UK-Bound: Seven Countries in Seven Days; Leaving Italy

Sadly, our 3 months of Schengen time was again all used up! We’d booked a ferry from Dunquerque to Dover on the 19th, and we’d left ourselves a week to get there from Padova.

So with some wistful thoughts, and looking forward to coming back to spend some time getting to know Andrea, Silvia and their friends better, we set off northward. As, it turned out, into something resembling the apocalypse. Dark, intimidating clouds loomed in front of us as we approached, with some excitement, the first foothills of the Dolomites (the Italian Alps). The sky reminded us of the skyscape one sees in tornado movies, writhing menacingly as they curled off the mountains.

It added a fantastic ambiance to the scene as we followed the road into a narrow river valley between two steep-sided mountains, and dusk closed in around us. Then, the rain started, and it meant business: We slowed to a crawl as the downpour reduced visibility to almost zero – “I… guess the road’s out there somewhere”. The hail threatened to crack the windscreen, it came down so hard. Wow!

It eventually abated and we sped up again, heading out into a suddenly lighter day, like winding back the clock a few hours. We got an SMS from Andrea – “What the…Are you ok?”; “I’ve just seen the end of the world from my bike, that was exciting and wet”. We just hope he only saw it, rather than actually experienced it on a bike — that sounds not so dissimilar to drowning!

We drove on through the mountains, following the autostrada, while Katherine read out a heartwarming email we’d just received from Andrea, which mirrored our own excitement and gratefulness at having met. Warm fuzzies well established, we grinned out at the beautiful world around us and marvelled at our blessings.

We drove past vast fields of vines, and found a convenient lay-by off a relatively quiet road to park for the night, beside a wide, slow river and overlooked by a high rocky cliff topped with dense green forest, a little steam hurling itself into the air above us.

The next day we set out on foot to explore this exciting new world, and followed the river while we admired the rocky mountains surrounding us, every remotely-horizontal surface festooned with rich green plant life. It was sunny and warm and we were feeling good!

We drove onward and upwards as the scenery changed further. Lots of bright green fields of vines and increasingly amazing mountains, topped with snow (I’ll never get tired of snow-capped mountains. That’s the stuff, right there.). Very quickly, we noticed that the road signs all had Germanic names, and soon after we were amazed to notice the marked difference in architecture. Suddenly the roofs of houses and other buildings were sharply angled, and the village churches had pointy, colourful steeples. Roofs were no longer orange-coloured, but a deep brown, and much more deep wooden hues were apparent.

We were in another country! But, a glance at the map showed us we were wrong — it was going to be two more days of driving before we were out of Italy. We mused to ourselves that whoever had been tasked to draw the country boundaries had probably been bumped or slipped, and the border skewed south accidentally. They probably just hoped no-one would notice. We noticed, imaginary map guy! I was baffled further when Nettle’s lunchtime came (she’s a thirsty girl sometimes!) and I filled up at a petrol station, and the attendant spoke German! Okay, that’s fine — I threw in a “Danke!” for good measure.

A long but enjoyable drive led us eventually into a little town climbing the side of a hill — not entirely deliberately, but one of Noia’s more quirky routes – she likes it scenic. (Noia is our anthropomorphised Navigon GPS navigator app, short for “paranoia” and named for her inordinately cautious disposition; “beware” every time I go a fraction over the speed limit, or when she thinks the limit is less than it really is; “In 500 metres, take the second exit from the roundabout; beware”, “beware: traffic control”). It got a tad narrow, but we made it through with no drama, and discovered to our delight a car park on the other side that seemed a reasonable place to stop for the day — we were certainly ready for it. There was even a great view of the surrounding hillside.

We wandered back on foot the way we’d come, with the hopes of visiting a little supermarket we’d passed. It turned out to be closed, but we walked around the town anyway, intrigued by its…Austrian-ness!

Back at Nettle, we were investigating the most level and out-of-the-way place to stop for the night, when we discovered a sign prohibiting overnight parking! Oh, how we wished we could’ve un-seen that sign, but the cat was out of the bag, and our hopes of settling in for the evening were temporarily dashed. Lesson learned: Don’t look around too much!

So, dusk rapidly approaching, we set off again, following the road that zig-zagged up a long, gentle sloping mountainside dotted with wind turbines and delightful little brooks lined with flowers. Before long, Katherine spotted a park labelled “Camper”, to our delight, and I executed a speedy across-road 6 point turn, and we pulled in — it was a roadside café car park, kind enough to offer a place for campers to stop for the night. We made sure the café folks were happy with us being there (and scored a couple of pairs of warm woolen slippers, which totally look like bear feet), and happily stopped for the night, with a view out over the long grassy downhill slope we’d climbed, and surrounding snowy and misty mountains.

Travel research, sheltering from the storm, foggy brain

It’s a funny thing, being completely unconstrained in where we go and what we do. We could just go anywhere! It’s wonderful but also comes with a heavy research load, figuring out good places to visit!

I’d discovered the alluring Apennines, a spectacular-looking mountain range in the region of Abruzzo, north east of our current position in Amalfi — some great-looking national parks with wonderful hikes. I became quite attached to the idea, which sounded so romantic and fun. And then it became clear that there would be no hiking, and the driving would quite possibly be fairly treacherous: It’s still winter! An Italian friend, Andrea, tells me there has recently been snow down to 400m, which is quite spectacular. So, with great regret we’re putting the Apennines off till “next time”. We’ll see other cool stuff.

In the meantime, while I was mucking about in Google Earth, figuring out the regions that may be within the “usually safe from snow” level of 1000m and agonising about passing the mountains by, Katherine pressed on reading about the next region of interest to the north: Rome and Lazio. I eventually gave up and joined her; Rome is certainly going to be our next destination (the clincher was Katherine’s discovery of “Original Language” cinemas, playing the new Alice in Wonderland film in English!).

We were originally thinking we might leave yesterday. Then our friend Nuccio in Sicily warned us to stay put, because there was some interesting weather headed our way. Sure enough, soon afterwards, thunder rang through the valley and it started hailing, then actually snowing! Only a little — within a few minutes it was back to light hail, but we actually had snow, which was very exciting. We were very glad not to be driving.

The hills around us are white, and there are drifts of un-melted hail, even the day after!

So, we were going to leave today. We woke up quite early (for us!), to the sound of sharp booming explosions ringing through the valley. I peered out the window to see the explosions preceded by little bright flashes in the sky and puffs of smoke — not a freaking clue. Are we under attack?

I still haven’t figured out what it was (maybe Paolo here at the caravan park will know). Anyway, Katherine happily got up and jumped in the shower while I rolled over and snoozed, as usual. It was a real struggle dragging myself out of bed! When I did manage it, I pulled up Google Earth and set about planning a driving route, and found myself entirely incapable of making any decisions about routing and whether or not to take the motorway, or just about anything — I felt like a sloth!

We went out into the cold and got some groceries (more of the awesome tasty provolone cheese we found earlier in the week), and I still hadn’t got my brain into gear. We noticed some light hail as we walked back to Nettle, and then decided to stay another day (Katherine said she didn’t trust my foggy brain to operate heavy machinery).

It felt like a very good decision, so we cosied up in Nettle again and set about finding a caravan park to stay in, in Rome. We felt very disinclined to pay €30/night for one of the main caravan parks, then I was thrilled to find some area attrezzatas for €12-15 per night within easy reach of Rome by train! The one that really takes the cake is one we found right on the side of a lake just 40 mins train ride south of Rome, and just a short walk from the train station. Sounds very promising.

So, we feel heaps better about heading off tomorrow with a set destination in mind, and we’re taking the ~€14 tolled route to save a couple of hours driving, so we should make it in one day. Here’s hoping for a clear brain.