After an early'ish breakfast we left Wiesbaden just before ten am and headed for the Autobahn. The fastest way to Calais is not direct and was due to take 5 hours and 20 minutes so we headed north to Cologne and then skirted round the outside and then followed the road to Aachen.
When on German Autobahns it is vital to keep lane discipline because most of the Autobahns have no speed limit and so you are being overtaken by Porsche cars etc travelling at speeds well in excess of 130 mph which is quite disconcerting at first
Then in to the Netherlands and on to Belgium and using the Brussels ring road and then via Ostend and we arrived in Calais in, yes you guessed it, in 5 hours and 20 minutes, well it would have been if we allowed for a petrol and and another comfort break.
We arrived at the ferry port at about 4pm and our ferry was due out at 6.15 pm bu they put us on the 4.35 pm and so we got home to Weybridge just about 6.30 pm. By travelling on a Saturday we had missed heavy traffic on the complete journey.
Ah, an excellent cup of tea followed by a shower and then open the tons of post and finally our own bed. On our trip we had slept in fourteen separate beds.
This was a great trip and although we had planned to visit Southern Spain and Portugal the change to visit the lovely town and lakes in Italy was a great decision. We would certainly visit Italy again but would not take the caravan as it is far to large for the the Italian roads and also the camp sites where you have far smaller pitches than you do in France.
Well that's it for the moment and you may well notice tthat the last few days reports are being completed all at one time as during the last week their was no time for blogging let alone catching up fully on email.
I know have over 400 photos to check and sort...and also add to the blog.
Well that is it for the moment our next know journey is to the Düsseldorf Christmas Market in early December with some friends.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Friday 23rd September- Next stop Wiesbaden
We Braunfels around 10 am and drove to see our other ex Hong Kong friends who live in Wiesbaden. We arrived there about 11.30 and had a coffee and then we all went for along walk to take their dog for a long walk and so about 1.30 pm we got home and had a light lunch and then off by bus to Wiesbaden.
We toured the town for several hours and their was lot happening what with music festival, a a display of new cars where Noel viewed and fell in love with the new Lotus Evora, the only trouble is that it is so low that Noels knees may not allow him to get out. Oh well, perhaps in the next life.
We stopped for a beer in one of the squares and then continued walking the shopping area and finally it was time for dinner and we went to a lovely little restaurant which as a tourist you would not know about it and certainly hardly likely to stumble upon it.We had a great dinner and the starter was about eight little plates of different types of starters and then we all tried something different and Noel had the Weinerschnitzle was was excellent but enough for an army and so the dog would benefit later.
Then back to the house where we enjoyed a lovely glass or two of Argentinian Malbec wine and went in to the early hours before bed,
What a great day and its so good to see old freinds.
Thursday 22nd September- Braunfels and Wetzler
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| BRAUNFELS CASTLE |
A nice breakfast in the morning and then off to visit the local historic castle and old town of Braunfels. Our freinds arranged a tour of the castle with the tour leader giving an excellent overview of the history and talked about the many pictures on the wall. There were also pictures of English Royalty from many years ago when European Royalty started inter-marrying for wealth and to improve their armies . The tour took about an hour and were shown only the main rooms but were not able to go up the turrets which would have been interesting. Our friends translated the tour guides words and it was a very interesting visit. For more information see http://www.braunfels.com/
Following our visit we had a coffee in the main square and then left by car to visit Wetzler which is another old town on a river and of course much larger than Braunfels.
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| NOEL IN THE STOCK AT BRAUNFELS CASTLE |
The back for a shower and change and then off to a very nice Italian local restaurant where the food was excellent. Noel and Jen had the liver...excellent.
Then back to back to the house and a not to late night.
Wednesday 21st September- We did the tourist bit
After a good breakfast in the Hotel, we walked around town for about two hours taking photographs . The town was much larger than we first imagined and is more a walled city than town. We walked along the ramparts and overlooked the places where they used to kill and fight back their invaders until it was time for coffee. WE found a quiet cafe and sat down outside after ordering our coffee and what they call snowballs which is basically light pastry bits, rolled in to a ball and cooked and then covered in light sugar. Looks good but taste boring whilst putting sugar all over your trousers.
We had just received our coffee and cake and suddenly the road became crowded with arriving tour parties and their leaders carrying flags and talking in a multitude of languages. So much for a quiet cup of coffee.
We left Rottenburg about midday and headed towards north of Frankfurt where we were stay with old friends from our Hong Kong days for a couple of nights.We arrived late afternoon and sat drinking tea and chatting and eventually had dinner and went to bed rather tired but we had enjoyed the day very much.
Tuesday 20th September-Lindau- Bodensee
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| BODENSEE AT LINDAU |
Following a good nights sleep and breakfast in the Ibis Hotel we drove the short distance to visit the town of Lindau which is on what we call Lake Constance but known elsewhere as Lake Bodensee. This is a very quaint and old town right by the Lake with many expensive shops and also others selling the usual tourist rubbish. We wandered around the place for a couple of hours taking photographs and stopped for a cup of coffee before leaving as we have to drive about four hours to our next stop.
We decided as we had time to drive through the countryside and what struck us immediately is that nobody uses the roads as a rubbish dump which was prevalent in Italy and of course UK.
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| TIME FOR A CIGARETTE |
We went downstairs and sat in the garden and had a glass of beer and then decided to eat on site and we had a very dinner indeed. We then had a short walk around town and although we took a few photos they may be to dark.
What was funny though, a group of American tourists were being shown around town by a guide who was doing his best to explain how building, which you could hardly see in the dark, and people lived in this town which has a rather violent past.
And so to bed.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Monday 19th- A Quatre Stagione of Countries
We were so lucky that sometime in the night it had stopped raining but the wind got worse and thids meant that in the morning the tent was dry, thank heavans as we did not want to pack up a wet tent or even carry a wet tent for the next five days. Breakfast or croissant and cappuccino in the site bar and then we left and headed North for Switzerland. Twenty five minutes later we arrived at the border crossing where we had to purchase our toll road sticker for the Swiss Motorways, 450 Euros and we would only be in Switzerland perhaps for two hours.
We went up the roads to the San Bernadino pass and already in Mid-September it had started snowing. Going through more and more tunnels untel we reached the top of the pass and headed down and now it started raining cats and dogs. We headed towards Chur and then towards St Margarithe and then noticed the motorway was one side of the river from Lichtenstein and so we crossed the river and drove up through the main town only stopping briefly at the customs post and then in to Austria and towards the town where we are stopping the night called Brigenze where we have booked a room in an Ibis for the night.
We found the Hotel and checked in and the Wifi worked immediately at no costs and none of this passport nonsense and then went for a walk around the town which was very quiet and then later started looking for a restaurant of which we had seen recommendations in Trip Advisor only to find that all of them closed on Mondays and so we found a Greek Restaurant for a mofderatly satisfying meal and then back to a proper bed in a hotel, Bliss.
So in one day we did Italy, Switzerland, Lichenstein and Austria with a Greek Meal, boy that is something.
Sunday 18th September- Cannobio how lovely thou art!
We went to a wayside stall and had a nice pork and onion bun before heading back to the site as it was not raining and we had decided to pack the car with all unnecessary things items and only leave the bed and tent standing and we would go out for dinner.
Around 7pm we wernt back in to town and all the market traders had goner leaving this very beautiful town where we found and excellent restaurant and had a lovely dinner.
Later back at the camp the weather had continued to get worse and it was blowing a gale and overnight ther tent was shaking and it was raining like hell and the noise from the Lake water crashing on the shores made it it very difficult to sleep, but somehow we managed.
Saturday 17th September- A trip down the coast to Verbania
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| FASHION PARADE OF DEBUTATNTES |
In Verbania it was very hot and we had great difficulty parking and the reason being there was a huge market in town and so we wandered around for a while and then noticed the dirty black clouds in the sky. We also came across a group of young girls in wedding dresses and they were in some competition or other nut it was fun to watch but they must have felt quite stupid.
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| AND THE WIND CAME UP |
Friday 16th September – Perhaps plan C will work
Following our few days in Lake Maggiore it is proposed that we go to a place near Zurich to meet up with Noels ex-boss and then if timer permitted other people Noel met in the course of his business life.
We needed to find a Hotel which we thought in September would be easy but this was not the case as Hotel after Hotel was full and what with the Swiss Franc to Sterling exchange rate being so high, a two star hotel was going to cost about £150.00 per night which is far to high but camping is out of the question as the nearest camp site is miles away.In discussion with another ex-business colleague we nearly almost had it sorted at still huge expense when Noels ex-boss phoned to say he was having to travel and could not make it and perhaps they would come to London instead during the next few months unless we were visiting Asia where we should stay with them in their house in Phuket, Thailand. Oh well back to the drawing board and let’s look at plan C.
It was also at this point that we discovered that some of the emails we though had been sent had not been sent and as some of these covered our future travel plans this was frustrating. As usual when purchasing access to the internet Wifi at the camp you had to show your passport??
And the process was also stupid, you had to enter a number on your browser including your mobile phone number and they would text you the acces codes. So I waited and no text arrived and so I trtied logging on again and was rejected as quote this reference number already in use. The reply also gave a telephone number to call should you not get the text and so I called this number only to find they had printed the wrong number but after retruning to reception anc complaining and then the receptionist spent ten minutes on the PC to extract the codes and all this
this took almost thrity minutes AND it was costing 13 Euros for four hours.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing and recovering from internet woes and also finalising the rest of our trip details. Dinner was chicken salad and it was really good.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Thursday 15th September – These roads are amazing!!!!
We awoke around 0700 and after a cup of tea got moving to take down the tent and pack the car and this was completed by around 0830 then time for a shower and breakfast before leaving the site at about 0930.
Back through the mass of designer label outlets and on to the Autostrade heading North to Bologne. A quick top of fuel at a mere 90 euros, wow fuel is still expensive, and the amount of trucks on the road was amazing and hardly enough space to put the cars on. We then entered a stretch of road for about eighty miles where you keep going in to and out of tunnels of varying length and tasking off and putting sunglasses back on was getting tedious. At one point we were overtaking a line of trucks when this German car towing a caravan pulled out about fifty yards in front of us and then the wind from the truck he was passing made his caravan slew all over the place and so we braked hard just in case it turned over and when he had slowed down sufficiently he then returned to the inner lane, that really must have scared him and as it scared us.
Just South of Milan we stopped at a petrol service station for a light lunch before tackling the Milan traffic on their equivalent of the M25. Now we had a good map this was much easier than expected and the traffic was lighter perhaps due to it being lunch time and everybody had stopped to eat some pasta or a McDonalds or something.
We needed to do some shopping and came across a Lidle store which when we entered looked more like a war zone and so we beat a hasty retreat and came across a COIN food store in a lovely place called Verbania and as it only about 20 kilometres from our proposed campsite in a town further up the lake called Cannobio we shall certainly return here in the next day or two.
The first camp site we came to was called Camping La Romantica but unfortunately we had failed to notice that this place closed in three days’ time and so as we needed four nights we went to their sister camp site on Lake Maggiore. By now it was almost 5pm but we walked the site and located a place with a view of the Lake and set up the tent and this time the ground was soft and enabled us to use regular pegs.
A light dinner almost in the dark followed by a brief walk along the lakeshore and the amount of lights around the lake was amazing, it must have been great in earlier times with hardly anybody living here.
Tuesday 13th September- A bus ride in to town
There is a bus service running from near the camp site in to Florence Station and so we boarded the bus which was already running twenty minutes late. This put me in mind of a story from a good Italian friend who said that TIME in Italy does not really mean time but means an indication only of time. So actually the bus was not really late.
We followed the signs to the pedestrian area where many of the beautiful old buildings are located as well as the many statue’s that adorn this town. A close friend of Jennifer had mentioned that Florence was a much nicer town than Rome and she is correct. Although Rome has the historic ruins and also many other beautiful buildings Florence as a town is much nicer and well worth another visit.
We toured the streets and boy was it hot and the ice cream had to be eaten very quickly to avoid turning in to liquid. The town was full of tourist’s and tours with lots of Asians being led around by tour guides waving banners and all of them looking pretty dog tired.We finally found a book shop where we could purchase a decent map of Italy and also one for our intended visit to Switerland and this will make our travelling a little easier .
By about 4.30 pm we were both hot and tired and decided to catch the 17.05 or thereabouts bus home. This time it left on time but it would helpful if the put the destination on the bus and it was only on the basis that we recognised some of the passengers who arrived from our small town that gave us some degree of confidence that perhaps we were heading in the right direction.
We arrived back at the campsite and headed straight for the extremely nice swimming pool for a cooling off swim before changing for dinner as we had decided to try the food again as it was really good the previous evening.
Wednesday 14th September- Another day in town
We caught the earlier bus than the previous day and this time it departed at 0855, or more like 0915 ‘ish, and arrived in a slightly better time of one hour but we did have to hold tight when going round corners and hoping the bus would not fall off the cliff edge.
It was our intention today to use the open top tour buses to see all around the town and this was like a speeded up movie where everything flies by at an amazing rate of knots as this time it was clearly Michael Schumacher at the wheel.
Actually it was difficult taking photos as the bus was careering around corners and up and down hills and ducking to avoid the low hanging trees and actually not enjoyable at all. There were two tour routes and we then started the new route almost straight away and perhaps this was more interesting that the first part. Upon arriving on the bus we were given a set of small plastic earphones which from Noel’s perspective were a waste of time as mostly they did not work and it was only after an hour when Jennifer had not talked to me that the mistake was found out, oh well!
After a two hour bus drive around town on bumpy roads we were quite happy to get off the bus and start walking again and by 1.30 pm it was again quite hot and getting near lunchtime. We walked around the food market and took a few photos of the food on offer and particularly the rows of hams hanging around the many shops and our hunger began to grow even stronger.Near the market we found a very interesting and one might say rustic restaurant which apart from offering the usual choice of pizza’s and pasta also offered Florentine beef steak and so we tried and shared a one kilo T-Bone steak which was absolutely brilliant and we both had to admit perhaps one of the best steaks ever, that it until we reach Argentina next year. A really lovely lunch which stared with Bruschetta and with some Casa Tinto and of course the steak set us up for the rest of the day.
There was a bus due to leave town around 3.45 pm and so we targeted that and again were lucky to be on the correct bus as the signboard on the front showed somewhere completely different, mind you the on board clock registered 00.01 almost the complete journey and this time driven by Alonso’s younger brother.
Another swim in the pool and some time spent on the internet as during the day we decided that the three nights in Florence was enough and that we would head for the Italian Lakes taking in to consideration to be in the general direction of Switzerland and so we chose Lake Maggiore as our destination.
We investigated camp sites and located two which seemed acceptable and n doubt one of them would be fine. Then off to bed to get ready for an early start.
Monday 12th September- Rome to Florence
I forgot to mention that the castle at Lake Bracianna was used by Tom Cruise and Kate Omara for their wedding, but then do you care??
We drove initially some very old towns just north of the Lake and we decided that we would at some time return to this area as there were some very interesting buildings built in to the rock face.
The Autostrade signs and also road signs in general are designed for midgets and often it is placed right on the crossing behind a hedge or behind yet another sign warning of road works etc. And so we missed the entrance to the motorway as there was perhaps a cyclist in the way.Oh well another U-turn and then back to the road we needed.
We had looked at a number of campsites and although a group of Caravan Club people on a tour had recommended a site they had stayed on they did mention it was extremely large and so we decided against and went for one mentioned in a number of camp site books.
We arrived at our Motorway exit and followed the instruction only to find the road closed sue to works that were under way. We still at that time not been able to get a really good road map of Italy and so relied upon the SatNav and a map with limited info, however with perseverance we found the camp site after going through an area of famous brand names factory outlets for Trussardi, Dolca and Gobanna et al, needless to say we did not stop.
It was still rather warm at around 32 degrees Centigrade and putting up the tent was very hard work as the ground was rock hard and almost impossible to put pegs in but somehow we made it.
Noel wanted to do some emails etc and went to the reception to buy a wifi card and the bloody palaver this was as it would appear that the Italian Authorities need to know who buys a wifi card and how they use it. It took ten minutes to buy the card as Noel needed to go back to the tent to get his passport, bloody amazing.
Following all this exertion it was necessary to visit the bar and then on to the campsite restaurant which was really excellent. A glass or two of wine later and then on to bed
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