Posts Tagged With: Roadtrip

The Great Puglia Road Trip Part 3: Discovering Polignano a Mare, Gargano and the Tremiti Islands

Buongiorno a tutti,

For our third and final camping destination we headed to Pugnochiuso, a little area in the Gargano National Park. Heading from Monopoli, there are some lovely sites on the way… (For Part 1 and Part 2, click on these links)

Day 4: Go to Polignano a Mare. Polignano a Mare is only about 20 minutes from the campsite and it’s definitely a great place to visit. The old town is on a little promontory of rock. The sea around is just sooooo clear.  People were swimming around the town! The town itself is pretty with lots of poems and wise words written on the walls or staircases. We came across a couple of guys fishing from the town itself – the drop to the sea was probably 40 meters at least!

Then onto….. Bari. Bari is the capital of Puglia. I am somewhat biased against big cities; after living here in the mountains, I feel a bit claustrophobic when I’m hemmed in between cars and apartment blocks every which way. In fact, when we got there we couldn’t find a parking spot and I suggested we just give up on it and move on. I’m glad we didn’t in the end. We only had an hour there but it was nice enough. We found a castle to have a look at and did a bit of shopping and then decided to head further up the coast for a swim.

Next….Take a swim break somewhere along the coast where there are large swathes of empty sandy beach.

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See that land mass in the distance? Our destination was on the tip of that.

Drive along the coast in Gargano, stopping to take photos! Gargano is a National Park on the spur of Italy’s boot. It’s mountainous and seems mainly covered in trees.

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Reach the campsite, Baia a Cala Campi. This was the most professional looking campsite of the lot and there were lots of people there. However, it didn’t seem overcrowded and all in all it was a great campsite in a stunning location. It had a shop, bar and restaurant and a large stretch of private beach. It even had a couple of islands just off shore which we swam to. I still have many tiny little souvenirs from that island in the form of coral embedded in my toes!

Tip: Buy those sort of rubbery shoe things and/ or don’t stand on sharp coral. 

Head to Vieste for dinner. I really like Vieste, it’s busy and lively but not overbearing. There are lots of tourist shops selling typical stuff but also some other really interesting shops selling things that are a little bit more unusual. You’ll find some great restaurants high up in the old town overlooking the sea. Follow the signs for the panorama.

Before leaving Vieste, book a boat trip to the Tremiti Islands for the following day. They leave at about 8.30 in the morning. There aren’t many places that sell tickets. We walked towards the port and bought tickets there.

Tip. They’re a right cunning bunch! Ask exactly what you’re getting for your money. We paid for a tour of the Tremiti Islands (there are 3) which the following day turned out to be just a ferry to one island and didn’t include a tour, unless we wanted to pay an extra 16 euros each (on top of the 22 euros we’d already paid each). Anyway, despite my annoyance it worked out very well in the end as the boat trip there is about 2 hours and we felt a bit “boated” out when we arrived and there was plenty to see and do on the main island anyway.

Day 5: Head to Vieste to catch the boat (and argue with the ticket man).  Relax and chill in the boat for what seems like forever. 

When you arrive, head to the bar at the port in San Domino (where the boat lands, or at least ours did!) Try and capture kids jumping into the water with your camera.

Then explore the island! There’s the Grotta del Sale which is a couple of kilometers walk through a lovely pine forest and a couple of little residential spots. It’s lovely walking through the pine forest with the sounds of the cicadas – the quintessential sounds and smells of summer for me!

Tip: I thought that screeching insect noise were crickets… but they’re cicadas that look nothing like crickets. Did you know some of them live 17 years underground on their own before emerging and dying in a few weeks? And that they are one of the noisiest animals in the world? And that they can permanently damage your hearing if they start making a noise too close by? Fascinating! Read up about them here

Catch the boat back at around 16.30. Somehow the journey back home seems twice as long as the journey there! I like boat trips but this one seems quite long because there’s such a lot of time in the middle of the sea with nothing to see!

Finally, capture the sunset on the drive back to the campsite. There’s a tower on the way, park there and you’ll see this holey rock face!

So there we have it – that was my trip to Puglia! Next step…head home!

It really was an amazing holiday and I’d thoroughly recommend visiting those places to all of you- perhaps for a bit longer than I managed!

If you have any questions or want anymore tips about holidaying in the area, drop me a line! 🙂

A presto,

x

 

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The Great Puglia Road Trip Part 2: Around Monopoli

Buongiorno a tutti!

Following on from Part 1 of the road trip….the next couple of nights of the trip were spent in Monopoli but we had a couple of ‘cool’ stops getting there and a great time the next day checking out a couple of well-known towns. So…

Day 2: Head to Lecce. Lecce is a large historic and important city in the region. It’s got an ‘old town’ with a lot of limestone baroque architecture and an old roman amphitheater. To get to the old town though there’s a regular city like any other – a bit chaotic. We found a good sized park with fountains which made for a good lunch spot. We also popped into a Papiermâché sculpture shop – in Lecce they have a tradition in making very delicate, ‘origami-like’ painted figurines. The woman in the shop told me how her family had been making the sculptures for generations and it seems to have originated out of a need to keep the statues used in processions light weight. Anyway, not my style but very impressive and you can see the craftsmanship involved. I didn’t take any photos unfortunately, but have a look at this great little website to see how they make them.

Tip: Parking in Italy is becoming quite a hassle if you don’t know your number plate. They really don’t like the idea that you could do a good deed and hand your ticket to someone else if you haven’t used up all your allotted time. No no, you must enter your number plate. Or some kind of variant of it. Even many Italians can’t work out how on earth to use these parking ticket machines. Anyway, make sure you make a note of your number plate otherwise you won’t stand a chance and you’ll waste an inordinate amount of time traipsing miles between your car and the ticket machine (ITALY: HAVE MORE WORKING PARKING MACHINES!!!!)

Next…..Look at naked men at the Riserva Naturale Torre Guaceto. After a while in the car leaving Lecce, we thought we’d have a quick walk and maybe a swim at this nature reserve. However it turned out to be an exhausting 3 hour walk in what must have been 40 degree heat! Head to the beach though and you can walk along it to the tower (amidst the occasional naked man!) and the most amazing hideaways made of driftwood. For fellow seaglass fanatics, there’s a lot here 🙂 On the way back, I just don’t know what to suggest. If I were you I’d walk back along the beach. The alternative is to do what we did which was to walk along parallel to the superstrada (Super Road – isn’t that a lovely thing to call your road?) which I’m sure was a lot longer and less interesting than if we had returned along the beach!

Finally, drive to the Santo Stefano campsite in Monopoli. Camping Santo Stefano is a lovely campsite with its own private little secluded beach and I think a lido but we didn’t have time to explore that unfortunately. I understand there are some ruins near to the campsite too. I think you could spend a week in each of our campsites and not run out of things to do. It’s a shame we didn’t have more time! These are some photos taken at the campsite… We had a lovely morning swim there before heading off the next day.

Tip: At the campsite they will ask you how many hot showers you would like! It seems a bit surreal – you get a card with the number of your allotted showers! I think it was 50 cents for a shower. There are free “cold” showers which are actually reasonably warm because it was just so hot but they’re out in the open air so unless you’re a confident sort, I’d pay for the showers.

Day 3: Head to Alberobello. It takes about 30 minutes in the car. If you’ve seen documentaries about Alberobello, then forget them entirely as the drive in will be depressing. Alberobello looks like a completely bog-standard town.  Once you park up and start walking around you might see a ‘trulli’ or two but it’s still a bit of  a disappointment. Alberobello is known for it’s ‘trulli’, little white houses with conical roofs made of stone. After a few minutes of wandering around I was beginning to think I’d been a bit misled by the images I’ve seen! However, then we turned a corner and there were just hundreds of them – a little trulli community! Amazing…   A lot of the trulli have been turned into shops selling local produce, textiles and oddly, millions of whistles which turned out to be a symbol of good luck.

 

When you leave Alberobello, head to Matera, an hour or so away. This was another massive disappointment initially. The documentaries don’t ever give you the impression that you have to search around for a while first before you find these things! Anyway, as the saying goes, don’t judge a book by it’s cover: park up and head towards the old town.  Matera is an old city in Basilicata (not Puglia). It’s known as the ‘subterranean city’ and is famous for it’s ancient town called Sassi, which are houses carved out of the rock.  It’s very interesting and very beautiful!

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Tip: Do not wear flipflops. You’ll need shoes with grip. In fact, almost all the towns in Puglia are a bit treacherous with their shiny marble-like floors but in Matera I actually had to walk bare foot on the scorching pavement to avoid constantly falling over.

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Death trap!!!

Head back to the campsite armed with BBQ equipment and find a gap on the beach to chill out for the evening and look at the stars.

Next up, exploring Polignano a Mare and the Isole Tremiti…

x

 

 

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The Great Puglia Road Trip Part 1: Investigating the coast around Pescoluse

 

Buonasera!

I am thrilled to report I had an amazing holiday in Puglia – it has to be one of my favourite holidays. On the Monday I picked up my friend from the airport in Ancona and we headed seven and a half hours south towards Leuca, the very bottom of the boot of Italy’s heel in the beautiful region of Puglia. Puglia has been on my Bucket List for ages and we only had six nights to fit in everything I wanted to do. Truth be told, it was more of a frog march than a vacation but I did schedule in some relaxation time so that’s ok I think? Anyway, I liked our little trip so much I’m going to write it as an itinerary for anyone wishing to do a similar thing. We camped, which is not as popular in Italy as in the UK, but we stayed in some lovely campsites

Puglia has a completely different feel to it than the Italy I’ve come to know. The landscape is full of ancient olive trees, cacti and bright flowers growing out of red earth. It’s completely unlike my very hilly, mountainous green part just a few hours further north.

I won’t count the day spent driving down so the guide starts thusly…

Day 1: Explore the coast around Pescoluse

Stay in a campsite called Grotta Pescoluse. It’s a nice little campsite set a kilometer or so from the beach. You can camp among the trees and there’s a large swimming pool and bar/restaurant area which we didn’t get time to make use of. You can walk down to the beach in half an hour or so (the walk back is a bit more tiring because it’s uphill).

Tip: Beware of the ants. There are many of them. Some campers sprinkled talcum powder around their pitches because ants don’t cross lines of talc!  And always have toilet paper and soap. For some reason in Italy, they don’t feel like they can stretch to providing toilet paper or soap in any of the facilities. Though in this campsite, they did provide a suspicious looking hose attached to the toilet (some sort of personal irrigation system?)

Drive up the coast to Porto Trecase. Trecase is beautiful and has an interesting history.  Puglia has quite a rocky coastline. The water is so crystal clear that you can see down to the seabed. Trecase has a little beach. Follow the coast around to see some kind of old fortification and then you’ll see puddles of salt where the sea water has dried. The sea seems to be very salty in Puglia – it seems quite difficult to sink (which is great until you want to dive down with your snorkel!) Anyway, I recommend a dip here before heading to the next ‘cool’ swimming location.

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This was the view walking down to the little beach from where we parked the car.

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The beach.

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Looking back at the beach.

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They had this odd little fort type structure – this one looked like it might have had guys inside with guns (bows and arrows?!)  back in the day.

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And lots of salty puddles.

Snorkel at Grotto Verde.  I think this has to be one of my all time favourite places in the world. I was actually searching for another coastline grotto (cave) but we couldn’t find it, and because we were melting  in the heat, and had seen a bunch of people in swimming costumes hanging around a little rocky outcrop we decided to have a swimming break. Grotto Verde just looks like a bit of a sheltered little rocky bay. However, when you get into the water you’ll see that you can swim into the cave – it’s dark but you can just make out a gap on the right hand side where there’s a narrow passage that takes you into another cave. This next cave is AMAZING! At first we thought it had been artificially lit from underneath, in fact on further inspection with a snorkel, the light is coming from a couple of feet under the surface – an underwater link to the outside. Have a look at the link above and check out the photos on Trip Advisor!

Tip: Get a snorkel to enable you to see the submerged rocks and avoid nasty scrapes, and besides it’s so pretty under water, it’s like another world. I also suspect you can swim from the “lit” cave to the outside. However, much to my annoyance I chickened out – it was a bit difficult to tell how long the underwater tunnel was (2 metres?) and besides, I kept floating making any underwater swimming a challenge!

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Drive along the coast to Otranto… stop often to take photos. These are some of the photos I took on the way.

Have lunch and explore Otranto. Otranto is a lovely little village on the coast, complete with castle. Puglia seems relatively well fortified with a number of “torre” (towers) overlooking the coastline. To be honest, I would probably have invaded Puglia too, it’s just so pretty! In Otranto they do Ape tours (pronounced Ah-pay, it’s the Italian word for bee). Apes are cute little three wheeled motorised buzzy things. In my opinion the tours were expensive so we didn’t do it but you probably get to see lots.

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This dog seemed to be having a great time

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One of the large piazzas by the sea.

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Overlooking the port.

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The Car & Castle. I think that would be a good pub name.

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And the castle again. They are showing the Steve McCurry “Icons” exhibition there at the moment which I highly recommend (but I’d already seen it in Forli earlier in the year).

Tip: Go inside the church in Otranto and marvel at the really weird and epic mosaic on the floor. I particularly like the deer with a human face sprouting some sort of vegetable from his mouth.

Head further up the coast to Roca Vecchia and the Grotto della Poesia. There are no signs to it so best of luck trying to find it. Basically go up the coast until you see lots of people walking along the side of the road and stop there and follow them! Roca Vecchia is an archaeological site with old stone buildings from the bronze age. You can just about make out the ruins without going into the confines of the site (which was closed of course!).

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Grotto della Poesia is a couple of hundred meters south of Roca Vecchia. It’s another cave which you enter by jumping into about 3 meters or so of water (or walking down to it from the side – but that’s boring, eh?!). The only problem here was the audience! It certainly means you can’t faff around at the top debating your jump because there’s a queue behind you and dozens of people watching! It was quite exhilarating though and it gave me a buzz for the rest of the day 🙂

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This was the jump and accompanying audience!!!

Tip: Don’t park your car at the side of the road where everyone else is parking their car. It’s a trap – you’ll get a fine!

Go back to the campsite in an exhausted heap and then walk to the beach with everything you need for a BBQ and a night swim!

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Here the beach is sandy and the water is warm. It’s like just walking into a warm bath! It’s just lovely!!!!

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So that was all in Day 1. If you have more time, you might want to space it out a little and spend a bit more time in each location!

Tune in for the next post covering off Day 2 and 3 in Monopoli, Lecce, Torre Guaceto, Alberobello and Matera.

x

 

 

 

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Roadtrip back to Italia via France, Germany & Switzerland

Ciao!

How are you all? I wanted to give a quick run down on our very scenic roadtrip back to Italy – it feels like a long time ago now but in reality we only got back on Monday.

So, the first leg of our journey was from Portsmouth to Cherbourg…

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View from the ferry towards Cherbourg

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Rare non-child head occupied view of the window. We had good seats.

Not particularly fascinating photos but it’s evidence nonetheless! The ferry was fast – only 3 hours as opposed to over 6 hours on the trip back to the UK. Then we had a few hours drive down to a little town called Olivet near Orleans in France. We’d had a long day and couldn’t drum up the necessary motivation to take photos but it was pretty and we camped up just by a river. The campsite, Camping Olivet had the makings of a good one but it was let down because they didn’t have toilet roll (indeed, no toilet seats – that seems to be a typically French thing???) or soap and you either had cold water or warm water (either good for showers and bad for teethbrushing or vice versa!).

Then onto Freiburg im Breisgau (I’m just going to call it Freiburg) in Germany for a couple of nights. Freiburg is really lovely – I thoroughly recommend going. The town is pretty with quaint little cobblestones and little streams running through the streets and the houses and apartments are all well kept and pretty. It’s right next to the Black Forest so there are some great walks too. We went on a 4 hour walk up the local mountain (I do not recommend doing this in flipflops) which had some great views and then took a cable car down and then a couple of busses/trams to get back to the campsite. The campsite itself, Moslepark, was one of the prettiest I’ve been to. Lots of flowers and the facilities were all very swish. Our pitch was alas, right next to the children’s play area – we had refreshing early starts.

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Look how pretty the cobblestones are!

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School buildling – very pretty but with irritatingly non symmetrical brickwork.

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This was taken from halfway up our mountain walk (Schauinsland) for anyone wishing to do the same – 1284m

The streets were wide, the pavements were wide, lovely well kept houses, lots of cyclists...

The streets were wide, the pavements were wide, lovely well kept houses, lots of cyclists…

Then our final stop was in La Fouly, Swtizerland. I like Switzerland and I’ve stayed in a couple of beautiful places in the past – Interlaken and Lake Lucerne, I tried to book a couple of nights around the same places this time around but they were booked out or needed us to stay more than 5 nights. Unfortunate I thought at the time, but actually I’m really pleased they were because the campsite, Camping des Glaciers in La Fouly where we ended up staying is set in the prettiest environment I’ve ever stayed in. The campsite was set between majestic glacier capped mountains, a trickling stream teeming with wild flowers and a quaint little village. Alas, after setting up camp and successfully drying out the sodden tent from a wet last night in Freiburg, that’s when the rain really DID come. At this point we were in town  so found a little bar to wait until it stopped. On and on it went so in the end we had a very nice 80’s style dinner at the bar – fondue (even me, an avid cheese eater, was cheesed out by the end of that meal). Anyway, these are some of the photos…

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I quite fancy having a log cabin like this…

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Pretty flowers…

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The mountains…

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And more mountains…

Then it was back to Falconara in Italy, Again, the stark difference in driving styles between the Italians and the French and Germans was noticeable! However, we learnt something – when it starts to rain, admittedly this was a downpour of biblical proportions, the Italians all start to drive sensibly and use that strange extraneous ‘slow’ (inside to you and me) lane on the motorway. Some even stop on the hard shoulder under motorway bridges until this phenomenon has passed. Hardly anybody uses the 3rd (outside overtaking) lane meaning that if you do, because you’ve spent most of your life driving in those type of conditions,  the traffic runs miles better and even though it’s raining, you can make much more headway. So my tip for motorway driving here – do it during a downpour! Otherwise be prepared to stew in increasing frustration and incredulity as everybody clogs up the middle and outside lane and nobody uses the inside lane even though it would benefit everybody.

Right, that’s it for this post – tune in shortly for another post on the new house and the scary uninvited houseguest…

 

Ciao xxx

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Sticky Tape Car Windows, The Roadtrip of Searing Heat and Buying a House in Italy

Ciao a tutti,

Well I’ve been a bit quiet of late I know – I’m back in the UK for a little bit and have been manically doing up a property that I’m hoping to rent out so it hasn’t left much time for anything else!

We drove back to the UK a week or two back. Why drive I hear you ask? Because I have to get the car MOT’d back in the UK so that I can get it taxed and insured. It’s an expensive undertaking when you take into account petrol, road tax, hotels and eating out (or buying food which immediately melts, whatever it is, in the heat of the car). Having calculated it and I think I could have gone to the Maldives instead by the time I drive back to Italy too!

Having said that, to buy a car last year was too stressful and potentially too expensive because I didn’t have a “residenza” (Residency. In fact, I’m still not entirely sure I have it. I would have liked a medal as proof). So I think I did the right thing sticking with a UK car.  But I’m going to dedicate the next few months to trying to resolve the car buying/insuring in Italy issue as I’m going to need a four-wheel drive to get to and from my new house in the winter. Anyway, let me tell you about the roadtrip!

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The roadtrip prep commenced a couple of weeks ago when the passenger window slid down into the car door. It did this 2 days before the last roadtrip too. The car has a sixth sense. Without any time to fix it, the first part of the roadtrip was characterised by whoever was passenger having to hold the window in place.  The second half was considerably better following a sticky tape mission. This at least was slightly less embarrassing when it came to paying the road tolls – at least there was an obvious excuse for opening the door and not the window like normal people.

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Sticky tape – what every car window needs…

Despite my misgivings about the cost and the sauna like temperatures resulting from the lack of opening capability for the passenger window, it was good nonetheless.

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Melted dairy milk bar. The heat was overpowering but I must say, we discovered something AMAZING. What you do is buy a bag of Maltesers, leave it in a searing hot car for 3 days, put in a hotel minibar fridge and an hour later – voila, the best chocolate bar of all time.

And anyway, you don’t get to appreciate the countryside by flying over the top of it (apart from the alps always looking very majestic from the air). The route back took us past:

Genoa: We were actually outside of Genoa really so didn’t get a good feel for the main town. In fact, all we got a good feel for was the commercial centre. I didn’t even take any photos. Poor blogging effort I know.

Monaco: Wow! Very impressive sky-line and water. I was upset I didn’t bring my swimming costume. I’m not into the F1 particularly but it was interesting to see the road/race-track. I can imagine that would be good to watch (for 5 minutes).

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The stunning Monaco…

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And the sea front – this was taken from the race track

Cannes: The harbour was nice – full of flashy boats and it looked like it had a nice shopping area. Alas by this point we were hot, sticky and grumpy from a stressful drive out of Monaco (stupid sat-nav) and into Cannes (stupid road signs) so I think it might require a revisit at some point. 🙂

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Lots of jealous-making expensive yachts in Cannes…

Avignon: Historic town in France with a very grand cathedral with holes in the walls to shoot your enemies with arrows (in a churchly manner of course) and had some nice piazzas or whatever they’re called in France! It’s definitely worth a visit.

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Pretty cathedral in Avignon…

Nimes: We thought that it would be too expensive to stay around Avignon so I randomly selected a nearby town, Nimes, to stay in. Alas, Nimes had the most expensive hotel of the entire trip and thieves in the car park to boot! Two poor people had their cars broken into overnight. Little did the thieves know all they needed to do was to tap my passenger window to gain access. To think – they could have swiped my Malteser bar!

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The Forum in Nimes

Between Nimes and the Middle of Nowhere Near Limoges where we were staying, there was the Millau Bridge, designed by Norman Foster. A very impressive bridge indeed – I recommend a visit!

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The spectacular Millau Bridge

Middle of Nowhere Near Limoges: I booked a B&B in the middle of nowhere in Limoges. No matter what setting I put in my Sat Nav, if there is a small one lane road through the countryside, it will insist we take that road rather than the much more direct motorway. So instead of the 4.30 hours it was supposed to take, I think it took about 8. And then we didn’t have an en-suite. I should never be responsible for booking accommodation. Gorgeous countryside though.

Somewhere Near Le Mans: I knew Le Mans sounded familiar. It turns out it’s where they have an endurance race around a track for 24 hours. It was the same weekend we were there so very good timing. We’d booked a lovely random hotel – Hotel De France, in an area not even particularly near Le Mans and it became apparent that it was the hotel where the drivers/owners/other famous people stay (I wasn’t responsible for booking that one). The Nanmobile, with its sticky-taped-up window fitted in beautifully with the other cars in the car park (Lamborghinis / Ferraris).

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This is the hotel. You can see that outside the hotel there’s a very flash car which everyone is admiring. In the car park are other flash cars. In the corner of the photo is my sticky taped Fiat Panda. I’m a bit upset that it didn’t draw the same crowd that the other cars seemed to. Carist! Pfft.

 

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Pretty little village where Hotel De France is…

Caen: And then we finally got to Caen for an hour or two before the Ferry left.

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And back to the UK 🙂

Crazy Italian Driving

What was most noticeable about the trip was the almost immediate difference between driving in France and driving in Italy! The Italians all drive in the middle or the fast lane. If they see that you’ve left over a cars length of space between yourself and the car in front, they’ll do a risky overtaking manoeuvre to fill that spot, and give you a look / hand gestures for being too slow (and then they’ll drive at exactly the same speed just in front of you and seemingly attached to the bumper of the car in front). Italians don’t realise that the “slow” lane is for driving in when you’re not overtaking. I on the other hand will always drive in that lane unless overtaking. And not wanting to undertake, if I want to overtake one of the Middle Lane Drivers, I’ll then have to go across two lanes to overtake in the fast lane before going back across two lanes to where they were supposed to be driving in the first place. In Italy – they don’t get the hint. In France, not only do the majority all drive in the correct lane to start with but if you do the above “training manoeuvre” with them then they’ll soon get the hint and move to the slow lane. I wonder why the driving is so different in Italy to other places?!

House Progress?!

The house business in Italy is coming along really quickly! I’ve transferred my deposit to the owner and signed the first contract (Compromesso).  There’s no going back now (or not without a significant cost). Completion is set for 30th July. The whole thing just feels a bit odd though – the house plans still do not represent the house we’re buying. At the moment we’re still buying the  neighbour’s property according to these plans and there is still a rustic building represented which doesn’t exist. My solicitor ensures me that because of what she thinks is a comforting line in the contract: “the owner will ensure the plans represent the property when it comes to the final contract”, all is ok. So whether I’ll get a rustic building or whether the plans will be updated, and whether I’ll be getting the neighbours property or not – who knows?!

In response to my question “erm, the plans here show that the cantina is split into 3 completely separate bits – not that it’s open plan like it actually is – can we change that?” was met with “if you want, we can get the owner to stack some breeze blocks in these doorways”. Well yes, that’s EXACTLY what I was after. Loosely placed breeze blocks. Much better than up-to-date and accurate plans.  The whole process at the moment seems odd – and I’m half expecting the owner to run off with my money. Cross your fingers please everyone!

Right, that’s it for today. Hope you’re all having good weeks.

x

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