks around the jets are all reddish-yellow from sulphur deposits. In the middle of the crater there is also a pool of bubbling mud which was used as a treatment for rheumatism, the sulphurous vapours were believed to be beneficial for respiratory illnesses and there was also a spa here in the 1800 for the natural mineral water. It was good fun to walk among the fumeroles and see the mud bubbling away. The Bocca Grande was quite impressive with steam constantly shooting out in no small quantity.

The next morning we got up early to have another walk around the crater before heading off again. This time we were heading to Rome to meet up with Steve, Donna and Mike who had jetted out for a few days to see us. We were able to get into a campsite pretty easily and were soon heading into town on the tram system using our newly purchased travel cards which allowed us free use of the whole public transport system for a week, including the metro. This meant our stay was stress-free and we were able to scoot into town at will knowing the van was being safely looked after on the outskirts of the city.

23rd - 30th October

Rome

We spent the first night trying to find the hotel that Rachel's folks were staying in - which took a bit of finding - but soon Nailz was jumping around like a madman as he recognised them with his tail just a blur. We too were very relieved and excited and we had a really good time catching up with them.

The following two days were jam packed seeing some of the sight of Rome, and although the Rachel's family had to fly back on the 26th, Rachel and I spent a further two days soaking up the city. You really could spend a lifetime wandering round and gazing at all that is on offer in the city, and that's without going to the museums and the seemingly millions of churches. Round ever corner there is something else to catch your eye, so I can only include some of the highlights here.

I'll start with the smallest country in the world and of course the home of the Catholic Church, Vatican City. The layout of St Peter's Square, or Piazza San Pietro, is a bit like a keyhole and is said to represent the arms of the Catholic Church being wrapped around the faithful who gather in front of St Peter's for mass. This was going on as we arrived as it was Sunday and we were able to see the Pope appear from his apartment window, which was quite far away. In fact it was hard to tell if it was the pope even using the electronic zoom on the camera.

Rachel and I later went into St Peter's Basilica itself and I found the proportions of the place just staggering. Not only was it huge inside, but the design of the building was very powerful with huge, strong pillars in perfect proportions. The massive Papal altar was also quite intimidating.

We also went to see the Vatican Museums and I could have spent another week in that alone. Room after room of incredibly detailed sculptures, walls of maps, ancient artefacts (including mummified remains) from ancient Egypt as well as possibly the two highlights of the whole of Rome for me, which were the Sistine Chapel and the Rafael Rooms. I'd seen pictures of the works in both of these but to see them, the scale, the detail and the colour in person was incredible. I just don't have the skill with words to do them justice. I could have sat and watched them all day for a year.

Elsewhere in Rome we got to see some of the other more famous sites including the bustling Campidoglio, the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain. We visited some lovely piazzas such as the Campo de' Fiori, and the Piazza Navono. We got to see the iconic gems of Ancient Rome such as the immense Colosseum, and Forums, victory columns and triumphal archways. I enjoyed looking at Michelangelo's "Moses" which is in the San Pietro in Vincoli which is an incredible sculpture. It is also fascinating because there are two horns on his head. This was due to a translation error from the Hebrew Old Testament, they should have been beams of light instead!

Most impressive of the ancient monuments, for me, was the Pantheon, or "Temple of All Gods". From the outside it does not look hugely impressive, but once you step inside it's very, very cool. The dome, which is not obvious from the outside, that is the largest masonry vault ever built and it was constructed by pouring a mix of concrete and pumice over a wooden support structure. In the centre of the enormous dome there is an Oculus which lets in light and rain and also distributes the structural forces created by such a massive amount of concrete. It was a really impressive room to stand in, and again the pictures don't do it justice.

On top of the sights we also spent a good deal of time eating out in the Trattorias of Rome and that too, unsurprisingly for me, was another highlight. Also it was really great to see Steve, Donna and Mike again and share Rome with them (cheers very, very much for flying out). Although I didn't throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, I would definitely come back.

30th October

Assisi

Leaving Rome we headed north on the Via Flaminia, towards the mountain town of Assisi in the Umbria region of Italy and arrived late in the afternoon after a long drive. We were high up on the side of a hill with tremendous views of the valley below and the mountains opposite so we stopped for the night and enjoyed a stroll round the area.
The next day we stopped at a campsite very close to Assisi as it worked out better value to do that than park for the day. After walking the short 1km into town we spent the day having a wonderful stroll around the town where St Francis (and St Clare) was born. We had a look in the wonderful Basilica di San Francesco with it's colourfully frescoed interior. The town itself was incredibly pretty and featured some amazing views of the surrounding countryside.

Pompeii

2010-11-01T19:35:00.001Z

20th - 21st October

The route to Pompei

We next headed past the sprawling urban metropolis which begins at Solerno, en route to the legendary ruins of Pompeii. The drive there was initially very scenic with huge ranges of mountains on either side of the autostrade, but this soon gave way to a seemingly infinite mass of development. Even when we hit the coast, as far as the eye could see and on all sides we were surrounded by blocky buildings and high rise flats. Onwards we went toward Pompei and onwards the sprawl went, as if we were surfing a housing wave being channelled inland by the mountains and occasionally spilling to sea. It was funny that by comparison the normally scary Autostrade became a calm, ordered paradise in comparison. This was how we felt as we came off it a stop before Pompei to pick up something for lunch. As we exited the Autostrade, immediately we were hit with what should have been a smallish suburb (according to our map), but which turned out to be a chaotic, overcrowded, noisy and confusing monster with little in the way of signage and a kind of "fend for yourselves" attitude of the native drivers. We managed to fight our way into a side street where we were able to pick up some groceries (and local cheese of particular note) for a brief respite. The store owner and his daughter were incredibly friendly and we ended up getting some tomatoes on the house. The little girl had started to learn English and although a bit shy, we managed to coax a bit of "Hello" and "How are you?" from her, although the full version of "Keep Right On" was a bridge too far.
Back into the fray and we headed straight for Pompei this time and again as soon as we exited the Autostrade it was bedlam. Less encouraging was that every car we saw had some kind of scrape or dent in it, and this is not exaggeration. It was getting late by now and we just needed somewhere to put down and found Camping Zeus straight off the motorway. Camping Zeus was fine for what we wanted, which was just a safe place to leave the van as we visited the ruins and a hot shower. We did have a bit of a debacle where we paid the extortionate 5 Euros for an hour of internet time only for most of the sites we wanted to look at not to be found. As this included sites like the www.bbc.co.uk we knew there was a problem, but the site manager insisted that "the signal is perfect" and therefore there was no way he could give us a refund. His obtuse attitude and refusal to even attempt to understand the clearly demonstrable problem was intensely irritating and counts as a customer service - FAIL. Personally I'd avoid it like the plague now, but at the time it served its purpose.

Pompeii

We visited the ruins of the ancient Roman town of Pompeii (the Roman ruins has two ii's, the current Italian town only one) on the 21st October. It was pretty awe-inspiring and it needed little imagination to bring it to life again. We spent a long day exploring the ruins and I'm so very glad we did. There were still a few things we missed out on but by the time we went back to the van we were so exhausted we just hit the hay. After spending a good eight hours we got a really good feel for the town and how the areas were lade out and I heartily recommend doing the same if possible. It reminded me a bit of Poole town with it's urban areas, public buildings, sports stadium, theatres and purpose-built brothel (the Poole comparison falls down a bit there). The brothel was an interesting building for it's prestigious place in a well-to-do neighbourhood (it was the "official" brothel after all), it's sexual paintings, and also the child-like signs of a "cock'n'balls" - indicating the direction of the brothel - found on the roads and walls of the neighbourhood. Being a small building we had quite a wait to get in, and it was all over very quickly. There was also a sign saying "No Flash" which I thought was ironic.

Away from such filth, I was amazed by the Amphitheatre which was just beautiful in it's "forgotten" state. The design of the stadium is an oval with banks all around and special sections for the media and dignitaries. Against this backdrop of immaculate design there are now banks of grass growing over the spectators seats seemingly pulling the amphitheatre into the earth. It was a wonderful sight.
The mosaics found on the floors were also of great interest to us. There were lots of geometric designs employed to create elaborate patterns and in one of the more wealthy homes was a complete battle scene describing a famous battle won by a Macedonian king. The detail and scale of the image was amazing. The interiors of some of the houses had also survived and it was very interesting to see how the inhabitants decorated their homes. There was a definite fashion of the time and in the same way today styles are copied and fashions come and go you can see repeated designs throughout the site. Another thing that hasn't changed is that the folks of Pompeii had pictures of their family painted on the walls in the same way people have pictures now, and also pictures of coastal scenes and favourite escapes. There were columns and even extra rooms painted on the walls to give the illusion that the house was grander than it actually was in some cases.

When the eruption happened in AD 79 there was no warning to the inhabitants. They had long experienced tremors and earthquakes prior to the eruption and were still repairing the town after a previous major earthquake and subsequent tremors when Vesuvius erupted. As a result the people of Pompeii were caught in the eruption and perished by heat or smoke inhalation and were subsequently buried under ash and pumice. As their bodies decayed the left holes in the ash layers and during the excavations plaster was poured into these holes to create a cast of the each person, dog, or tree etc... The result is a macabre but incredibly fascinating set of cast statues showing the final positions of inhabitants as they perished. Some where quite heartbreaking, such as the man who was still trying to reach his wife who in turn was trying in vain to shield her baby. Another was of a dog, collar round its neck and clearly curled up in pain.

There really was a huge amount to see and on another beautiful day such as the one we had we could have spent longer, but we were pretty exhausted and the endless streets of ruins seemed to start blurring so we headed back to the van. A great day out though.

From Bari to Potenza via Matera, some small villages and a castle

2010-11-01T19:09:00.001Z

13th - 19th October

Italy

We arrived in Italy on the 13th October, in the town of Bari. Unfortunately our Sat-nav had broken as we entered Croatia, but as we only had one road to follow and had the sea for reference at all times, even I was able to navigate successfully. However, the smug feeling of knowing where one was going soon disappeared after we disembarked from the ferry.
Bari is a veritable warren of small, bustling lanes without a useful directional signpost in sight. To make matters slightly worse for us the only maps of Italy we had included an overall A-Z map of Europe (pretty light on the detail), and some Google maps we had saved when we last used the internet. Nevertheless, we were able to navigate sufficiently to escape the chaos and arrive at the Castle Del Monte, near Andria. There we found a good rest stop with extremely friendly and helpful staff so we bedded down for the night.

Castel Del Monte

Staying there was a bit of an unintended masterstroke as it meant we were not only well placed to see the wonderful Castel Del Monte, but we were also able to converse (in limited fashion) with the local staff. The result of which was that we were offered (and accepted) to stay there another few nights which meant we were able to carry out some needed van maintenance as well as try our best to learn as much Italian as possible. One fellow in particular, Antonio, really could not do enough for us and we really felt spoilt by him.

The Castle Del Monte is a very attractive castle, built for Emperor Frederick II around 1240 and the theme of eights is repeated throughout. There are eight turrets adjoining the eight walls and the rooms are geometrically divided in eight also. The effect is striking and the castle dominates the surrounding landscape.

Stone Huts

As we were driving round the region of Puglia, we repeatedly saw small round stone huts and had to find out what they were. We were told that traditionally they were houses built for the shepherds to live among their flock. This type of housing was afforded a tax break by the government because of this, and this of course resulted in everyone and their dog building and living in "shepherd" houses.

Matera

From there we headed to Spinazolla as it was a useful reference town for us as we navigated to Potenza, on the opposite coast. However once we reached the town we decided, on a whim, to make for the town of Matera. It quite possibly had to do with it's name, but we had also been told by a nice German couple whilst staying at Castle Del Monte that it was a "Cave Town". We didn't have a clue what this meant but decided that as it was pretty close (relative to England) that we would have a look. We were very glad we did.

We managed to park very easily and in short order we were in the town centre having a cappucino. After that we took a stroll round the town and after looking in a few shops we turned a corner to be greeted with the most incredible sight of Matera's sprawling dwellings which literally spill down steep slopes into a central valley. It looked like something from Aladdin and the 40 Thieves and it took a while for us to take it in. As we took a stroll round Matera we were spoiled by the magnificent beauty of the place, even if its existence is testament to a darker side of its history. The dwellings of former residents which make the views of Matera simply stunning, were hewn out of the rocky slopes leading up to the richer residencies and churches on the top of the outcrop. Either side of the settlement the land falls away sharply to a canyon with a river running through it. The dwellings of the workers were dank, only used by poor worker families and were the equivalent of slums leading the government to introduce new legislation and high-rise flat to enable them to move people (forcibly if necessary) from these family homes during the 1950s.

It was while having a nosey that the heavens opened and while Rachel had a look around a museum to avoid the rain, I went into a photo shop as the proprietor was busy playing on a Fender Strat. He had a spare acoustic so we spent the next two hours jamming in his shop. It was a great way to pass the time before heading back to the van to spend the night.

The next day we headed back into the centre of Matera for a coffee and when we left the van we bumped into Andrew who was another Brit and with his wife had also stopped over in the same car park. After a brief chat we pushed on into the town and were greeted by lovely weather and lots of folk milling around in the street just having a chat. We then went back to the van we decided to head off in the direction of a National Park overlooking Matera from the other side of the canyon. Once we arrived and were just parking we again bumped into Andrew and his wife Sarah who were just returning from the site. Following another brief chat and considering what a lovely day it was we all decided to park up (or re-park) and get the chairs out. We spent the day in wonderful company and spoiled with wonderful panoramas of Matera over the canyon. We were later joined by a fellow who used to live in Matera as a small child and now looked after the five churches within the national park. We had parked pretty much on top of them as they were carved into caves in the rock face below the car park. He happily showed us round, giving us a guided tour and telling us about when and how they were constructed and how they have been used. They are still used on special occasions.
While we were visiting these churches we were joined by another British family Tim, Ruth and their lovely kids Charlie and Billie. The rest of the evening was spent with us all sitting around the campfire talking about all subjects under the sun, relaxing over a pint or a glass of wine and enjoying the spectacular sunset the location afforded us. It was another cracking night. Billie and Charlie are doing a blog of their travels and if you want you can look them up here.

The next morning we all packed up, said our good-byes and had a last look at the wonder that is Matera. We had picked up a pretty good map in a tourist info centre which showed what produce was made in all the villages in the region and we needed little encouragement to go in search of locally made pasta, cheese, bread and such. Unfortunately we had forgotten to factor in the Italian way of having lunch from about one to five in the afternoon (they do start early and finish late though) which meant that we didn't have too much joy on that front once we had found our way to the appropriate villages, but we did get so see some pretty nice villages off the beaten track. Windy streets up sheer cliffs and vistas over valleys broken up by castles and those cool motorbike/van cross breeds. It was fairly obvious these were not affluent areas, but the locals were friendly and the villages themselves were very picturesque and well worth the detour. We were heading for Potenza to join the Motorway, or Autostrade, on past Naples to Pompei. En route we decided to rest for the night on the side of a Lago after a day seeing some nice villages. The drive to our rest point was very interesting though as we passed through the Parco Nazionale dell Appennino Lucano where there were huge cows on the sides of the roads roaming free. At one point our way was blocked completely by a herd, only for help to arrive promptly in the shape of a Fiat Punto-driving shepherd. He quickly rounded the corner and drove them on without even getting out of his car. It was raining pretty heavily at the time though and no-one seemed else batted an eyelid!

Diving in Dubrovnik, Kupari, Srebreno

2010-10-22T13:29:00.001+01:00

27th September - 12th October

Lazy blogging...

Ok, it's a long time period to be covered by one post but this was the only part of our trip which was to some degree planned originally (we decided early in our "planning" that we wanted to Scuba dive in Croatia). This was our "holiday within a holiday" and updating the blog wasn't top of my priorities :-) So in order to keep this post to a reasonable length, here are the highlights for me:

Mlini

About a ten minute walk from our campsite was the quaint little harbour of Mlini. There was a lovely little church right on the pebble beach, and two waterfalls within easy walk of the sea-front where there was a nice row of little coffee shops overlooking the small harbour. It was a lovely spot to relax before and after diving and we made the walk almost daily from our campsite as it was the home of Aquarius Divers.

Aquarius Dive Centre

When we went to check out Aquarius we met Robert, one of the owners, and following a little chat we felt quite comfortable arranging a dive with them for the next day. He was very competent and friendly and put us at our ease very quickly. Aquarius has a small office on the sea-front and we were able to store our kit there between dives, which was great for us, and they offered to pick us up for the first dive in order to help us getting our kit to the office. The boat was designed by it's skipper, Ivor and it's the classic Red-Sea catamaran layout with plenty of room for around twenty divers to kit up simultaneously as well as lounge around on the sun deck upstairs. To complete the design there is also room for the same twenty divers to sit around and eat lunch together in the "dry" half of the deck. Ivor also doubles up as the on-board gourmet chef. Apart from the first day we eat lunch provided by Ivor and it was spectacular. All the food was fresh, and the fish was caught in the morning for the table (we were able to watch a master fisherman at work). Not only did the food taste amazing, but it was a real joy to watch work his magic. He clearly is someone who loves cooking. All in all we had a brilliant diving experience with Aquarius and they were competitively priced. Thanks Aquarius!

Diving review

So this threatened to be the highest of many highlights on the tour so far, and it didn't disappoint. We had set out many, many moons ago to dive in Croatia, specifically Dubrovnik - and finally we had arrived, kitted up, put our fins on and strode giant-like into the clear blue waters...
Diving in Croatia is just amazing. The water is clear as crystal, there are no currents to speak of (we did have a bit of movement after some windy days), there is an abundance of sea-life to gawp at and I finally perfected "hovering" whilst watching some of the coolest sea-slugs, starfish, Octopuses, a whole array of fish and a host other quite amazing underwater inhabitants.
There is also the wreck of the merchant ship the Taranto which had sunk to a depth of 25m (the floor is at around 52m) with it's spilled cargo of tractors and cargo hold which is big enough to explore. It too boasts an abundance of inhabitants, and we saw a couple of pretty mean-looking Stone-fish as well as this Cushion Starfish.
As well as the plethora of reefs and islands, we saw plenty of other distractions which made our trip varied and exciting. Even when we made a second dive on an area we were able to find much more to it than we had seen the first time, although this may have been due to a slight navigational error on our part first time round!
There was a great group of divers aboard too, making our first properly international diving experience very memorable with French, German, Croatian and a couple of English (of course) diver aboard. We had plenty of laughs during our surface intervals and there really wasn't much of a language barrier (except when I tried to speak some Croatian).
So to sum up, we both thoroughly enjoyed our diving in Dubrovnik and both agreed that if the opportunity arises we would love to come back.

Srebreno & Kupari

As I've mentioned before, we stayed on a campsite called Matkovica run by a wonderfully warm and generous lady called Daniella and she really did make our stay a pleasant one. We were so relaxed that I really don't think we noticed the time slipping by so quickly as we walked along the sea front, swam in the gloriously warm waters (25 degrees C on the surface I'll have you know) and basked under the hot Croatian sun between days spent diving with Aquarius. Nailz enjoyed himself too as he got some pretty decent cat chasing time.
Just along the coast, about a ten minute walk from Srebreno and our campsite was Kupari, with a lovely little bay and beach. This used to be a thriving tourist resort with three very large hotel complexes and supporting beach-side bars and other assorted tourist facilities. However during the Homelands War this resort, along with most of the surrounding area was shelled by Yugslavian forces and all the building suffered structural and fire damage. The result is quite eerie. You have a lovely beach with cute little bay, dominated by the skeletal shells of the three main hotels. The beach is quiet which although good for us wasn't so good for the businesses which used to thrive on the tourist trade.
The war has left reminders throughout the region and pretty much anywhere you go in the area of Dubrovnik, you can see evidence of the war.

The folk we met and spoke to though were nothing but warm, friendly and more than willing to spend a bit of time with us just to shoot the breeze and it was a genuinely pleasurable experience whenever the opportunity arose. Yep, the scenery was beautiful with the mountains rising up against the skyline inland, and the sea was crystal and warm, and the sun was pretty much always roasting (when it wasn't blowing a gale) but the most endearing thing to me was the Croatians themselves.

Notes on travelling - The British don't come back...

One thing I should mention is something Ivor said whilst we were on the boat one day, and that is that many German and French tourists go back to the same areas year upon year, but the British never do. He asked why that was and I was at a loss to answer it at first. I thought about if I would come back to Croatia and if I would come back to this specific bit of Croatia and I would have to say that I would love to. I also thought about the next stage of our adventure and getting the ferry across to Italy to discover a whole new world just across the sea and it occurred to me that I've pretty much enjoyed every country that I've been to so far on this trip and would love to go back to each country and each specific bit again and again (with one or two exceptions). I'd basically have to give up working for good to keep going back to the bits I've liked (not a bad thought, but a bit impractical). Maybe the British are just born explorers, being an island nation after all, or maybe we are just greedy and always want more. I'm happy either way.

Off we go again

We caught the Dubrovnik - Bari ferry crossing with very mixed emotions. It was not easy to leave Croatia after having such a great time, but on the ferry our thoughts finally turned to what lay in front of us... Bari island (not really Pete, sorry) and the South of Italy.

You can see more photos on our Flickr page!

Down to Dubrovnik

2010-10-19T13:50:00.001+01:00

20 September - 26 September

Arriving in Dubrovnik

Once more we took the coastal road down to Dubrovnik. As we neared the historic city we crossed a large suspension bridge from which we could view a marina which was a hive of activity with smaller vessels dotted around huge luxury liners and cruise-ships. Some of the cruise-shops made the surrounding buildings look like houses for ants the way they towered above them.

Our first priority was to find a decent place to camp and we passed the town heading further south. There is only one campsite in Dubrovnik itself and it looked like a huge and expensive site which we weren't that keen on staying at, but luckily there were a number of smaller sites dotted further north and south. One campsite in particular had been recommended to us when we were staying in Split by a Flemish couple who described a small and basic but very clean and hospitable site in the town of Srebreno called Camping Matkovica. It is a basic one-star rated site, but it was everything we needed in a campsite and more with Daniella, the site owner being an absolute star. We were able to use the Wi-Fi for free and charge the laptop when we couldn't use our solar panels (I'd parked in the shade!). We were able to put a steak in her fridge so I could eat it the next day! It was close enough to Dubrovnik for us and we could easily drive or hop on the bus to the ancient city. The only drawback to this was that even though we were able to in Split, here we absolutely could not take Nailz on the buses. The alternative was to take a water-taxi, which would have been cool, if rather pricey, or drive the van.

Dubrovnik old town

The old town is quite simply stunning. It initially reminded me of Zadar, far away now to the north of Croatia but on a much grander scale. The floor is completely smooth where it has been worn down over the centuries and the bright white stone of the city seems to take on a glow of its own with the strong Croatian sun. In the old town there is simply too many highlights to describe in a little blog like this, but there are some bits that deserve special mention. I really liked the Jesuit Church with it's colourful interior. The church sits atop a grand staircase and occupies a dominating position within the city. Also, the Church of Sv Vlaho, known elsewhere as St Blaise, is a very striking building sitting at one extreme end of the Stradun, or main street. Interestingly Sv Vlaho is the patron saint of Dubrovnik and every year on February 3rd (his feast day) relics of the him - including his head, hands and a bit of his throat - are paraded through the Old Town streets.

Bit of a tangent (but also interestingly), on display in the Dubrovnik marina there is a special speed boat called Sv Vlaho. The importance of this speed boat is that it was the first ever ship of the Croatian Navy. During the 1991 war for Croatian independence and the subsequent siege of Dubrovnik, Croatian volunteers created a scratch Navy to try to get supplies through to the besieged old town. This speed boat was commandeered and thus the Croatian Navy was born. It was crippled during the missions but now stands proudly alongside "Majsan" (an armoured car built in a shipyard on the island of Korcula and used to defend Dubrovnik and the surrounding area during the Homelands War) as tributes to the Croatian defenders.

Back to what I most liked about the old town, and I think that top of my list are all the gorgeous narrow alleys winding away from the Stradun. They were just amazing to climb up and gave great views or slices of views of the town below. You can also see in the walls special blocks with holes protruding so that the washing could dry on lines hung between them.

The most striking of Dubrovnik's charms though is it's walls which have provided protection for it's citizens for centuries. You can walk around them to get some amazing views of the city and the surrounding sea, and I was able to get some great views of the walls from the sea during our diving excursions.

Rachel abandons me!

On the morning of 22nd October Rachel had to leave the glorious sunshine of Croatia for what I assumed would be a cold and damp London in order to be at the wedding of one of her oldest friends. Kate and her, now husband, Graeme are both extremely brilliant people and deservedly lucky in finding each other. Congratulations to you both and I am sorry I couldn't be there, but someone had to look after the dog. I'm also sorry I missed out on the "coasteering" during the stag do - but it sounded fun.

So I had four days to myself which I whiled away playing guitar, writing some songs, going for dips in the bay which is a short walk from our campsite and taking Nailz exploring the local area. It was quite stressful, but I hung on in there. The weather was beautiful until all of a sudden on the 25th I woke up to grey skies and a light drizzle. Through the day it got progressively worse and the wind also picked up. I had popped out to try and speak to some local dive centres, but predictably they had all gone home for the day due to the bad weather except Blue Planet, who were based out of a plush hotel in Lapad, just north of the Old Town. They seemed very competent, knowledgeable, were very friendly when I spoke to them and I am sure Rachel and I would have dived with them but for two factors which was price (they were more expensive than our eventual choice of dive centre) and location (the guys we went with were down the road from our campsite - but more on them in the next post). By mid-afternoon the weather had deteriorated to a bit of a storm and, naturally, I was on the beach. It was good fun to watch the waves crash against the rocky shoreline and also massive waves crashed against the smaller islands out to sea, often a wave would crash right up and get blown clear over the island! It was very cool.

On the way back to camp the weather took an even bigger turn for the worse and sheets of rain lashed down creating impromptu water falls on buildings and torrents of water cascading across the roads. After the sunshine of the last few days the road was like driving on castrol GTX and I passed a few accidents before I reached the safety of the camp. Tents were flooded out and most campervans and motorhomes had water problems of some kind, from getting stuck to water being blown into the airvents. This was how I met Mieke, our wonderful German friend (Hi Mieke!). She had a funky tent which essentially sat on top of the car, and while this sounds like a brilliant solution to the flooded campsite (a tenter's worse nightmare) the wind was so violent that even this succumbed to eventual flooding, leading to an uncomfortable nights kip in the car. I later asked Daniella if this sort of weather was normal for this time of year and the answer was a resounding "no!". Some people are just lucky I guess.

The next day I had to pick Rachel up from the airport, and as if to celebrate Rachel re-joining me the weather was absolutely cracking again. I was glad about this, but most of all I was relieved to have my buddy back again :-)

Diving in Trstenik and camping in Brijesta, plus Ston

2010-09-23T17:36:00.000+01:00

15th to the 19th September

We stayed on the Peljesac peninsular until the September 19th, a lot longer than we had anticipated. This was mostly due to two factors: the first, was that we found in Vedran a really exceptional dive guide who made us feel very welcome and confident when we dived. He took us on some wonderful dives and from the first dive we knew we wanted more.
We did however want to find another campsite as the drive to the dive site in Trsenik was not ideal, so tried to find another campsite a little closer. In doing this we found our second reason which was a lovely little campsite in the bay of Brijesta, campsite Vrela which again was right on the beach and very quiet. It was a joy to stay there.

On September 15th we met up with Vedran and Dived the wreck the S57 which was a torpedo boat in the second world war. Technologically advance for it's time it was extremely fast and so when the British damaged it during an ambush the skipper skuttled it to stop it falling into enemy hands. It was a great wreck to dive on, there were torpedoes still on it's skeletal deck, magazine clips scattered on the floor and a still movable anti-aircraft gun on the top of the wreck. Lots of sea life had now made homes in and on the wreck, including this Moray Eel which I managed to get some good footage of (you've got to see this!).
We surfaced and changed tanks ready for the second dive of the day which was a reef dive. Again there was a lot of life to see, notably some pretty big lobsters in a wall and also some ancient Roman amphora just lying discarded from a long-lost wreck.
After diving we went to check out camp Vrela and pretty soon decided that this was the place to camp for the night. We then sent a text to Vedran to organise some more dives for the 17th.

We spent the day chilling in the camp on September 16th, taking advantage of the campsite position literally 5m from the bay. Snorkelling was fun as there was a fresh stream that joined the bay quite close to the campsite and the combination of fresh and salt water created a crazy thermocline at no depth! We were used to seeing thermoclines at around 25m underwater but this was right on the surface. As you snorkeled, you could see one minute then it was as if the mask had fogged up the next only to clear again a second later! It was really trippy.
The bay iteself was lovely and calm and was also used to farm mussels and every afternoon we would see the mussel farmers going through and cleaning their catch.

We dived again on September 17th, making the shorter but somewhat hilly trip to Trstenik to see our mate Vedran. Again he took us on some wonderful dives with lots of life. Of note this time were some cool nudibranches (Flabellina Lila), a Fork Beard fish, and this funky purple starfish!
On the night we sat out on the campsite veranda with the site owner (Nedjeljko) and the other guests, two friendly couples, one German and the other Czech, drinking the owners own wine (produced on his family land for over 300 years no less) and it felt like a proper community of people joined by the purpose of finding some peace and quiet. Nedjeljko also produces his own spirits, olive oil and mandarins which are grown one the campsite as well as on the family land in the area. It was really interesting to talk to Nedjeljko about his family roots and how he could trace his ancestry back 300 years, to among other things the Ragusa Republic (the area of land from the tip of the peninsula to south of Dubrovnik) and how long his family have been producing wine in this region.

So the next day I was nursing a bit of a hangover, but nonetheless we went for a bit of a cycle round the area. We passed countless fig trees, rosemary bushes, pomegranate trees and other such delights not usually seen wild in Britain so we scrumped a little to augment our fresh stocks. On the way back we passed the mussel fishermen cleaning their haul and bought 2kilo of mussels for the equivalent of £1.40! Needless to say we hurried back to our van to cook them up and thanks to Rachel's culinary wizardry we were soon feasting on fresh mussels not 400 metres from where they were landed. Delicious. The bay is excellent for farming mussels because the bay is rich in plankton. This makes for excellent mussels! We had an early night after the seafood feast as we were due to meet Vedran for some more diving the next day.

However, when we woke on the 19th, the wind was howling. We decided to head over to Trstenik anyway to see what the harbour was like but en route we had a text from Vedran saying the dive was cancelled due to the weather. We soon could see why as when we arrived the waves were very lively. We decided over a coffee to visit the town of Ston at the very south of the peninsular instead and so hopped in the van and headed off. To get onto the Peljesac peninsular you have to go through the twin towns of Ston and Mali Ston. Between these two small ancient villages runs the third longest wall in Europe, which made up part of the defense of the Ragusan Republic.
When arrived in Ston in the middle of two events, the first was the annual "Marathon of Ston" - a race around the 5Km walls of Ston and Mali Ston - eventually won by a Briton - and a "Gastro Film Festival" showing lots of films about the importance of food and other considerations. It was a very informative day out as we got to watch a number of short documentaries on such themes as "slow food", GMO and it's implications (both economically, in terms of biodiversity as well as impact on human health and legal cover-up operations from the major chemical companies). It wasn't all factual and there were a number of fictional food films to enjoy also.
For lunch we treated ourselves to a Seafood platter from a restaurant called Backus in the town. It was incredible and no words can do it any justice.
Back at the site we again sat down to some wine and another spectacular sunset before wobbling off to bed.

Split then onto the Peljesac Peninsular

2010-09-19T18:00:00.000+01:00

September 10th - 12th

We were staying in a campsite a little way from the ancient town of Split at a fairly big campsite but one that allowed us to park right on the beach. It was lovely in the morning to be able to open the main door and stare straight out at the ocean.
Over the few days we were in Split we had a good explore of the city which was born out of a Roman Emperor's retirement palace. Emperor Diocletan had a palace built when he decided that he didn't want to work all his life and invented the concept of retirement. After his death families from nearby Salona, moved in and some of their descendant still live in the Palace. Because of this change of functionality, much of the original architecture has been lost in place of family accommodation but there are some great sights left intact too. There is the impressive Cathedral of St Duje and Diocletan's Mausoleum which is now part of the peristyle and hidden amongst cafes is the Temple of Jupiter. This is now a baptistery with some interesting stonework and in the roof there appears to be some faces which look slightly worried. There's also a massive statue of Gregorius of Nin and rumour has it that touching his foot is lucky. There is also the original keep, or castle which was part of the defensive garrison which also lived in the palace. One of the most striking things about Split is the way old and new combine. In the main square you see ancient architecture and modern living side by side. On a sunny day it is quite beautiful.

While we were staying in Split we met two great chaps Mike and Johnny, who had driven from Liverpool to enjoy the sights and sounds of Croatia. We spent a very pleasant evening swapping stories about our travels and discussing other unrelated topics such as Ukulele chords, Oasis albums and camper van conversion.

September 13th
We traveled to Peljesac Penninsula and were again rewarded with great weather, roads and views for the journey. We saw a valley full of vineyards and some of the beautiful Bacinska Lakes as we drove along. We were heading for the little village of Trstenik which has a lovely little harbour. There we met up with Vedran who runs Freaky Diving and arranged to dive with him on the 15th. From there we pushed on north to Orebic, to a campsite Vedran recommended and spent the evening having a wander into the heart of the town along the beach. From here you can see an archipelago of islands, and the largest island of Korcula. Here we found a small store selling wine made by the owner. The peninsula is famous for it's wine which is made here. The grapes are grown all over the peninsula by local families and sold off to a co-operation for distribution. The local familes also sell a portion of the wine they produce directly so we were able to pick up a bottle of Postup (named after the hills where the grapes are grown) and that evening we settled down to some lovely wine and cheese from Pag island, just a bit further north on the mainland. All local and absolutely fantastic. Also famous in this part of the world is olive oil, which we also fully intend to get hold of at some point.

September 14th
Today we had a relaxy day by the beach. Our campsite was a stones throw away so it took all our effort to get to the beach and then couldn't find the energy to move from there. Did manage a bit of snorkeling though.

Still, diving tomorrow so I should have some interesting stuff to update you with!

Diving in Trogir

2010-09-17T20:40:00.000+01:00

9th September

Went diving today! We checked out of the campsite early to get to the Trogir dive centre at nine in the morning. The weather was beautiful, the wind had died right down during the night which meant the big waves and currents I had had a lot of fun snorkeling in yesterday had gone - diving was on!
The guys at Trogir Dive Centre were excellent and I highly recommend them. They put us at our ease and were extremely professional, which made for a very relaxing dive. They had excellent boats, a mid-size speedboat which had plenty of room for us and a larger day-boat. The prices of the dives was also very reasonable (better value than pretty much all the other dive sites in the area and further south) and they offered a 10-dive package which also brought the price down further. Once we had kitted up and got on the boat we were soon coasting across to our dive site, which was the Balkun reef, had a thorough briefing from the skipper Ivan and were soon slipping into the water.
Again we saw lots of Blennys and Gobys, I managed to get a good photo of what I think is a Black Goby, although because it's camouflage was so good I can't be sure! We saw lots of other forms of life and I managed to get reasonable photos of some of it including Leopard Seaslugs and Facelindae (Nudibranches), an all-white Star Fish and a massive Scorpion Fish sitting amongst the rocks. We were also lucky enough to come across an Octopus feeding on a massive spider crab which it had just ripped in two. The crab was huge and there were a flurry of other fishes poking about for some of the remains. The octopus quickly retreated back into it's hidey hole before I managed to get a really good photo of it, but you can see it here. Look for the line of suckers in the middle of the photo. That was a real treat.

Back on land we said our goodbyes to the dive centre after what was a really good dive and drove across the bridge into the ancient town of Trogir. We had a lovely walk around this little island and the old town which is now a UNESCO world heritage site with it's castle, old buildings and narrow winding streets. The distinctive Camerlengo Castle was built in the 15th Century (the hexagonal corner tower was built in the 14th Century) by the Venetians to defend the town and the harbour from Turkish attack. There is also a tower on the opposite side of the island to aid in the defense of the town. Dominating the Eastern side of the island is the Cathedral of St Lawrence (St Lovre) built in the 12th Century, but supposedly based on an earlier temple and shows Gothic styling possibly added to during the Venetian reign. The Cathedral stands in the Trg Ivana Pavla III, which also has a nice clock tower.

After stopping for a coffee to recharge the batteries we headed on to Split, 24Km further south and parked up to have a wander around the city. We mosied along the rows of shops, market stalls and seefront before deciding to push on to the campsite we had found for the night.

Into Croatia - Rovinj, Pula and Icici, then Zadar, Nin and Trogir island

2010-09-15T17:07:00.000+01:00

6th September
Rovinj, Pula and Icici
Today we made our way over the border into Croatia at which unlike all the borders crossed since arriving in France, we had to show our passports! The guards on the border were very much taken with Nailz though, which was a relief as they had given us the expected stoney glares as we approached. Soon we were journeying through the Croatian countyside in the areas called Istra. This is the northern coastal area famous for Olive oil, Wine growing and cheese! We soon passed lots of small holdings selling their own home-made produce, but sadly as we had just crossed the border we didn't have any of the local currency with which to buy anything! One of the stalls was selling pumpkins and all around we were surrounded by fields of pumpkins and squashes ready for harvest.
We were heading towards the coastal town of Rovinj which we had read as a picturesque town with some nice architecture, but as we drove through we saw police on every corner! This disturbed us a little as we wondered what the rest of this country would be like. After driving past the harbour we decided to carry on to Pula, further down the coast and it was as we headed out of the town that we were passed by a procession of police cars and blacked-out limos with state flags fluttering from the bonnets. I still don't know what this was about but at least it explained the police presence, and it was a huge relief to know that it wasn't because they had been tipped off of our presence.
A little while later we arrived in Pula which is on the far south eastern corner of Istria. As we entered the centre we passed the Roman Amphitheater. We parked nearby and set off on foot to have a closer look at this amazing creation. It was started in 30BC during the reign of Emperor Augustus and finished in 1AD. Made out of the local limestone it measures 130m long and 100m wide making it the 6th largest Amphitheater in the world, and impossible to fit in a photograph. Next to this we found a more modern church and poked our noses inside, where we found a large mosaic depicting the Crucifixion and on the front of the building this lovely little mosaic. The other major attraction we found in Pula was the ancient temple dedicated to Augustus. Pula is the largest town in Istria and was the major naval base of the Habsburg empire. It is still a major port today, so having seen the highlights we alighted 'Gertrude' again and hit the coastal road towards Rijeka, the next major town en route.
The drive to Rijeka involved a lovely coastal road as we were avoiding the motorway and we were rewarded with some fantastic sights as we went along.
As the evening drew in, we came to the little village of Icici, near Opatija, where we found an incredibly informative tourist info booth (the lady there could not do enough for us!) and found a campsite to hole up for the night.

7th September
We left Icici after a restful sleep an made our way north, keeping to the coastal road so that we hit the town of Rijeka mid-morning. We had seen the lights and tower blocks of this large city (Croatia's largest port) from across the Kvarner bay and didn't fancy stopping here too long and had planned just top drive straight on through. As it turned out we had a bit of shock. Driving through the busy streets we were immediately struck by the charm of the place, so parked up and headed towards the centre. First we crossed a footbridge which was absolutely teeming with fish - the little shark-looking creatures were everywhere. Next we saw some wonderfully elaborate and ornate buildings, some showing the winged Lion of the Venetian empire and others with similarly interesting features. There was a market in the centre with all kinds of produce on display and we were able to pick up one or two bargains, before seeing this Church which had some colourful mosaics as part of it's contribution to the style of the place, and was the initial reason we decided to see more of the place. In the high street was an nice archway which had a clock telling the time in standard and a more simple way.

On leaving the city we stumbled across this example of a very daring relief.

We were then blessed with some incredible scenery as we drove south-east, again following the coastal road and heading for Zadar which was to be our next stop. It was a longer stint than we had done for a while so we swapped seats so I could take more snaps of the views. We also pulled over for a short snorkelling session in the crystal blue waters by the roadside, with starfish galore! We also stopped to pick some figs from the trees next to the lay-by and spent a lot of the journey cheerfully munching away on them! They were really sweet and to someone who would not normally eat figs, I found them very delicious. Soon night had fallen and it was dark by the time we reached Zadar.

Zadar is a very cool place, there are some very interesting historical monuments but also some very cool modern additions. Moreover, this is another place where you are straight away intrigued and knocked off balance, as what you see within the city walls does not match any expectations you have. As you walk through the city walls into the pedestrianised old town the first thing you notice is the floor. The paving slabs are so worn that you can literally slide over them even when they are dry. Later we would try walking on them after some light rain, wearing flip flops, and it was fun trying to stay upright.
In the centre of the town lies the traces of the Roman forum which once stood here. The remains have been partly excavated (more were brought to light as a result of the Allied bombing in WWII, although also much of it was destroyed in the process). If you look around in the nooks and crannies all over the old town you can see examples of ancient buildings next to modern (and pretty tatty) flats which again conveys the rich character of the place. It's hard to make that last sentence sound good, but take it from me, it adds to the appeal of the place.
Built upon the ancient Roman forum is a Byzantine church, St Donatus, which was literally built on the remains, including fallen columns, of the forum.
Of the more modern aspects of Zadar to enjoy are two very cool pieces of "Artitechture" by local artist Nikola Basic. The first is (and it is a world first) the Sea Organ which makes soothing noises as the sea pushes air through tubes set into the seafront. It's quite extraordinary and we sat on the front for ages just listening to the sea make unique music with this true work of art. I think Rachel was even lulled to sleep by it, briefly, at one point.
Slightly further down the seafront is the Sun Salutation, which is a 22m circle fo coloured lights. During the day solar panels on the surface of the circle capture the sun's energy and from sunset to sunrise colours are beamed out from this circle, again using the sea to alter the patterns formed by the colours. It's breathtaking to watch, and Nailz loved it too.
We were really late to get to a campsite now so we made for the only campsite in the town. We had seen on camping forums that sleeping in a van outside of a campsite in Croatia can land you with a hefty fine so we wanted to play it safe. However, when we arrived at the camp there was a big sign saying quite clearly that dogs were not welcome. This was bad news, but unperturbed we popped our head in the office with Nails in tow. Immediately we were told this was a problem but when we asked if we could just stay in the carpark and move on early doors, unexpectedly we were told that not only could we stay on the campsite, with Nailz - and for free - so long as we moved before seven in the morning! We could not believe our luck and promptly moved the van onto the nearest pitch and went to sleep!

8th September
We got up early and made sure we got out of the camp so as not to cause the kind chap who had let us stay any bother. As we were up early we headed to a town called Nin, just north of Zadar as I had read about the "world's smallest cathedral" being there. We parked and crossed the bridge into the single-street which was the town and saw the 9th Century Church of the Holy Cross, the aforementioned smallest cathedral in the world, surrounded by the ruins of a Roman temple. As we made out way out of the town we came across a further curiosity which was the Church of St Nicholas, built on a small burial mound. This was perhaps more quaint than the Church of the Holy Cross as it stood all alone on the mound on the outskirts of the town.

We were heading back to Zadar when we decided to track down some Pag Cheese, cheese made from goats herded on the nearby island of Pag. The reason for this is that the goats herded on Pag feast on wild "medicinal" herbs which brings healthy qualities to it's cheese, so we are told. We were told in the tourist info booth just outside Nin that any of the two local shops would sell it and (dubiously it must be said) we ventured inside. Sure enough, there was "Pag cheese" so we bought a block (there were only two blocks left which I took to be a good sign), hopped back in the van, sampled a piece and both Rachel and I were in love. Pag cheese, unbelievably tasty and I swear it tastes slightly different each time I have some.

We stopped in Zadar again to get some more photos of the Forum and Church in the daylight and plan our next step which was to push on to Trogir and see if we could set up a dive for tomorrow, so shortly after we were again on the road south. On the way we passed this little village which looked as though it was in danger of being washed away.

After sitting in a pretty boring traffic jam trying to get onto the island of Trogir (to where the dive centre was) we finally got to the Trogir Dive Center (descriptive name!), set up the dive and they were kind enough to help us find a lovely place to camp. our campsite for the night is right on the beach and as I am writing this I can hear the (pretty big) waves crashing on the jagged rocky shore. Shortly after we arrived on the site I went for a snorkel in the waves and it was a lot of fun. There was a small stony beach area where I could safely get in and out and there were plenty of fish braving the swells. Hopefully the weather will be good for tomorrow and I will have more diving photos to share with you!

Diving in Piran

2010-09-05T22:02:00.000+01:00

4th September

Today we went scuba diving!! We got up and after getting out kit sorted pootled off to the dive centre to meet up with the Nemo Divers team. After a lovely cup of coffee on the sea front we kitted up and got onboard the boat which took us out past the tip of Piran and to the Fiesa reef. The reef went down to 11m so it was a nice shallow and relaxing dive. It was also another good test for us and our new kit which performed very well again. I had great fun playing with my camera and took way too many photos, but I was pleased with a handful of them! Unfortunately the built-in flash didn't penetrate the water very well so colours were a bit lacking. I'll be looking into a possible upgrade at some point! Afterward we basked in the glorious sunshine with the Nemo crew and had great fun trying to work through the photos to identify what we had seen with our guide Robert. There was a lot of life including Golden Sponge, Purple Sea Urchins (the female ones cover themselves with "jewels"), Painted Combers, Loads of Blennys and Gobys, Baby Damselfish which were an electric blue, and their adult counterparts which had lost the vibrancy and were a more sedate dark grey, and European Wrasse. I also managed to capture on camera a HappyRachelFish, normally a camera-shy creature! I was pretty happy too.
For the rest of the day we soaked up the sun on the seafront and didn't do a lot else!

5th September

Again we spent the day by the beach today, neither of us really water to leave Slovenia just yet as it has been so good to us, so not a huge deal to report. Took this picture of a lizard though!

Will try and do something a bit more interesting tomorrow...

Click here for our photostream (flickr)

Click here for our route so far (google maps)

Skocjan Caves, Trieste, Koper, Piran and Lucija

2010-09-05T00:22:00.000+01:00

2nd September
Skocjan Caves
I was awoken to the sounds of a jubilant Rachel preparing breakfast. She was in a great mood not only because today we were going to the caves, but also because she had been out foraging whilst I lay in bed and had retrieved some blackberries to put in our cereal. They were a very tasty treat and a great start to the day.
The Skocjan Caves were quite simply amazing. Massive caverns underground filled with elaborately sculptured Stalactites and Stalagmites in all kinds of crazy shapes and sizes from the minuscule to ones so big you almost missed them. We traveled deep underground and followed a similar path to the original explorers (we were quite a few feet above however as the underground chambers can fill up at an alarming rate. Further on into the cave complex and way beyond the tourist trail there is a narrowing of the caves which restricts the flow of the underground river and consequently fills the huge lower chambers of the cave system in a matter of days) and the sheer scale of the complex was just incredible. Our guide also highlighted numerous types of formations of calcite and explained their formation. We exited the caves through the same tunnel the river uses to begin it's journey beneath the surface. It's a magical place not only where the river disappears underground, but as a consequence of the microclimates created both specialised Alpine and Mediterranean flora exist within metres of each other.
Outside of the caves we were treated to a number of smaller museums which were cottages, outhouses and other buildings which had been renovated by the locals to provide room for the exhibits of local life down the ages, explanations of the river system and maps showing where the river Reka finally came to the surface and joined the Adriatic to the north of Trieste. Two guides Boris and Matej were on hand to provide further insight, not only about the area and caves (of which they were extremely knowledgeable) but also we had a good chat about life in general! They were both really good fun - big thanks to them!

Trieste and Koper
In line with our day so far we followed the expected course of the Reka to Trieste (as most of it is underground much of it has not been explored so far and is guesswork). When we got to the Italian sea-side town we were freaked out a bit. We had enjoyed inland Slovenia so much with it's picturesque mountains and villages, but to find ourselves in the middle of the bustling port and seaside resort of Trieste was a real shock to the system. Our initial excitement at seeing the sea quickly changed to a desire to follow the coastal road out of the town and down to Koper, back in Slovene territory.
Koper was also quite busy but nothing on the same scale as Trieste and we were able to park after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing so we could explore on foot. Our stay was quite brief but we managed to see the Church of the Assumption and the 15th Century City Tower which dominates the main square. Adjacent to this is the Praetorian Palace which now houses the town hall and tourist info centre. We also stumbled across the oldest building in the city, the Rotunda of St John the Baptist which dates from the 12th Centutry.

Piran
We ended the day with a little stroll into Piran after finding a rare parking space and were treated to a spectacular sunset, which looked more like a inferno in the sky and was a nice end to the day.

Piran itself is mental for parking we stayed in a car park about 6Km away in the town of Lucija which is like a small extension of Piran, but much less hectic. We were told Piran and the area was bedlam in summer but as we had arrived in September we thought it may be quiet. It wasn't, but it wasn't totally crammed either, the only real problem was parking which is at a premium in Piran but with the bikes we brought with us we have been able to circumvent this little issue, and Nailz likes the runabouts he is getting!

3rd September
Piran, Portoroz and Lucija
We wanted to explore Piran more today so got up and started to cycle the 6km from Lucija to Piran but stopped at the town of Portoroz which sits directly between the two. We came across a little "beach" - basically some grass with a concrete waterfront - and decided that we should soak up the sun a little and spend the day relaxing and snorkelling.
In the evening we again went into Piran, where we found a sea food stall on the pier and managed to "sample" two free glasses of the local wine - from Koper - which was delicious (and not just because it was free!), before wandering Round the rest of the city which is crammed full of Venetian-Gothic style architecture. The name Piran is thought to have come from the Greek word for Fire (pyr) as fires were lit at the tip of the peninsula to guide ships into the nearby port Aegida, now known as Koper.
There are some spectacular views from the ruins of the city walls which are preserved as part of Slovenia's man-made heritage, and more views are available from the Cathedral of St George which is also very attractive inside. In the main square stands the impressive Venetian House and in front of this, is a statue to Violinist Giuseppe Tartini. Finally there is the Punta, the tip of Piran, which used to house the old lighthouse, although this has long been replaced with a modern equivalent. However the 18th Century Church of St Clement sits right next to it and creates a wonderful vista across the sea. There were lots of free entertainment and events on here too, such as Acrylic / painting demonstrations, rock sculpting classes (lead by a British woman) and more.
On the way back to the van we had a flat tire which meant we had a long walk in front of us. There was a silver lining though, as by walking we noticed a Dive Centre that we had previously cycled past three times so we popped in and had a chat with the friendly folks at Nemo Divers and arranged a dive for the next day - result!

Again we stayed in Lucija as we had scoped the place really well by now and got an early night to be ready for diving next day...

Predjama Castle, Intermittent Lake Cerknica, Postojna Vivarium and Skocjan

2010-09-05T00:18:00.000+01:00

31st August

We had arrived at Predjama Castle late last night, in time to see the castle illuminated in wonderous colours and we were up early the following morning to get pictures of this amazing castle in the morning light. It's a wicked looking castle, seemingly growing out of the cliff face. It has been built in the Predjama caves and must have been a pretty robust fortress in it's day.

After we had breakfast we headed east to the "Intermittent" Lake Cerknica. It's called intermittent because during the Summer months the Lake disappears into underground sink holes and caves. The water has no overground exit points which gives the impression that the lake just disappears. During the Spring and Autumn seasons the rainfall is greater than the amount of water escaping into the ground and so the Lake becomes pretty big over a short space of time. It's also home to quite a lot of rare and endangered species of birds, lizards and fish. Quite how the fish stay in the Lake at the height of summer when the Lake completely disappears was a bit of a mystery to us but it happens, and there were plenty of fish on display in the lake following the recent rains. Its part of the Notranjsko Regional park and as such is afforded protective rights which have helped preserve the volume of life in and around the lake. Strolling along the paths there were no shortage of interesting animals and fauna to stop and admire. That's one thing that is very apparent in Slovenia as a whole, they take great pride in the natural attractions in the country and have taken great steps to ensure it can be enjoyed in the future. This is a country of nature lovers. The same goes for man-made heritage and it is hugely rich in this area too, the area being highly colonised by the Romans and fought over for centuries between various factions (see previous posts).
There was also an fairly new Stone circle to celebrate the magic of the Lake which contained some interesting designs to reflect the different aspects of the area.
Later in the day we strolled around other parts of the Notranjsko Regional park to see some lovely natural features which have been cut into the limestone by the waters of nearby river Rak. These included natural bridges, picturesque waterfalls and massive caves, as well as providing some excellent scenery in general.

1st September
We decided to stop where we were for the night so we could explore further in the morning, and we enjoyed an early stroll through the forests and natural wonders of the park. Having just discussed the joys of wilding in the most remote and unspoilt of places, seemingly a million miles from civilization, we immediately bumped into two scientists from the nearby Postojna Caves who had seen us near Bovec and recognised Nails and our British number plate! We shared a brew with them and had a good chat where we found out a bit more about the cave creatures we were about to see and the nearby area. During this chat Nailz decided to chase a passing car (the first time he has done so I might add) and after giving up half a mile down the road came joggng back with a massive grin. We were then told about how this area (and a lot of the woodland in Slovenia) was home to the Brown Bear. Now they are known to be afraid of humans and generally shy creatures but have, in the past, been provoked by dogs who then lead the grizzled grizly back to the owners with grim consequences for the slowest runner! Cene and Slavko were in the area leading a group of around 80 people touring the immediate surroundings. They were on the organising committee of the 20th International Conference on subterranean biodiversity and Rachel was delighted to pick their brains, and don't think she could believe her luck! They were really friendly and kindly gave us some material to read about the caves and the landscape of Slovenia.

Later that day we moved on to Postojna to visit the Vivarium which showcases various species found in Slovenia's most famous atraction, the Postojna Caves such as Cave Lice, pseudo-scorpions, Slendernecked Beetles as well as the famous "Human Fish" or Proteus, a Salamander-like creature which used to be thought of as a baby dragon! They were amazing creatures and had adapted to live in the most hostile of environments superbly. If you are not familiar with them, check them out. They are the largest solely cave-dwelling creature (they cannot survive outside of the cave as they are so highly adapted) and are actually older than the caves themselves!! They can't see but can sense weak electrical fields which helps them find prey.

On our way back to the van we passed a cyclist with a trailer and British flag sticking up from it. As he was walking I caught up with him and had a chat. He had cycled all the way from Manchester and was cycling around the world avoiding all forms of motorised transport, and was headed for the Croatian border before going south to Turkey, possibly Iran and then across to Asia and ultimately the States. His name is Kevin and his website is here. The journey is expected to take about three years! He is a really nice chap and we wish him all the best for his mammoth voyage.

We next went towards the Skocjan Caves, which are not as famous as the Postojna Caves, but are said to be less "touristy", although after seeing the vivarium I would definitely see the Postojna caves if I ever come back to Slovenia. We stopped near the caves and came across this church stuck out on it's own by the main road so we pulled up for a bite to eat in it's shadow. We then went for a lovely walk around the surrounding area and enjoyed the last rays of what had been another lovely hot day.
On the way back to the van we noticed a hub of activity where we had parked, when before there was none. Slightly concerned we got back there to find that the locals were working away around our van to renovate the church with a view to re-opening it to the public as a museum. It was to be another example of how the Skocjan Caves (and Slovenian tourism in general) was providing work for, and involving, the local community. The church used to be the main church in the village before the current one in the village was built many moons ago. As the area around Skocjan was now a UNESCO natural heritage site building work was strictly limited so existing buildings and foundations are being given a new lease of life. This was a good thing, although the place we had planned to wild camp was now very much compromised, so we drove off to the next town where we saw a more than adequate lay-by leading to a field. Soon, however, we were joined by a flatbed truck piled with rubbish and two ladies in a small car. There seemed to be a stand-off between the two new arrivals with neither turning off lights, engine or moving off so I jumped out of the van to investigate. Turns out the two ladies had seen the truck driving slowly round the village looking for somewhere to fly-tip and chased it around until it joined us in the lay-by. Did I say the Slovene's love nature?? We offered to help anyway we could, but were told the situation was under control and that the police were on their way. As we were surplus to requirements, we made our excuses and were on our way!
After that little episode we thought we'd better find somewhere a little safer so headed back to the Skocjan Caves visitor centre and stayed in their carpark!

Kobarid, Lake Bohinj, Lake Bled, Skofja Loca AND Ljubljana!!

2010-09-05T00:12:00.000+01:00

24th August
Kobarid

We went into the town of Kobarid today to visit the internationally acclaimed WWI museum. We spent most of the day pondering it's exhibits, including some pretty nasty-looking spiked clubs used by Austro-Hungarian forces. The museum focused on the Isonzo Front and the 12 battles that were fought around the area of the Soca river (the area surrounding Kobarid). In fact all around the mountainous Alps in the Upper Soca region were part of the war between the Austro-Hungarians/Germans and the Italians and it was hard to imagine how such a vicious war could be fought in such a beautiful land, and also technically how it was possible. High up in the alps there are caves, trenches, pillboxes and fortifications of all kinds as the two sides fought for control of the valley, a key access point to the area. During the 12th battle, the Austro-Hungarians (led by German forces managed to force the Italians from the mountains overlooking the town, and began the foray into Italian territory, as described in Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms". One of the many interesting topics brought up in the exhibition rooms was the use of caves and "mine warfare", where each side would try to burrow into the other sides cave complexes to destroy them with explosives, encircle the enemy and disrupt their supplies. We had passed many caves the day before and could see from the plans on show that these were part of the immense underground systems built during these battles. German commanders were in charge during the 12th battle of the Isonzo Front and used tactics showing early signs of the Blitzkrieg tactics that would be used extensively during the Second World War. Poison gas was used during the initial bombardment of the Italian line, as well as the use of storm troopers with flame throwers to break the resolve of the Italian soldiers, both with devastating effect.
Another point worth mentioning is how often Kobarid itself has changed hands - including during both world wars - and this was represented by a wall showing the flags of various states which had ruled here, and the corresponding dates. The town has changed hands 10 times in total, including occupation by the Austro-Hungarians (twice), Italians (twice), Germans, Americans, as well as being part of the Kobarid Republic (twice), Yugoslavia and modern-day Slovenia.

We had checked out of Camp Koren before visiting the museum and when we had finished, we hopped back in the van and set a course for Lake Bohinj. When we arrived at the small town of Bohinj, we found a choir singing local and well-known songs in Slovene, which was a lovely end to the day.

As we settled down for the night the first flashes of what would become a heavy, and prolonged, thunderstorm began...

25th August
Lake Bohinj and Lake Bled

When we got to Lake Bohinj early the next day, the weather was pretty bad again. Heavy rain and deep clouds meant the views were limited and going for a walk around the lake didn't seem like such a good idea, so having found a nice little layby right next to the lake we had a little nap. Once our batteries had recharged, the weather hadn't improved so we decided to carry on to Lake Bled.

When we got to Lake Bled, it had stopped raining at least. It was still pretty overcast and as such, when we arrived we could not see what all the fuss was about. When we saw the tourist brochure pictures however we could clearly see that our timing had been bad on this one. If you really want to see Lake Bled in all it's glory look at these pictures. We didn't even see the surrounding mountains, and would not have known they were there had we not driven over them! To make matters worse, parking was a bit problematic, not to mention expensive, but there were some very good plus points even on a day like this one. Firstly whilst trying to find a cake shop to try the illustrious Bled "specialty" cream cake - the Kremna Rezina - we stumbled upon this church which had wonderfully bright paintings adorning the walls.
Next we found the aforementioned cake shop - Slascicarna Smon - and promptly devoured said cake which was a bit like a custard and vanilla slice - only much, much better and bigger. Finally even though the clouds had blocked the views of the surrounding Julian Alps and the Karavanke, there were still lovely views to be seen.

In the late evening we decided to push on, and get to the town of Skofja Loca. The route seemed simple enough, but we soon began a continuous climb and spent much of the time in second gear. Half an hour into the drive, we were halfway to the heavens and deep into layers of cloud. The views across the valleys, marked by dots of light from dozens of houses far below was simply awesome when the clouds allowed, and near the summit of the mountain we passed a church completely lit from on side, seemingly lording it over the vast expanse below. Night was drawing in fast and we were relived to get back down the mountain before it went completely dark - it was hairy enough being able to see the massive drops in the fading light. We found a suitable carpark and bedded down for the night.

26th August
Skofja Loca

We woke up early and moved the van into the heart of the town of Skofja Loca. As we were up early we beat much of the morning hustle and found a space quite easily in the heart of the old town. We made our way up to the Castle, Gradska Pot , amidst the early morning mist, to have a look around the castle grounds and see the sun rise over the town.
The town itself was incredibly cute. Everywhere we looked we found amazing looking buildings bursting with character, colour and style - from half bricked-up doors to ornate busts in the walls. In every window bright flowers erupted. The guidebooks said the town needs a lick of paint but I completely disagree - there was a real 'tumble-down' style to the place which I absolutely adored.

26th - 30th August
Ljublijana (pronounced Loo-Blee-Yaa-Naa)
For the afternoon we moved on to Ljubljana - the Slovenian capital. We had done our research on this one, and there was a plethora of entertainment just waiting for us in the city - all for free - as part of the annual summer festivals held along the banks of the Lubljanica river. As such we were able to re-balance our budget and plush it up in a campsite for a few days. The one and only campsite the city had to offer included free accesss to a "fancy dan" heated outdoor pool/spa with 60 kinds of water jets to aid relaxtion. As soon as we had checked in and set up camp, we hit the pool and got down to some serious relaxation in the blistering heat (yep, the weather had turned in our favour).

On to the evening, and we cycled into town to see international and local artists of all kinds. Craftsmen, musicians, painters, photographers, sculptors, acrobats, and dancers were all there to entertain and amuse. It was a real carnival atmosphere. There was all kinds of cuisine from around the world, a free dance festival (featuring Carl Cox), salsa classes, free lessons in Slovenian language, science lectures entitled centreofgravityology and soundology, readings of Slovenian folk tales, puppet shows, art installations on the subjects of time, rubbish, graffiti and loads more installations that we didn't have time to see. There was also loads of stuff for children (which we also found highly entertaining) such as massive metal puppets that you could make pick their noses and workshops on making corn-dolls.
All along the banks of the river you were presented with band after band after soloist after quartet and even a full swing band playing the most amazing songs from the crooner-era. There was even free breakdancing dance-off competition, Slovenian Folk-Punk gigs including a free gig by Laibach (the only Slovenian band to get on MTV) and jazz of all kinds including some of the most exquisite accordion playing I have ever heard. Possibly my favourite was a "guerrilla" brass band called the Orkestar Kobre which just strutted around playing the most incredible Mexican-flavoured music. They would come at you from down one of the streets and burst into the number just as they neared the main street in the most amazing explosion of style and sound, then saunter off (mid song), taking part of the party with them. It was just incredible.

Over the few days we spent in the capital we tried to get round and see as much as we could before the end of the festival, and it really was incredible to witness the commitment to the arts and the commitment that it should be available to all. It really was a privilege to be able to be here and enjoy it.

I need to make few other points about our stay in this wonderful city, as during the days we were able to soak up some of the more permanent aspects of Ljubljana. Firstly it is, as already mentioned, the capital of Slovenia however, it does not bear comparison to any other major city, let alone capital that I have witnessed. It's small and lovely and the people are friendly and don't mind saying hello, smiling and striking up conversation. It's nothing like London! As a result there is no pressure, no hassle, but as a capital like London, there are plenty of opportunities to do what you want to do. A quarter of the city's population are students, which goes some way to creating the atmosphere and creativity of the place.
Another feature of the city is the wonderful architecture. Most of the old town is in Baroque style, but here and there are masterpieces by world renowned architect Jose Plecnik, who was born here. In Preseren Trg (square) there is a statue to the greatest Slovene poet France Preseren who looks over the square towards a bust on a building opposite of his unrequited love. Ljubljana Castle is very picturesque standing over the city from Granjsk gric, or castle hill, and makes a lovely backdrop during jaunts round the city. There is also the only tribute to Napoleon outside of France as during the Emperor's conquest of the area he created the Illyrian provinces which promoted local customs over those of the Austro-Hungarians who had previously dominated the area.

Finally, we found these Weasley graffiti marks all over the city and couldn't help but laugh when we saw one.

Ljubljana was a strange city and although we should have had plenty of time to get round all the things we wanted to see, I came away thinking I hadn't got under the skin of the place despite it's small size and compact nature. It's definitly on the hit list of places we would come back to!

On the 30th August we packed up and checked out of the campsite, and the weather being awful again hauled up again 50m away at the nearest bar. Later the sun came out and we journeyed towards Predjama Castle...

Kobarid and Camp Koren

2010-08-24T13:46:00.000+01:00

August 22nd

In the morning we set off in search of Camp Koren, a campsite that had been recommended to us by the "Cool Camping" guidebook. Many thanks to Rachel's ladies - a wonderful birthday present! The road to the site was hairy to say the least, so I let Rachel do the driving to avoid any blame should anything bad happen. The weather had become even hotter since Austria and today was no exception. In the glorious sun we wound our way through the mountains to the campsite.
As soon as we arrived we knew we would have a "cool" time here. After checking in we found the ideal spot on the edge of the campsite (and a cliff), overlooking the main river, which set the background noise for the site. After the awning was set up and we had made camp, we set about the strenuous task of relaxing for the day, and exploring the river a little. We also used the free facilities and washed all our clothes, had showers, used the internet (for which there was a small charge) - all in all the site is great value for money. On top of this, the site staff were really friendly and welcoming which made life really easy for us.

August 23rd

We started today with a walk around Kobarid. Immediately outside the campsite entrance you come across the Napoleon Bridge which has wonderful views on either side. The was initial wooden bridge was destroyed by the Venetians before the French built the first stone bridge over the river to march to Predel Pass (where the monument we saw two days ago stands). It was subsequently destroyed in WWI to be rebuilt by the Italians, and during WWII was the scene of heroic defense from Slovenian partisans against Germany forces who occupied the territory in November 1943. There are monuments to these defenders on the bridge.
During our little walkabout we crossed the stream to get to the waterfall of Kozjak which was stunning. There were minor waterfalls around this too which made for a very pleasant stop. Crossing the river again, we stopped for a quick dip in the river, which was absolutely freezing despite the roasting hot temperatures on land. Up on the Tonocov Grad, a large hill overlooking Kobarid, there is a Roman settlement, dated from the 5th Century with a tremendous view of the town below, and on the way there you pass through the trenches used by the Italians to defend the area against attacks from the Austro-Hungarian and German forces during the Battle of Caporetto, or the 12th Battle of the Isonzo during WWI.
We then arrived in the town, where we went to a cheese museum to see how cheese was made through the centuries in this area. After this we bought some of the local produce and rushed back to the van to make dinner and scoff the lot!

We finished the day with another stroll down to the river and a quick dip (very quick!) before relaxing at the on-site bar.

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Tarvisio to Bovec

2010-08-22T20:40:00.000+01:00

August 21st

The stop in Italy was only a brief one as the next morning we headed into Slovenia, just over the border. Before we left we had a little look around Tarvisio and it was quite a nice border market town. The weather was again glorious and we left Italy looking forward to when we would return and see it properly.

As we drove we passed a little stream and stopped to cool down with a brief splash. It was pretty cold but very refreshing. We then stumbled across this lake in the midst of the mountains and had to pull over for a dip. The water of Lago Del Predil, although crystal clear was very, very cold and although you could see the bottom of the lake through the water easily, diving down the water became so cold that you had to surface pretty much
straight away.

But no sooner had we crossed the border into Slovenia than our chins hit the floor. We had seen some beautiful scenery up to now but this blew our little heads. We had headed into the Soca valley and immediately came across this castle. The castle was destroyed during the Napoleonic invasion and now stands as a memorial to the fallen Austrian defenders (the area was under Austrian rule until 1908). A wounded lion guards the tombs of the fallen soldiers.
We stopped in the town of Bovec which is the unofficial capital of the Soca region and is surrounded by the Julian Alps. Here we found a real treat. Firstly, they call cheese "sir" which went down very well with Rachel, and next the cheese-makers are happy to sell direct. As we approached a house which had the "Sir" & goat sign a head popped out of a window followed by feet to the front door. Within minutes we had purchased some of the finest tasting cheese we had tasted. Typical for the region, it was mild but so creamy and full of
flavour at the same time. Needless to say this went within hours, but we had discovered the joy of buying cheese straight from source and later we were also told that we should do the same when buying the Slovenian
wine which is also very highly rated apparently. I look forward to verifying this claim.

For the night we settled in at the local motorhome rest spot, the Stellplatz equivalent, cracked open a bottle of beer and watched the sunset. After sundown, we ventured to the on-site pub which was actually a nightclub and the place where the locals from Bovec unwind after a heavy day. Here we met Jernej, who was the Slovenian national kayaking champion, and was on the lash with his kayaking team. He spoke excellent English (as does everyone here), and weirdly it sounded more and more Scottish as the night wore on. We shared quite a few beers and stories before we had to retire for the night as we had an early start the next morning, but it was good fun.

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Climbing Mt Mirnock

2010-08-22T20:38:00.000+01:00

August 20th

Today we climbed Mt Mirnock, which stands at 2116ft above sea level and towers above the Millstatter See. We started the climb at Glanz which was pretty high to begin with and climbed for about 2.5 hours up to the peak. On the way we passed some more funky fungus, as well as alpine strawberries and raspberries, which we had to try. The way up was through woodland with mountain streams cascading down occasionally. This was really tasty to drink and we regularly filled out water bottles wherever we found one. The weather was glorious and this made it slightly harder work, but it was absolutely worth it as the views from the peak were incredible. There were some great places to sit and rest on the way up including these purpose-built chairs and sun loungers near the peak. it was fun to look down at the houses below, and Nailz was not afraid of getting quite close to the edge. In fact Nailz was in bullish mood as he growled at everything in sight, from intimidatingly large horses to the cows that roam around the hillsides.
Mount Mirnock is known as the Mystic Mount by the locals as the peak is crossed by two "energy" or geomantic lines, the Kloster and the Kult lines. Locals say it is possible to feel the energy in various sensations such as heat, cold, tingling etc. I felt a strange sensation in my stomach which only abated after we had passed the peak and had lunch.
It took slightly longer to get down, as I was knackered by now, and we did go a different, and slightly longer way back down. It was nice to view to the lake we had scuba-dived the day before from such a great height, and houses looked tiny.

We finished with a drink at Gasthouse Klammer before we headed away from Austria and, briefly, into Italy to a town called Tarvisio which is where we bedded down for the night.

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Quick update!

2010-08-22T14:44:00.000+01:00

I've just logged on and noticed that there was a post missing which covered August 10th to 11th. I've corrected this so please go back and review it if you missed it!

Also I've properly updated google maps to show our path including where we are today!

Scuba Diving in Seeboden!

2010-08-22T13:55:00.000+01:00

August 19th

Today we got in our first dive of the trip, and we are well chuffed! After the disappointment of Bodensee due to the weather, we did get to dive at Seeboden! It could have gone horribly wrong though, as when we got down to the dive centre and started kitting up, we very quickly realised that on the continent most countries use the DIN system as opposed to the Yoke that our reg's use. I had known this, but stupidly it hadn't registered, and there we were with two Yoke-system regulators and DIN-fitted tanks. If you don't know your diving terminology this means we were up a certain creek without a paddle, and we may as well go snorkeling instead. To our rescue, Thomas provided his own personal DIN-Yoke adapter and hired me a DIN regulator so we could go diving after all. Hurrah!
The dive was quite extraordinary. Thomas was German and had described the dive area in his best English but when he said that we were to find the first tree by the buoy, I naturally assumed he meant large plant or something similar. Nope, he meant tree. There were quite a few underwater trees which provided a habitat for the sea-life down there which, along with rapidly decreasing visibility made for quite an eerie dive. The "vis" started at about 6-7 meters near the surface and quickly dropped to around 4-5 meters as we got deeper. It was only a shallow dive as we were at 600m above sea-level to begin with, all the life was at less than 10m, and besides that there was an incredible thermocline at 8m which took you from nice and toasty 21 degrees centigrade to a frosty 10 degrees instantly. It was much nicer in the shallow end.
I also tested my underwater camera housing (without the camera in it) for the first time with success, no leakage so later I took it back in (with camera this time) to snap the fish we had seen on the dive. There were groups of 4-5 striped fish which hung about near the surface and the sandy areas of the bottom, massed shoals of tiny fish surrounding the sunken trees, larger black fish swimming independently, and long-nosed green fish which were about a meter long and hiding among the branches of the trees. In fact there seemed to be a heirarchy among the tree-dwelling fish and the big fellows had their own branches and didn't move even when we got close. All in all a fun dive and it was nice to get the first one of the trip under our weight belts.

We spent the rest of the day lazing about in the sun, snorkeling and generally relaxing on the side of the lake before retiring to plan a bit of a walk for tomorrow...

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Seeboden and Lendorf

2010-08-22T00:51:00.001+01:00

August 18th

Last night we had driven to the south Austrian town of Seeboden which sat on a large lake nestled in the Millstatter Alps. In the morning Rachel was up bright and early to have a paddle in the Millstatter See (the lake bordering the mountains which, looking in the guides, is 600m above sea level) and the report was that the water was warm and clear. In Seeboden there are all kinds of herbal remedy, health spa, relaxation activities but we didn't feel the need for them. What we wanted to do was go diving in the lake and after a scout of the tourist information centre, we were lucky enough to find a Tauchcentre, or Scuba Diving centre operating out of a hotel in Seeboden itself. After lunch we went to the Dive centre and spoke to a nice fellow called Thomas and we arranged to dive from the centre the next morning. Result.

For the rest of the afternoon we took Nailz for a walk in the mountains by the town of Lendorf. We were looking for a magic flower - a yellow rhododendron which is a "botanical rarity" and only grows in one spot in the whole of Austria. It's Latin name is Rhododendrum Luteum Sweet and only grows in a few places in eastern Europe and the Black Sea. We did find it (it was fenced and signposted!) but it's flowering season runs from mid-May to the start of June so it wasn't hugely exciting. We did have a good walk through some lovely scenery though, and we did see lots of yellow and purple flowers which we were quite happy to gaze at as we made our way round one of the many hiking route in this area, and we also found loads of examples of interesting fungi.

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Salzburg

2010-08-22T00:45:00.000+01:00

August 16th

Salzburg
Today we had a mostly slow-paced day and explored some shops on the outskirts of the town of Salzburg. The weather was pretty horrible so we didn't mind avoiding a soaking. The weather did brighten up considerably in the evening so we drove into town, parked up and had a bit of an explore. The shops were closed by this point which was nice because we got to experience the city and the sundown without having to wade through loads of tourists (like us). It also meant we could appreciate the architecture of the old town a little more.
After the walk we decided that we would come back during the day and have a better look round the place.

August 17th

We had a better look around the old town to day, as well as seeing some of the newer parts and hillsides surrounding the town. Some of them were more like mountains to climb but the views were well worth the effort. The Fortress of Hohensalzburg dominates the landscape but we decided not to take the tour round it, instead discovering the more intimate parts of Salzburg.
We started in the Mozartplatz, where a statue of the great composer stands dominating the square. We then moved on to the Altermarkt, or old market where the stalls were doing a brisk trade of Mozartballs, which we politely declined. We did see the smallest house in Salzburg, and it is really small. We then crossed the river and headed towards the Kapuzinerkloster, stopping off to admire the view at the Hettwer-Bastai fortifications over the city and also St Johann am Imburg Kirche, which is the church Mozart attended with his sister as a child. It was re-built by Gandalf, no less, although this was the Archbishop Max Gandalf and his coat of arms is above the door.
We went on to the Kapuzinerkloster which was nice and a bit lower-key than the churches we had been getting used to. We then went on up to the top of the Kapuzinerberg to Franziskischlossl, a castle on top of the 'berg dedicated to St Francis Assisi. The walk to this was great, a real hike up the mountain in deep forest. I really liked the castle too because of it's design and beauty. It was built as an end-point to the fortifications of Salzburg as as such could have been a weak point for attack. Also as it was exposed on the highest point of the Kapuzinerberg (the massive hill we were standing on) it could well have been attacked. However the design of the castle was such that as you approached the castle you would be subject to brutal crossfire on three sides at all times. The platform inside the castle was for artillery to rain fire down on the eastern Salzach valley below. Hence the latin inscription above the gate "may it protect the citizens in eternal peace" was honored, as no attackers even tried to penetrate the castle, such was the deterrent it provided.
We made our way down and into Linzergasse Strasse, into the church of St Sebastion and in particular the cemetery where, among other famous names, Leopold Mozart was laid to rest. We then made our way to the Mirabell gardens which were immaculately kept and pretty before making our way across the river to the Augustinakloster as I had developed a taste for the beer in Munich. After our pit-stop we then made our way to Mozart's townhouse and birthplace before walking up the famous Getreidegasse which is a road full of designer and boutique goods. I saw a lovely twelve string guitar that I would liked to have had a go on, but I wisely decided to move on. Next we passed the Kollegiankirche before finally heading to the Salzburger Dom. This was most impressive, the artwork inside was simply beautiful. I was also impressed with how many organs it had. I counted five, and one big on at the back. Now that is surround sound!
Two final things of note, the first was a Temperature / Barometer gauge thingy, very similar to the ones we had seen in Germany but more elaborate and also with old-school needle and graphs paper, which was quite cool, and the second was a sculpture dedicated to commemorate the success of Austrian and German civilian protests to the building of a nuclear reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf, Bavaria (Germany), and against a governments aim to railroad the plans through, in particular the fence around the construction site which represented the "arrogance of the Nuclear state".

Pretty exhausted by this time, we got back in the van and set a course for south Austria, to a place called Seeboden (no, not Bodensee!!), pretty much on a whim. The journey there though was great fun, going through massive tunnels through the alps and back into fading daylight to see villages nestled in amongst them. It was truly breathtaking.

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Munich to Salzburg

2010-08-21T22:09:00.000+01:00

August 13th

Ok, so today I turned thirty which was a good excuse to drink beer, and was in the beer capital of the World, but I had nobly decided that before we get on the sauce we should take up one of the tours that were going round Munich to fill us in on what we had been seeing over the last day or two. As we had such a good tour from NewEurope tours yesterday at Dachau, we took them up on their offer of a free tour of the city.
The tour started in the Marienplatz with the Neue Rathaus, the new town hall. The Rathaus has a Glockenspiel in which, twice or maybe three times a day, mechanical puppets come to life and tell tales of local legends in interpretive dance. We would later see the Alter Rathaus, or old town hall, which is newer than the "new" Rathaus due to it being bombed and completely destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt subsequently. In fact the majority of buildings in Munich are replicas re-built after the war as the city was heavily targeted by Allied bombers. This may have had something to do with Munich being known as the "Home of the Movement", i.e. the place where the National Socialist Party, or Nazi for short, began it's rise to power.
During the tour there were several references to the Nazi's and Adolf Hitler, who had fled Austria to avoid national service and gone to live in Munich. However, at the outbreak of the First World War he joined the German Army, was injured in a gas attack and hospitalised for temporary blindness. During this time the war ended in defeat for Germany. After the war he used his army pension to rent a flat in Munich.
It was post-war that he got involved in politics, disliking the newly created Republic of Germany after abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm, and joined the German Workers Party, later re-named the National Socialist German Workers Party. It is here in Munich that he gives speeches at beerhalls, like the ones we have been frequenting, and also stages the infamous "Beerhall Putsch" where he tries to stage a coup d'etat, leading to imprisonment in Landsberg am Lech. We went down the street they marched on afterwards before they were intercepted by the police, ending in a gun battle where three or four policement were killed along with fourteen putchists.
Also on this street there are four bavarian lions with golden roses on a shield at their feet. It's tradition when walking down this road that you rub three, but not four lions for good luck, wealth and happiness. Rub a fourth and you are considered greedy.
The St Cajetan church is at the end of this street and it's interior is quite unlike the others seen so far on this trip. While in detail it is as elaborate, there is only white inside this church and it makes for quite an experience.
Elsewhere you have the Church of our Lady, or Frauenkirch which is where the current Pope gave his sermons before taking up his papal office. This was allegedly built by the devil who was tricked by the chief architect and now always has a cool wind surrounding it, but that's another story.
We just had time to go round the market stalls in the Viktualienmarkt which is Munich's oldest market and holds a dazzling array of food and drink, before stopping at a Schneider Weisse inn to sample some more beers.

For the evening we headed back to the Augustina Braukeller, eat some fine Bavarian stodge before and learning some traditional beer songs about being happy and having a good time, which we very much were.

August 14th

Not much happened in the morning due to a significant aching of the bonnet, but in the early afternoon we had a look at the shops in Munich. I can't go on about this too much, but there are a couple of points to make. First is the Viktualienmarkt, mentioned earlier. This is quite amazing and could easily have been a day out in itself. Loads of tasters for cheese, dips and other produce and a mind-boggling array of choice. Second is the sports shops. Quite simply, they are huge (there are two we found in the centre). They have literally everything you need and one even has a rock climbing wall so you can test out your new kit before buying! Also on our gallivant around town we came across the Asamkirche with it's extravagant Rococo interior, which took the biscuit for interior design.
Later we had a drink in the Lowenbraukeller, and I can heartily recommend the Triompheter (strong beer) and Utype beers! This is also one of the Braukellers that Hitler frequented and gave speeches at. The floor plan doesn't seem designed for this though, but it is very grandiose and a fun place to have a beer.

We ended the evening at the Hofbrauhaus, about which many songs have been written, but I know of none. The entertainment was really enjoyable though, an Oompa band playing various classic Bavarian songs, interspersed with whip-cracking percussion (up to five fellows on stage all cracking whips in time with the band) and the occasion drinking song, to which we now knew the words and could sing along (it basically is an invitation to drink). There were other musical entertainments on other floors including this lovely-looking guitar and accordion. It was all great fun, food and company. and a lovely way to round off seeing the folks over the last few days. Cheers Mum and Dad for making the journey to Munich to meet up with us. I had a great birthday and we all had a great time and look forward to seeing you when we get back to Blighty!

August 15th

Sadly, after getting to know it so well, we had to leave Munich and head south to the land of Austria so after a brief pack up we hit the road and headed down to Salzburg. On the way the heavens predictably opened, but as we reached Bad Richenhall something magical happened. First a most complete rainbow appeared on the road ahead, as if to say "Yes, go to Austria!" and secondly the Alps loomed large over us, dark and forboding and very much like something from Tolkein in this weather. Later in Salzburg we managed to take this shot which doesn't show what I mean but still looks pretty cool.

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Dachau Concentration Camp

2010-08-21T22:00:00.000+01:00

August 12th

Dachau

When we were trawling through the tourist guides and tours of Munich, what to see and what not to bother seeing, one thing stood out, head and shoulders above the rest. This was a guided tour of Dachau Concentration Camp, pretty much the only concentration camp in Germany to have been left, as far as possible, as it was when it was in use. This was the concentration camp by which all other concentration camps were measured. It was the very first, and the only to have been in use throughout the time Hitler was in power. It was the first place they dumped conscientious objectors when they assumed power and it was only freed two days before Hitler committed suicide. As our guide, Marcin said, it wasn't going to be the nicest tour, but I am so, so glad we went.

So you walk up to the gate and see the words "Arbeit Macht Frei", or, "Your work will set you free" in English so it's a pretty nasty start considering the vast majority of people going in will not come out. I don't need to go on about the gruesomeness of the camp's past and I'm sure most of you won't want to read about it - and to be honest I was the same. But actually visiting this place changed the way my brain processed the information. Walking round the camp and seeing the quarters where prisoners were kept, beaten, tortured and murdered allowed me to take onboard what happened in a much more real sense. About the gate, the original was destroyed by the Americans getting in so a new replica was made for the memorial. It is not used as the gate now however, there is a second gate in front of this one so that this one need never be closed again. Also the cell doors in the inner part of Dachau, called the "bunker" have been bolted open so they can never be closed.

There was also an extremely scary efficiency to much that I saw. The camp changed a lot during the war to enable new techniques of torture, control, prisoner storage and disposal to be tried and tested. Dachau was the place to try everything first.

For me, the thing that will stick in my mind most vividly is the gas chamber. I'm not quite sure what I expected before I went, I certainly can't remember now, but the the place was scary in a way nothing else quite is. It was built for purpose. Take the prisoners in one end, there's lockers for them to put their clothes, next door leads to the "shower room", next door is where you pile the bodies, next room you burn the bodies...

Dachau was also the place the SS used to train new recruits and de-humanise them. On the site there are barracks, classrooms and housing for SS recruits (usually about 16-19 years old) and the officers just outside the camp. It's also important to mention that all the key buildings in Germany associated with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party are now occupied by Government organizations to stop Neo-Nazi's from using them as shrines. We found this out when our guide was pointing out some buildings on the way into the concentration camp which used to house new SS recruits but now housed trainee riot police. As our guide was explaining the historical use of the building, a squad of riot police - on cue and in full riot gear - marched in front of it. It was a strange feeling to say the least!

I'm not going to go on about the experience too much, needless to say that if you get the chance to go to Munich or nearby, go and see Dachau. It is absolutely worthwhile. Each year over one million visitors pass through the gates and around one fifth of these are German school children. The Germans are not hiding away their history but displaying it so that it's and our future generations can take the opportunity to learn from it. This is the best memorial that there can ever be to the millions of people murdered in camps like this all over Europe and western Russia. It was the prisoners themselves, just after being freed by the Americans, who insisted that the camp be left intact for that very purpose.

There is also a pretty incredible sculpture dedicated to the prisoners of Dachau, you can see that here.

Finally, our guide, Marcin (New Europe Tours), was incredibly knowledgeable about all aspects of Dachau and had regularly spoken with survivors of Dachau to ensure he was able to relay the information as authentically and accurately as possibly. He really made the whole tour very accessible and rewarding, so a big thanks to you.

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Starnberg to Munich

2010-08-21T21:57:00.000+01:00

August 10th

Starnberg
Today again the weather was great so we had a bit of a chilled one,
window shopping in the town, catching up on e-mail (while sipping
coffee!) and finding out what there is to do in Munich and how to do it.
The afternoon was spent reading on the Lakeside and snorkeling -
there were a surprising amount of fish in the Starnbergersee, massed
shoals of silver streaks of light and larger solo wrasses graced the
blue water. It was really clear considering the amount of water and
therfore mud which had been added to it recently!

Munich
After getting ourselves together we made the relatively short hop to Munich (München), the first big city since Strasbourg to meet up with my parents who had flown out for a few days to help celebrate my 30th. Once we had found a suitable parking spot and paid the appropriate fare we met up with the old fogies and had a lovely meal (proper Bavarian stodge to line the stomach before a good drinking session) and sunk a few Augustinas (one of many local brews in Munich) to round a lovely day off.

August 11th

We got up and moved the van to the second campsite or the expedition, Campingplatz Nord-West. We had decided that it would be easier using public transport to get around the sprawling city, and the campsite afforded us showers, washing machines and a place to try out our awning, without the risks associated with driving your home through, and parking in a busy city. The nearest rail link into the city centre, a small satellite suburb called Moosach, was a twenty minute cycle ride through a nice park and on good cycle lanes, so we got a regular bit of exercise each morning an night. Our bikes were safely locked at the station and we knew that as we had the cheapest bikes out of the hundred and fifty or so locked up at the small station, only a tiny blind thief would try to steal our humble transports.
The rail links were excellent, ran frequently, always on time and were also incredibly affordable. We bought a 3-day, 5-person (and 1 dog) ticket which allowed unlimited travel to the "Innerraum" which was basically all of Munich which allowed all of us to scoot around the city at will. Nailz was a bit perturbed by the train at first, but by the end was a seasoned rail-traveling dog.

Once we had met up with Ma unt Pa, we had a leisurely mooch around Munich city centre, working our way up to the Englischer Garten. This is a vast expanse of parkland, in fact the tourist guide says it's the "largest park within city walls" and I can believe it. It is huge and took us all day to amble through part of it. We were distracted a little by the beergarten in the centre of it, but we were soon back walking among the picturesque paths alongside the river. We even came across a waterfall and some surfers riding the waves created by a bridge! The Garten was so big we struggled just made it back to the beergarten where we decided to sink a few more (for strength) and enjoy the "Oompa" band which was playing in the Chinesischer Turm (a big four-level Chinese-style tower). We then staggered back toward the Marienplatz where we hopped on the train, stopping to drop off the Mum and Dad before headed back to Moosach.

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Landberg am Lech, Kloster Andechs and Starnberg

2010-08-21T21:55:00.000+01:00

August 9th

Landberg am Lech
We explored Landsberg am Lech during the morning. The market had finished the day before but there was still plenty to see. The river (Lech) was still way higher than normal due to the recent rain, and when it hit the weir (just after the main bridge into the town) it was turned from a powerful, but orderly body of water into a seething, angry mass.
Now Landsberg am Lech has a very interesting reputation as one of two places in Germany which offers the highest quality of life, according to "Stern Magazine" - so the tourist leaflet proudly claims (I'm not making this up!). Avoiding the obvious jokes about what constitutes the high life for our Bavarian friends, Landsberg does have a very interesting (and in part notorious) history. It was here that Adolf Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf" whilst in prison, Hitler Youth groups staged mass demonstrations, and it was also part of the route of the death marches of prisoners from the nearby Dachau concentration camp, and it's subsidiaries, towards the end of the war. Advertising quality of life, given it's murky past, has an unfortunate irony to it. There is a somewhat discreet memorial to the death march (by the main road heading out of town), but "there is nothing to see" as I was told by the young chap in the tourist office of the rest of the war connections. The prison is still a working prison so access is not an option. We did find a bunker (what I think is a bunker anyway) hidden away in the woods during a walk around the city walls.

The town centre is wonderful mix of colourful buildings, angular roofs, and cobbled roads. To get to it you go through a nice archway which is part of an old gateway tower and it has a rather nice clock. On the other side of the tower, nestled in amongst the townhouses is the old town hall, which boasts a stucco facade. Elsewhere in the town you can find the Maiden's Jump tower (Jungfernsprungturm) which got it's name during during the 30 years war. Also I liked the Lutherun Chrisus Church which was where the market was held the day before and is on the other side of the river from the town. It is very Disney, although dates from 1913. The highlight for me though was the Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche, a former Jesuit college church built around 1753 with a modest exterior and the most explosively decorative interior I had seen. Trying to take a good picture of the frescoes, by Christoph Thomas Scheffler, was pretty much impossible.

Kloster Andechs
For the afternoon we headed to Kloster Andechs, which is a monestary between Landsberg and Munich where they brew Andechs beer. We had heard that this was the beer to drink and so headed there at full speed to try and sample the wares. We had a look around the church, which was neatly painted on the outside, including the clock faces. I was astonished to see another such a lavishly decorated place of worship just after we had left Lansdberg. It really is hard to take a good picture of these places with a standard digital camera! On to the main attraction, and in the beer hall we found the first of what would be regular sight in Bavaria, a whole bank of personal tankards locked up ready for their owners to allow them to fulfill their destiny. It was a beautifully sunny afternoon so we sat back in the beergarten and sipped "doppelldunkles" before having a walk round the area to "freshen up".

Starnberg
A good while later that day we found ourselves in the town of Starnberg where this view of the Starnbergersee greeted us. The area had been hit by widespread flooding, notably by the Wasserpark (yep, the waterpark) and the railway Station which was only crossable by using the scaffolding set up to keep pedestrians out of the water, however you had to duck as there was only about 4 foot clearance from the ceiling! As we had arrived late the town was winding down for the day, and we satisfied ourselves with a walk by the lake before winding down ourselves.

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Landsberg am Letch

2010-08-10T13:00:00.000+01:00

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Click here for our route

August 8th
I wish someone had told me that the weather in Germany was much like that of Britain, but wetter! Today started ominously with the patter of rain on the roof but soon lapsed into a pattern of light drizzle, shower, sunshine, drizzle...

Today we were heading east to the town of Landsberg am Letch, just west of Munich (or Munchen). We had read a bit about the town and decided we should allow two days for exploring as there is a bit to see here. After a bit of traveling on the Autobahn, we hit Landsberg and drove through it's cobbled town centre and parked in a Stellplatz (by luck rather than judgment). Today was the last day of a crafts market and we had a good look around. It was predominantly pottery but had garden ornaments, necklaces, bracelets, dangley things and lots more curiosities.

The river ran beside the market and further up toward the town centre the river was broken by a weir. Because of all the rain in this area too, it was a torrent and even when we were back at the van a little way away it was the only sound you could hear. It was pretty cool. We had a brief look around the town before heading back tot he van for supper and to settle down for the night.

Lindau to Bregenz (cycling from Germany to Austria!)

2010-08-10T12:59:00.000+01:00

Click here for the photos (sorry I've not had time to link them up!)
Click here for our route

August 7th
This morning we got up early for coffee and showers before leaving the campsite (and neighbouring donkeys) behind in favour of the town of Lindau. We parked close to the railway station, got out our bikes and cycled the small distance to the town.

Lindau is a tiny island in Lake Bodensee, which is joined to the mainland by a bridge for vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. The town is a wonder of varied architecture from the 13th century Mang Tower, or "Old Lighthouse", to the New Lighthouse and Bavarian Lion which guard the harbour and where built in the 19th Century. The main street (Maximillianstrasse) we buzzing with stalls and in the air the local Zeppelin floated calmly overhead. Finally the weather was on our side and the bright sunlight brought out all the colour in this vibrant little isle. Even the New Lighthouse had a smiley face!
The main government buildings such as the Old town hall and Railway Station were wonderfully ornate and beautifully decorated, the old town hall in particular, with it's mural paintings based on sketches by Munich painter Josef Wildmann. Even town houses, formerly owned by wealthy merchants, were getting in on the act.
The view from the harbour deserves a mention too as from here you can see Bregenz, in Austria, and it's surrounding forests as well as the Rhine valley in Switzerland. With the sun reflecting off the lake it was spectacular.

We stopped for a picnic on the lake walls before again taking to our bicycles and hitting a cycle route which passed the van. Next we went to go to the nature reserve which was a stone's throw from the van but because of the amount of rain we had had in the area lately Lake Bodensee had risen considerably which meant most of it was now under water!

So, next, we decided to cycle around the lake. It's worth noting at this point that cycling is more than a hobby over here, it's a way of life. Cycling here is like being in the Tour de France. There are cycle lanes to take you anywhere you want to go and the cycle lanes in Belgium, Holland and France, Luxembourg (and beyond I'm sure) all link up. We saw a lot of families with camping equipment on their backs bombing around on slick-looking racers and mountain bikes. We got a lot of smiles and curious expressions as they saw us with Nailz running full tilt alongside them.

During the cycle we came across an interesting feature which was a pillar with all kinds of information on it such as the temperature, humidity, distance to capitols (851Km to London), where it was midday and much more besides. It also showed the height of the lake since 1817, which showed that there had not been much change. No global warming here then.

The cycle route took us into the Austrian town of Bregnez, which we had been looking at from across the water earlier in the day from Lindau, about 8 Km away. Here we found a lovely park over looking the Lake and parked the bikes to have a look around.
The first thing we really noticed was what looked like a large broken sculpture a little way off. We made our way there through the park to find a semi-stadium which surrounded a large stage which was actually on the water. Here, and what we thought to be the broken statue, was an intricate stage for an opera on the water. The set looked like a broken Statue of Liberty with a golden elephant for good measure. We had arrived just as they were performing some tests and we got to see how the stage was going to move during the performance, for instance the torch would rise from and fall back into the water and the face of the statue would split in two and be lifted by two cranes. We were told this was the biggest stage on water in the world, and it did look impressive but we decided to carry on exploring.

As we were looking around the town of Bregenz we spotted the top of a bulbous tower over top of the town houses, so we made our way up a steep slope of cobble streets, under an archway (with portcullis) and into Bregenz-Oberstadt. This was the walled old-town of Bregnez and every street was made up of wonderfully quaint houses, often with detailed murals adorning the walls. We found the church of Martinsturm which, in keeping with the area, was a lovely church with a bulbous tower. Walking back through the new town I spotted this terrible advertisement for health and safety in the workplace.

We got back on our bicycles and with a slightly weary Nailz by our side set off for Germany and the comfort of our van. It had a been a long and tiring, but rewarding day. The sun shining had been a real treat after the rain we had had recently and to be able to cycle to another country on great cycle paths, enjoying the sights along the way was tremendous fun and now our bed was calling.

More Friedrichshafen

2010-08-06T22:26:00.000+01:00

August 5th
Just when I thought it couldn't rain any more... more monster deluges today!! To avoid getting drowned, we found ourselves a very welcoming (and just as importantly warm and dry) bar, called Ellis bar which had free Wi-Fi or W-Lan as it's known over here. Drying out with coffees, which progressed to beers and then cocktails, we set about organising a dive in Lake Bodensee whilst we were here as a treat for Rachel's birthday. The owner of the bar, Steven, had lived in Southampton and was particularly useful as a translator. Watching us struggle he kindly got on the phone to a friend of his, and a few e-mails later we looked sorted for diving on Saturday.

Also whilst whiling our day away in the bar we bumped into one of the street performers from the previous day. All the way from Argentina, Sebastian's set consisted of just himself and a loop station, building phrase after phrase in the manner of a modern one man band. We got chatting and he gave me details of his web site which is http://www.artealpaso.com. There is free music on there to download, on the condition that you do something nice for somebody else.

Friday 6th August
Once again atrocious rain. The local stream, leading to the lake has become a surging brown torrent. Diving on Saturday is looking highly unlikely as the lake which, only two days ago, was crystal clear now appears to be made of coffee! Not only that but the road we needed to cross to reach our dive guys in Austria is now closed due to flooding! Nay mind eh?
We booked ourselves into our first camp site of the entire trip this morning so we could just relax for the day, at Der Landgasthof in Kressbonn. It's a very nice camp with free Wi-Fi, hence the regular updates and although the weather was poor, our spirits were not. Tonight Rachel and I are relaxing over a few bottles (or Flaschen) of German beer and a nice bottle of Cherry Wine! Cheers!

On to Bodensee

2010-08-05T15:37:00.000+01:00

August 4th
From Singen we headed in a south-easterly direction and joined up with the coastal road running around Lake Constance (or Bodensee). The views were spectacular looking down onto the vast expanse of water surrounded by Austrian and Swiss Alps, which were themselves covered in mist giving them a strange other-worldly feel. The lake is the third biggest lake in Central Europe and we drove for almost an hour and a half just to get a quarter of the way round.
We stopped in the town of Friedrichshaffen on the north side of the lake to have a look at a street festival which was going on at the waters edge. There were street performers, face painting (I was tempted), music, bar tents (serving beer in proper flagons!), food and stalls selling all types of gifts, all with the backdrop of the lake and the many boats that harbored up there. It was a lovely day and it was a pleasure just mooching about the stalls and watching the performers.

Erstein, Europapark and the Black Forest

2010-08-05T15:36:00.000+01:00

August 1st
Erstein was a nice little town but we didn't explore a lot today other than walking Nailz about for a while. The town did have a McDonalds so we pulled up outside to use the free WiFi and ended up spending most of the day looking up bits and bobs (mostly how and where to find free 'Stellplatz' - the German equivalent of Aires du Reste, some with free loos, electricity and drinking water), and Skyping the parents. We then filled up with Gazole as we had heard it was cheaper in France than in Germany and headed over the border.
We were heading to a theme park called Europapark which is in the town of Rust, barely over the border. We had found a free StellPlatz just up the road from it in the town of Kappel. It was no more than a car park by a lake, but it would do us fine so we pulled up, rustled up some dinner and bedded down for the night amidst another mild thunder storm.

August 2nd
Rachel and I got up like kids before Christmas and headed to Rust, and to Europapark. This place was just awesome and we had an amazing time. I think we went on every ride going and there were some excellent roller-coasters along with loads of other great attractions. It absolutley bucketed down with rain at times which caused rides to be closed for a short period, but this did not put a dampener on our day, even though we were soaked through by the end of it. Another good thing was that it wasn't too busy so we were able to get off one ride and straight onto another almost immediately. They even provided free showers (which was a welcome bonus) and also free electric hookup with the camper parking. As our solar panels were providing all the energy we needed we didn't make use of the electric, but it was good to know it was available. If you are in the area it is well worth the entrance money. After we had showered and got into some dry clothes we set off for the town of Bonndorf in the Black Forest region of Germany, to look for cake. On the way we passed through some incredible countryside with sheer drops on one side of the road, and sheer cliff faces on the other. They were the kind of snake-like roads you see on Top Gear, and Rachel had a lot of fun driving amongst the clouds as we wound our way up the mountains.

August 3rd
Last night we had stayed in another 'recommended' parking spot, also just a car park, but this time by a sports stadium! Bonndorf (im Schwatzwald to give it the full name) is in the heart of the Black Forest so we had to have a look at this ancient forest full of legends. After breakfast we took a walk through the forest and saw loads of types of mushrooms, wild strawberries (which tasted super-sweet) and blueberries amongst other treats. We didn't take any mushrooms as the odds of us getting the wrong ones is probably a punter's nightmare. Rachel has a book to help us identify the right kinds, but for now we were just happy taking a walk through this underworld of dark green. It was a lovely sunny day, a nice contrast from yesterday's deluge, but in under the dense canopy scant patches of light were able to break through.
After exploring the forest for a while we got back to the van and headed toward Lake Constance, or Bodensee to use it's local name. En route the heavens opened again briefly but by now we were used to this weather. When it rains it really rains and when the sun is out it's really hot.
As we neared the next StellPlatz in the town of Singen (not to be confused with Schingen, Luxembourg folks) we passed the ruins of a castle on a high mountain top. We had to have a look. We were looking at the Duke of Alemannia's fortress, Hohentweil which was built in the 10th century on the top of a volcano. Dr Evil eat your heart out. The castle used to be an enclave belonging to the Duchy of Württemberg in the middle of Austria. The castle withstood five sieges during the 30 years war and as a fortress in the middle of enemy territory it was heavily armed. The view from the castle shows just how difficult it would have been to take by force.
Once we had descended from the castle we made the short journey to our stop for the night, a free Stellplatz in the shadow of the fortress, and made camp.

Haguenau to Strasbourg

2010-08-01T19:11:00.000+01:00

July 28th
We woke up in Haguenau by the river, which seems to be our favoured type of location! The weather was absolutley atrocious so we holed up in a friendly bar for the most part of the day. We did venture out during the breaks in the weather to have a look at the town. We found most unusual clock on the side of a museum of folklore (literally meaning historical life in the town), and also found our first Geocache of the trip but the weather soon put a halt to further exploring.

In the afternoon we went for a swim in the local piscine which was a welcome treat. To round the night off we opened a bottle of Pinot Blanch that we had bought from Luxembourg, grown in the town of Reimich in the Moiselle area.

July 29th
Today the weather was very changeable. One minute it was lovely and hot, the next the sky was completely black and rumblings of thunder were heard in the distance. We decided to find the local Aire du Reste to fill up our water supplies so headed to the nearby town of Souflenheim. Here we fould the reste without too much difficulty and were pleased to find free water and electricity provided for weary motor-homers. I wish this were the case in Britain!

The town itself is typical of the towns found in the Alsace region of France, very old-looking heavy-beamed houses, reminiscent of Norman age buildings in England. If this were England the town would be a National Trust Heritage site, but as they are everywhere in this part of France not much notice is taken except by the likes of us who walk round with jaws hanging a little. The town is also famous for it's pottery which is on sale throughout France.

We filled up our water containers and were washing our clothes when a fellow who was working on one the houses adjoining the Reste came up to us for a chat. He had seen the number plate and asked where we were from. He explained that he had worked in Yeovil for a while for Westland Aerospace, which is a stones throw from where I used to live in my younger days!

July 30th
We had stayed the night in Haguenau as we had a good feel for the area, and now that morning was upon us we decided that it was time to move on to Strasbourg, the capital of Europe and Alsace! However, our first impression of the city was not good. Because we had become accustomed to smaller towns and villages and a slower pace of life we were not quite ready for the vastness and 'hecticness' that is the capital of Europe. We had driven into the "business-end" of the city which could be any major town in Europe. Still once we had found a place to put the van we set about finding our feet. We are both very glad we did.

The best part of Strasbourg has to be the "Petite France" area of the city. This is the old-school part of the town and full of bustling coffee shops, bars, street entertainment and music. We spent the afternoon walking among this vibrant landscape and stopped for coffees when we needed a rest. We also came across the Cathedral de Notre Dame, made from pink sandstone and towering above the city. It is an impressive sight with arrays of gargoyles and probably the most intricate and elaborately sculptured architecture on a building we had ever seen. Inside there were impressive windows, a beautifully designed organ and an astrological clock which shows a procession of life-size figures of Christ and the Apostles which occurs every day at 12:30pm. Its main features, besides the automata, are a perpetual calendar (including a computus), an orrery (planetary dial), a display of the real position of the Sun and the Moon, and Solar and Lunar Eclipses. The main attraction is the prosession of the life-size figures of Christ and the Apostles which occurs every day at 12:30pm, that is at noon clock time.

We headed back to the van to find a place to stop for the night and found a convenient spot by the one of the canals coming from the Rhine and easily within walking distance of the city centre.
In the evening we went back to into the city and to the bars to sample the excellent array of alcoholic beverages before making our way back to the Cathedral to watch the illuminations. Each night the Cathedral is lit by hundreds of coloured lights positioned around and inside the Cathedral, and these lights focus on different areas of the architecture in time with music. The whole cathedral seems to dance with the music and it is quite a spectacle, and if possible made the Cathedral seem even more magical and impressive than before.

July 31st
Today we got up and hit the Markets in town. There were all kinds of markets, from local produce to antiques, crafts, books - pretty much any type of market you cared for was there. In the afternoon I broke my busking duck and took the plunge. Yep, I've never busked anywhere before so guitar and amp on my back I again headed to the Cathedral, which was where all the other buskers and crowds were. I found a nice little spot and played for about 45 mins (which is incredible in itself if you have ever seen me play at open mic nights! Usually I can do two songs at the most!). It was a beautiful place to play and although I did get a bit of change, the fact that I was able to play in such a nice part of the world was a sheer joy. I can't believe I've waited this long to do it!

In the evening Rachel and I headed down the canal to another exhibition called "Dreams over water". This was another free exhibition put on to celebrate summer in Strasbourg, and what a lovely way to celebrate!
It was a perfectly syncronised combination of music, light projections, fountains and lasers creating most elaborate and colourful sculptures in air and water. Each country in Europe was represented for a few minutes and for the UK, the Beatles - All You Need Is Love came on. The result was breathtaking and although this show was held every night and was about a month into the run, the banks of the river were crammed with spectators. Words cannot do it justice.

After the show we headed back to the van and went south, eventually ending up in a town called Erstein where we holed up for the night.

By the way, we are loving reading all the comments that have been left either on the blog or on the Flickr pages, so a big thanks to all that have commented and please keep doing so! And no Dougie, some of the really smelly cheese is just to strong it import it, sorry.

Click here for the route so far
Click here for our Flickr photos

Wormeldange to Haguenau

2010-07-28T15:33:00.000+01:00

July 26th
Today we changed course completely to arrive in the town of Wormeldange in the Moselle valley which is the wine-growing part of Luxembourg, to the east. Literally every scrap of available land has a vineyard of it.
A relaxy day was called for so once we had found a suitable spot, we did a bit of exploring and found an nearby stream (which ran underneath where we had parked) flowing from a lovely little waterfall. Got a really nice picture of Nailz here too. Later on it started to rain so we kicked back in the van, admired the view and settled down for the night. Lovely.

July 27th
From Wormeldange we headed south to Ehnan and stopped briefly by the river Moselle. While there we were passed by the boat MS Princesse Marie-Astrid, which was the venue of the the signing of the first Schengen Agreement. This agreement stipulated terms for removing of internal border controls between Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany and has since been altered to include all members of the EU with the two notable exceptions of the UK and Ireland.
From Ehnan we headed to the town of Schengen itself but stopped of first at the town of Remershen. There we saw an exhibition showing off creative and hands-on skills of children aged 12 - 26 to celebrate the Schengen agreement's 25th anniversary (this year). The idea was to design and build a hut, or similar with the theme "traveling without borders". Seemed entirely appropriate we were there! Among my favourites were amost literal description of the Schengen Agreement, and a bike which keeps you dry in the rain, transforms into a tent and according to the accompanying diagram you can ride it off a cliff (it transforms into a parachute) and land it in the sea as it, of course, is also a boat. When we're back we need to start work on this!!
Next we arrived in Schengen and found the European Museum which held a lot of detail about the formation of the EU, the Schengen agreement and the various bodies which control different aspects of European integration.
It was really nice to be in the town where the agreement was signed, that allowed us to roam from one country to the next. To emphasise the point we then drove straight over the river into Germany and then back into France!

We were heading for Strasbourg, to an 'Aire Municipal' (or free service stop that allows people to camp and using the services) when we stopped for a break in the town of Bitche. Here we found a fort which was part of the defenses of the Maignot line, built after WWI to prevent Germany invading. The German Army did attack it unsuccessfully, but then broke through in Belgium, sweeping round the Maignot line and occupying France. Nailz had a good explore around the fort, and I think he enjoyed the views as much as I did.

Heading towards Strasbourg again, we stopped for the night in a town called Haguenau. The road we had initially stopped on was called the Rue de la Torture, but a swift bit of reversing ensured we stayed on the Rue de la Liberation! Much nicer.

Click here for the route so far!
There are more photos on our Flickr account, click here to have a look at all of them.

Luxembourg City

2010-07-28T15:27:00.000+01:00

We spent the morning slowly getting ourselves together and headed down toward Luxembourg city, stopping off to update blogs outside McDonalds (never thought I'd be so happy to see them - you don't even have to buy anything if you can park close enough to get free WiFi!!).
We got to the city itself in the afternoon and it is truly amazing. It is like nothing I've seen before, a complete mash-up of styles, from the intimidatingly gothic to the downright picturesque (a word I'm using quite a lot I know). This place has the lot.
From the bit of history I have read on the place it has changed hands more often than a typist with RSI. The Burgundians, the French, the Spanish, the Austrians and the Germans have all held it at some point and have all added to it's defense too, making it the "Gibralter of the north". Some more interesting facts about the city, it is divided into three levels of defenses; the inner 'girdle' is fortified with bastions, the next contained no less than 15 forts, and third layer a massive exterior wall which contained an extra nine forts all hewn into the rock. There is 23km of underground tunnels, 40,000 m² of underground rooms (said to be bombproof) in the foundations of the city. The city surface covers 120 hectares while the fortifications covered - at their peak - 180 hectares.

Makes you think really. It doesn't matter how careful you are, if someone really wants to get in...

There are a huge number of stairs and steep slopes to climb and I'm sure we have done the equivalent of a step-aerobic marathon today.

On leaving the city we headed to the "Land of the red rocks" which is where iron ore used to be mined making the rocks red, hence the name. The problem was we headed a little too far to the west and actually crossed the border back into Belgium again to a town called Auberge, where we spent the night.

Click here for our Flickr photo album

Luxembourg Ardennes

2010-07-25T16:04:00.000+01:00

So we woke to find the best view so far and made the short trip down to Esch-sur-sure where we found a delightful ruined castle overlooking the river Sure. Surrounding the castles was the now familiar lush green of the Ardennes and it made for a lovely picture (sorry for the blemish in the foreground!).
From there we headed on to Bourscheid which boasted another castle, this time restored to a large degree. We had a look around the castle and then headed further west to Vianden to see, you guessed it, yet another castle. Luxembourg is spoiled with romatic ruins and castles, in fact in the Ardennes area (nothern Luxembourg) alone there are dozens of historical sites dotted around the country. More than enough for a second visit sometime!
The castle at Vianden is particularly nice and the town as a whole is very pretty. We had a little lunch in the town and then a roam around the castle grounds. There is also a 450m chair lift, but we decided Nailz wouldn't like it so stayed on terra firma.

That reminds me, we mentioned a zip line in the Ardennes area of France that we wanted to have a go on. We did try to find it and when we asked at the tourist info office at Charleville-Mezieres, we were told that it had been torn down during a "tempest"! When we travelled through Belgium the first time, we saw evidence of trees being plucked from their roots and snapped in two and apparently the storm had hit only the week before. If we had left a week earlier it seems our beloved van would have been in the path of destruction!

Leaving Vianden, we headed toward Luxembourg city along the beginning of the "Valley des sept Chateaux" or valley of seven castles. We found a nice one at Hollenfels and decided to park up for the night nearby. We were just cooking dinner when a car pulled up next to us and it's occupants, in a midlands accent, said "you're a long way from home!". This is how we met Keith and his wife Vilma, who now live here in Luxembourg and Vilma's sister, Teresa who was visiting them. After dinner we met them at the local restaurant for a drink and quickly got chatting about all manner of subjects (notable football scores - they were keen Wolves supporters) and our travel plans. They invited us to another town to a bar to meet some further friends of theirs, including Steve and Steve (that made remembering names easier!). We had a great night chatting away to them and the other locals, most notably Pete (a master trumpeter, who loves "The sons of the Pioneers") and Sergie (another football and rugby fan).
In the hope that they get to see this blog, we want to say a big thank you for a wonderful night! Unfortunately being slightly inebriated, I managed to leave the card with Steve's details in the bar but please drop me a message through google messages on this site!

Here is the route so far!

Bastogne to Luxembourg

2010-07-25T16:03:00.000+01:00

We left Charleville-Mezieres on the evening of the 22nd and headed into Belgium again so we were well placed to get to Luxembourg the next day. We found a nice lay-by near the village of Neuvillers and set up for the night. The next day we woke to a massive queue outside, which it transpires was for an international agricultural festival which was being held in the field next to us!
I had spent the night before reviewing a tourist brochure downloaded from the Luxembourg tourist website and decided that we should explore the Ardennes area of Luxembourg before working our way down to the capital itself. This also meant that a visit to the Belgian town of Bastogne was en route. This also seemed worthwhile as we had seen the series Band of Brothers which recanted the exploits of "Easy" Company, part of the US 101st Airborne who famously held the town against German encirclement during the Battle of the Bulge, so we headed there first.

Bastogne
This was a lively town with plenty of WWII memorials and monuments to the sacrifices made not only in the town but the surrounding Ardennes area. An American Sherman tank guards the main square which is named after General McAuliffe who famously replied "NUTS" when the Germans asked for the Americans to surrender the town (they were encircled and cut off from the rest of the Allied troops). It just so happens that there is a big nuts festival in Bastogne every year and had been since long before the war, so anyone who thinks that Americans know nothing of irony has been mislead.
There is also a quite imposing church, the Church of St Pierre.
I visited an exhibition called "J'ais 20 ans en 40" meaning "I was 20 years old in 1940" which recounted the experiences of the war from all sides and I found it hugely thought-provoking. There were displays of Belgian civilian life under occupation and how Belgian male civilians and soldiers were transported to Germany and forced to work in the factories, supporting the German war effort. Those who refused to go to Germany had to go into hiding and become part of the resistance, forgoing their supply of rationing unless others could provide them with assistance and risk their own lives.

In the exhibition, amongst lots of other interesting displays, there was a room which was completely white with about a dozen or so tree trunks commonly found in the Ardennes. As you walk in you hear the sound of coughing and a wheeze. Suddenly you hear the explosion of gunfire, and then artillery which gets louder and louder, which then suddenly dies out only to start over again. When you are in this room you can't help but be thankful that you weren't fighting in the forests surrounding Bastogne. There is a memorial to the members of "Easy" Company who fell on the outskirts of the town and some foxholes in the forest nearby. The forest itself seemed to quite foreboding to us, and as if to add to the atmosphere, thunder rippled from the sky as we walked among the square-ish holes in the ground.

In to Luxembourg
As the thunder clouds were coming in we decided to head for the border and enter Luxembourg rather than sleep in the forest. I had read about a picturesque town called Esch-sur-sure so we put that into the SatNav and off we went. As we got over the border to Luxembourg we were greeted with petrol stations selling Diesel at 0.98 Euros per litre, which by my reckoning is about 83p per litre!! Needless to say we filled up.
Heading toward Esch-sur-sure we found what I think will be a contender for most picturesque place to sleep. We were on a very large hill overlooking a huge lake and dam. Words can't describe this so just look at the pictures!

Here is the route so far!

Chillin' in Charleville

2010-07-22T16:27:00.001+01:00

21st July
Today we stayed in Charleville to do a bit more exploring and generally have a relaxing day soaking up the sites and sounds. We ventured into the town and admired the architecture. Some of it was quite amazing, others not so. Charleville was built in the 17th Century and there are many grandiose buildings which reflect that time. For example there is the Place Ducale which is a replica of the Place des Vosges in Paris. Rachel, having been to Paris, even commented that the buildings were very familiar, before we found this out!
The other part of Charleville-Mezieres is the 10th Century town of Mezieres. We were told that this was the medieval part of the town, however we could not identify much architecture from this period apart from a historical monument and the Basilique Notre Dame. This was an imposing gothic-looking building and we got to have a look from the outside, but it was closed by the time we got there. Still, I'm hoping to get inside tomorrow as the stained-glass windows are apparently well worth a look.

The Nailz effect
Having Nailz with us is a real help. Wherever we go we are approached by folks wanting to say hi to him. After a few false starts we are quickly getting into dog-french and finally I'm able to use my basic french skills - "Il s'appelle Nailz" I say confidently, "quoi?" is the usual reply, "errr, 'ammeur and Nailz" I reply hopefully... Still dogs are great in which ever language you make a fool of yourself in and it always ends in a smile and a wave "Au revoir".

Local tipples
We weren't going to miss this, a 10% lager for me and a 8% cherry lager for Rachel. I can't remember the name of either of them, or what happened after that to be honest but I remember thinking they were great. Something Rouge was the cherry one... Someting about Trappiste monks...

From Wimborne to Charleville-Mezieres

2010-07-20T16:10:00.000+01:00

L'Eurotunnel - 20th July

So the day of reckoning came around in both a lifetime and the blink of an eye. Rachel, Nailz and I had been ready for this adventure for some time, yet when the day came it was still a bit of a surprise!
We started the day the right way with full cooked breakfast courtesy of Rachel's gourmet-chef-of-a-brother (cheers Mike), and soon we were on our way to Folkestone in our self-built campervan. I'm going to post about this wonderful creation in great detail very soon, but I need to catch up with the day's events first.
So we get to the Eurotunnel terminal in good time, and I was surprised with how easy it all was. Everyone we had dealings with from security and passport control to the folks who just help you park on the train were all very helpful, courteous and above all friendly.

France to Belgium and back again

Once if France we headed straight for the Ardennes region, specifically a town called Charleville-Mezieres. We had read about a massive zip line in the area and looking at the pictures was something we definitely wanted to have a go at. Also the Ardennes region straddles France, Belgium and Luxembourg which is where we wanted to head next. It also left most of northern France and Belgium for us to discover another time.
So we hit the road and soon were blasting through the countryside of France before zipping past Lille and up into Belgium. Click here for the route we took. The only indicators that we were now in a completely different country were the change in numberplate format and accompanying B badges and subtly different road signs. Further on into Belgium, and nearer the Ardennes region, the motorways and main roads were completely lined with thick woodland and the tone of the country changed from farmland and industrial to lush green forests.
We passed by Mons and Charleroi before heading south towards Charleville-Mezieres and the invisible French border. It was a beautiful drive.

Charleville-Mezieres

We got to Charleville at just before 8pm - right when the shops were pretty much closed and only the bars and cafes were getting ready for business. We had managed to park in the town so we could have a wander round and get our bearings for the following day. After our long day of driving we also wanted to celebrate the first night with a drink and found a nice little bar right in the center of the town. They had an array of lagers and interestingly the weakest one was called Stella Artois! Being only 5%, seems Stella is the "soft" drink in these parts. Next to that was 6% Leffe (which is served in half measure only where I come from), then three Trappiste lagers (more Belgian lagers) ranging from 8% to an incredible 10% strength! I was gutted that I had brought the van and vowed to return to sample these delights the next day. We then had a stroll by the river and Rachel was excited to see some flying fish before we headed back to the van.

Making camp

On our drive into Charleville we spotted a decent place to set up camp for the night and got back there just before dark. There was already an articulated lorry parked up so we knew it would be alright to stop there. Next to us in the field to our right was what seemed to be a huge gun emplacement or more likely an observation point, possibly a remnant of WWII. Whatever it used to be it was now covered in graffiti giving an art-deco feel to it. A bit like Banksy in reverse. We just had time for some noodles before collapsing into bed after what had been a tiring but brilliant day.

What's this all about then?

2010-07-06T18:26:00.001+01:00

Firstly thanks for visiting this blog! If you already know myself (Matt), Rachel or Nailz (our Jack Russell Terrier) then it's great to be able to update you on our adventure. If you don't know us (yet) but have stumbled across this blog, our aim is to provide a detailed narrative of our adventures as we explore parts of Europe in a self-built campervan. We will be free-camping where possible, scuba diving, and generally exploring. On top of having loads of fun, I'll be busking and jamming as much as I can, we'll be sampling local cuisine, trying to learn a bit of local lingo, and seeing what free festivals we can get to.

If we have a great experience we will be sure to tell you what happens and what we think about it, as well as providing photos either here or on Flickr . Of course not all things go to plan - when there is one - and we will also tell you about any problems we encounter and how we deal with them.

That's the mission statement, of sorts, so the next thing I need to tell you about is how we can inform you when there's an update to the blog. We will be using free wi-fi spots to get access to the internet (what a great excuse to buy a coffee, whilst avoiding the extortionate cost of using data abroad on mobile contracts) so updates will probably be a bit sporadic. You could keep checking this blog every few days, but if we go off the beaten track for a bit it may be some time till we can post updates, so if you want you can follow me on twitter. I'll post on there when there is an update so you won't miss out!

That's it for now, but over the next few posts I'll write about the kit we're using, the van, the dive equipment, and anything else which may be of interest.

All the best,

Matt, Rachel and Nailz!