Italy

Italy

Leaving Slovenia. Michelle likes these signs for some reason

The drive out of Slovenia sees us up yet another mountain pass where eventually we cross into Italy. We are sad to leave Slovenia and we both feel just a little that we haven’t done it enough Justice really.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that (for us) it’s not very motorhome friendly.

So Italia here we come!

We end up in the Friuli Dolomites high up at a ski resort called Sauris. I’m edgy all the way there as no matter what technology you have at your disposal as well as normal paper maps you can never be sure what the roads up to a place are going to be like until you get there. The final bit of road up to the Ski place isn’t on any map. We have paper maps, sat nav maps, Autoroute on the laptop and Google Streetview when we can get online but you can never really know until you get there. We are a bit gunho though these days and just tend to go for it and worry if we get stuck up a goat track at a forty five degree angle with no prospect of turning round later!

Anyway its fine. Steep but fine. The last eight miles are up. And up, and up and through some pretty long tunnels which you would hope are one way but they aren’t! Luckily whenever we meet something it’s at a convenient spot. Hank powers up the steep hairpins like a mountain goat and we are rewarded at the end with a beautiful picturesque mountain lake and the little village of Sauris is delightful.

Even more of a bonus after Slovenia is that the Sosta (Motorhome parking) there is free including all facilities including Electricity and there is even a wonderful hot shower room! Did I mention the view? Oh yeah there is a view. Then again looking around I think you would be hard pressed to park anywhere in the Dolomites without one!

We stay a few days here and make friends with some Italian motorhomers who go out of their way to tell us about other Sostas. I’m trying to establish which are the best ones in the area. They don’t speak any English and my Italian is dire. When I produce a sat nav and a laptop with the Autoroute maps on it they are very impressed but haven’t got a clue how to look at them and quickly discard them and produce a grubby map that’s not even of the area we are in and a couple of flyers for farm sostas that have no Lat and Long co-ordinates on them or even and address! They insist however that we go there. Where though? I smile and take them and later spend hours on my phone in the van trying to google translate them! Eventually I get a vague idea of where they are.

The woman spend their time milling around chatting while the two chaps who must be in their mid seventies spend their days cycling around the Alps! Crikey they are fit. You have to be fit to walk or cycle here. Even emptying the loo involves the use of crampons here.

The mountain behind us is I think either six thousand feet or eight thousand. We are already at four thousand so how hard can it be to get to the top? I’m supposed to be fit now so decide to give it a go.

After an hour or two I’m nowhere near the top. Not even out of the tree line. Some good views every now and again but we have learnt that in order to get above the trees in the Alps you either need to be Chris Bonnington or cheat and take a cable car. I give up but two days later decide to cheat and take Pig up a track I’ve found that goes up halfway to where I got to the other day. His little single piston screams in protest as I thrash the little bike up the Alp. When I eventually set off I have to park the bike wedged in some trees to stop it returning back down the hill on its own its so steep.

This time I think I’m nearing the top but then the almost vertical path takes a turn around the back of the mountain and just when I think I’m going to conquer it the path bursts out of the trees and into Shale. Shale at an almost vertical angle mind you with a tiny shaley path worn through it about a foot wide. Splendid. Occasionally in times like this I have suffered from Vertigo. The last time being on Holy Isle off the Isle of Arran in Scotland where in similar circumstances I convinced myself I was going to fall off the mountain a thousand feet to the sea below and sat there hugging it until it passed.

I’ve been incapacitated due to a life of excess for the past ten years though so maybe now I’m fit again the Vertigo will have been a thing of my youth. Nope. Back it comes but not until I’ve nearly reached the other side of the shale. I make it across but my heart is beating twenty to the dozen and I have no idea how far I have to go or how steep it will get and now I’m worried sick about crossing the path of death again! Once again the mountain beats me and I spend a scary ten minutes coming back through across the ledge.

I reckon as there is only me up here that it’s not a popular walk and if I slip and fall off the Alp I’ll never be found for a hundred years. Just as I make it back across a young fit looking council worker appears with a flipping heavy industrial strimmer attached to himself strimming the greenery off the path.

I give up.

The elusive swimming spot.

I ask the very helpful lady at the tourist information if swimming is allowed in the lake at the bottom of the valley. No! She replies, it’s very very dangerous as its used for a power plant and is very cold. When I tell her we have a motorcycle however she back peddles and divulges that there is a spot right round the other side where you should be able to get round on the scooter.

The track turns out to be a trail really and for a few miles Pig does a bit of trail riding for which he really isn’t suited thanks to his little wheels and road tyres. After what seems ages we do come to a river mouth which is a scramble down on foot to the lake as its quite low and sure enough there is a spot where we can get in. However the ledge which just drops off vertical into God knows what depth is made of really slick and slippy mud so it’s a bit of a comedy act just getting in the water. It’s also the only way in and out and all I can do is dive off as there is no way of gently stepping in. It’s absolutely ice cold but wonderfully refreshing. Problem is getting back out which involves a kind of belly flop onto the mud ledge and then trying to stand up. Michelle gives it a miss but takes great pleasure watching me flounder around like a drunken walrus.

Wilding

Eventually we move on further into the Dolomites and find a wild camping spot up at about five thousand feet which we have to ourselves. Its stunning up here and we go off walking across the hills and end up in a peat bog of all things! Luckily most of it is covered in a network of duck boards and we set of on what we think is a circular walk back to the van but get hopelessly lost. You can quickly see how people end up in trouble in the mountains, especially when so much of the walking is within forest. When we think we are getting near the van we come out at a clearing where we started the walk! In effect we have gone round in a circle.

We still haven’t seen a Bear yet and Slovenia was probably our last chance although they are here as well in small numbers. One, a few years ago apparently not far from where we are kept appearing at the Italian / Austrian border and got a bit aggressive trying to source food from tourists cars! Sadly in the end he was shot which seems damned unfair.

Nobody else arrives at the wild spot and sadly no Bears. Not even a Marmot but it’s wonderful having the mountain to ourselves.

We spend a not so great day and night on the Sosta at Sappada. Its busy and the town is quite lively but as the weather changes we decide to head to the southern Dolomites and find a lake for some water borne activities.

Barcis and the great Italian Sleepover.

The morning we leave the busy Sosta at Sappada the weather is even worse. Low cloud and rain and cold. Really cold. I even wonder if there will be fresh snow on the hills around us as we head south.

We are only driving fifty miles or so, more like thirty as the crow flies but the difference once again is dramatic. Its suddenly sunny and up to about twenty eight degrees which incidentally is our agreed ideal temperature. Perfect for any water sports, not too hot for looking around places and lovely on the bike in shorts and T shirts and of course this being the mountains means lovely fresh cool nights.

Barcis which is in the southern Friulii Dolomites is superb. The Sosta which is twelve Euros for twenty four hours includes massive pitches and electricity, water and waste at every pitch and is right next to the lake which is stunning.

Surprisingly after leaving the rather grotty Sosta at the uninteresting Sappada which was packed and more expensive when you included electricity this place is half empty. You can never tell. Places you expect to be empty as they are a bit crap are often for reasons beyond my comprehension full and superb places (in my opinion) are quiet. Oh well. Hooray!

We decide to stay a while here as it has everything. Superb cycling, rowing, swimming, walking and a charming little lakeside village that has tried just a little to become a tourist destination and then decided it couldn’t be arsed and went back to being a charming little unspoilt Italian lakeside village where the majority of residence are clearly local.

I’ve already been told off for generalising about the Italians on one of the motorhome forums but as the Sosta fills up with holiday makers we very quickly feel like the odd ones out.

Our days seem to be filled with doing stuff. It hardly stops from about seven in the morning until dusk. I poked fun a few years ago at the fit people of Annecy or the Swiss family fit in the Bernease Oberand last year but it seems we have joined them.

Worryingly the Italian new arrivals seem to have hordes of small children. They are pretty much well behaved though and despite spending their days playing in amongst the trees and grass collecting sticks and mud etc they are always beautifully turned out and unlike when I was a kid always spotlessly clean.

We are out most of the time in or around the lake but every time we come back we notice nobody has left their vans. For the first time I notice we are the only ones using the lake for swimming and boating. The other thing we notice is on an afternoon it goes really quiet. All the kids’ bikes, paddling pools and toys etc are still there but there is nobody around. Good I say, they have gone off and done stuff. Well err no actually, after a while we notice they all go to bed in the afternoon. Siesta I think they used to call it before the world woke up and realised that if half the country slept half of the day there was an even bigger chance you would go bankrupt and be kicked out of the Euro or have no chance of getting in if you were wanting to join the club.

But it seems on Holiday, the Siesta is alive and well. Our neighbours to our left a family of five, two adults and three teenagers, teenagers FFS! Quietly collect their things around two thirty, go inside (all of them), put on the Air con in the van and go to sleep and you don’t hear a peep out of them for four hours!

You would worry that they will then be up all hours of an evening partying the night away but none of it. By eleven PM at the latest the Sosta is deathly quiet. Amazing.

So the agenda for a holiday here is- Get up, don’t bother with the lake or the town and sit by the van for a bit, go to bed for most of the day and then sit by the van a few more hours and go to bed again. Christ they must work hard here to be that knackered!

We even start to feel guilty starting the bike at three in the afternoon or pumping a lilo up! They are a friendly bunch though when they are awake and we have a happy time at Barcis.

The inflatable ring gets an outing as we discover at the top end of the lake that the river running down the mountain pass still has enough water in it for a bit of white (well white ish) water rafting (tyre ing, rubber ringing?). We have noticed that around the Alps there are vast river beds sometimes up to a half a mile wide in places that have very little water running in them. To see some of these torrents in full flood must be an amazing site.

This one is a couple of hundred yards wide with some good stretches of water flowing down it up to about thigh height and it’s great fun flying down on the ring. The only issue is stopping. Again my left knee spills claret on some rocks but the water is so freezing I hardly notice. The only other issue is walking all the way back up again up the dried river bed in flip flops. It takes a lot longer to walk back than it does to get down!

Just to emphasise (again) the way the weather differs so much in the Alps the difference between midday temperature at Sappada, Thirty miles north as the crow fly’s and Barcis is ten degrees (18c vs 28c). One afternoon we belt through a three mile tunnel down to the town of Maniago. It basically ten miles by road to Maniago and the freezing cold tunnel literally spits you out of the Alps. The wall of heat that hits us is incredible. Its touching 35c in Maniago! This is a taste of things to come as we are heading out of the Alps and down to Venice. I’m keen to show Michelle Venice as I last went there as a teenager on a school trip and loved it (for all the wrong reasons) but I can’t say I’m excited at the prospect of trying to see one of the world’s premier tourist hotspot cities in August.

Right now as I write this we have got ourselves into the region of Pordenone at the delightful little village of Valvasone where they have provided us with another fantastic Sosta with free everything next to a lovely park. It was Black Friday yesterday and the whole of Italy is supposed to be gridlocked but nobody is here. We have the place to ourselves and are almost pleased to get a neighbour today to share it with.

It comes at a price though. It hardly cools through the night and hits well over thirty during the day and the mozzies and midges have arrived in force. We seem to be the only people walking around with huge red bites though. Why do mozzies never ever seem to bite locals? A question I would very much like the answer to.

We have a ride out to some of the surrounding villages and towns and at the Tourist information in the lovely town of San Vito al Tagliamento the lady there invites us to have a look around their theatre. Well how do you say no? We can’t be bothered as it’s too hot and why would you want to go and look at a theatre? We are both so glad we did. Above the Ti is the most charming little theatre I have ever seen. It’s stunning and beautifully restored with stalls and three tiers of circle private boxes. We spend a good while looking round and Michelle even gives an impromptu piano concerto!

Well hopefully once we have acclimatised we can attack Venice but there is no hurry and I can still see the mountains so who knows!

Being ill and in Limbo.

Michelle hasn’t been too well for a week now. She suffers from Kidney stones and the same thing happened last year. She’s in pain and can hardly eat or drink. This doesn’t bode well as the mercury hits 37 degrees Celsius with little respite at night. So despite the lovely quiet Sosta we are on in Valvasone after three days we decide to put Venice on hold and head back into the hills.

It really is boiling hot with temperatures predicted to hit 40 degrees the day we leave. We have had enough and the bites are just driving us both mad. It’s a short drive up into the pre-Alps or lower Dolomites if you like and after a look around the town of Beluno we head for an Aire at Mel.

Lets Off Road!

The Aire at Mel, isn’t actually at Mel. In fact it’s not at anywhere really. As we head up out of the Valley through a few charming little streets and villages the road gets narrower but we are encouraged by the Camping Car sign pointing the way we are going. It takes us however down a single track road with ever increasing very steep and sharp hairpins. First up, then down and then finally up again.

There is now some confusion at the bottom of one stretch as the sat nav gives up, goes mental and tells us there is no more road. On the small scrappy bit of grass at the bottom a Motorhome has parked assuming that this is perhaps the Sosta. Ours still says half a mile though but is still blowing a gasket as to which way to go or how to get there as there is no road. Well there is a road, its lies ahead of us, about eight foot wide (we are 7ft 8”) and straight up!

I just plough on and Hank can only manage first gear. At the top there is a left turn and another sign! Hooray we are on the right track and as we round the corner there is the Sosta. Why oh why oh why would anyone think of putting a motorhome parking area here. There is one German van on it who doesn’t look best pleased to see us but we take our spot and let the van cool down.

Its then I notice the Sosta is right in view of a charming old Castle and on later inspection as we walk up to the castle it seems that perhaps the few picnic areas, the motorhome Sosta and a closed down bar were at one point setup to attract perhaps paying guests for the castle and the little bar / restaurant but it looks just a season or so run down to me. Maybe it’s just too out of the way or perhaps it’s another sign of the global financial crisis but we feel sad that someone or the locality has gone to so much trouble to attract people to what is actually a lovely spot but it just hasn’t quite made it and now looks slightly abandoned. Thankfully they have left the electricity on however but sadly not the water. No matter. Our policy these days is to leave our last spot with a full tank and an empty loo as you never know!

Thankfully just thirty miles or so from the valley below where it is now steaming hot its now ten degrees cooler here. A lovely 25-27c or so and we immediately feel better. The little German van vanishes in the morning and we have the place to ourselves. We don’t do a lot but manage a few trips out on the bike which defies gravity and the capacity of its tiny little 100cc engine by pulling us both and our shopping up the impossible inclines.

On day three we venture further out to the town of Feltre and it’s a lovely ride but every bump on the smaller roads is excruciating for Michelle and I’m starting to worry now but there is little anyone can do until it passes or she passes a stone.

Having had yet another night on our own (we are racking them up now which must be very unusual in Italy in August) we are enjoying the silence and solitude around the castle when all of a sudden out of the blue three French Motorhomes appear and drive into the Aire. We are happy to see the French as they are always pleasant, never nosy and are the best behaved motorhomers in Europe. Always fast asleep in bed by 10:30!.

Pleasantries exchanged the blokes then ceremonially all go off for a piss along the road in front of us, empty all their grey water in the drain so we spend half an hour covered in flies and then decide to bugger off down the hill to park in another field! Charming. Hey! Hang on a minute. I wonder if they have any French cheese with them!

The Ghost Sosta!

Heading further west we end up at Lake Caldonazzo. Its peak season and there is no Sosta near the lake, or so we thought. Heading up into the mountains with the prospect of a long bike ride back down to see the lake and its smaller neighbour Lake Levico at the back of the town of Caldonazzo I take a wrong turn and out of the corner of my eye spot a quiet little car park with some motorhomes in it. Great! It looks like an unofficial Sosta and only a stone’s throw from the village and the lake, there are about ten vans scattered about so we find a spot and decide to stop there for the night. It’s very quiet though and we assume everyone is either at the lake or as its now after lunchtime asleep!

A trip out on the bike sees us around both lakes. It’s a lovely day and very warm and we join the throng of holiday makers on one of the beaches by Lake Caldonazzo. The big gay pink lilo gets an outing and I use it to cross the lake to infiltrate one of the lakeside campsites just to have a nosy. It’s packed full and for some reason occupied almost exclusively by Germans and Dutch. I blend in though as Michelle says I look like a German (whatever a German looks like).

Back on the beach I soon get bored though and wonder how people can lay there all day long. Over the mountains some threatening black clouds appear so we make a move to have a quick look at Lake Levico and it is a quick look as the sky turns black and we whizz back to the Sosta just in time as the heavens open. Our neighbours are still nowhere to be seen. We fall about laughing at the thought of them running back from the lake getting drenched but hours later they still haven’t come back.

It’s not until much later in the evening that the penny drops. There is nobody coming back to the vans. They must belong to locals who just store them here. We spend a very quiet night on what must be the quietest Sosta in Italy!

Two weeks later and Drama hopefully over!

I’ve not written any blog for a while. Michelle took a turn for the worse and I haven’t felt like writing anything.

Despite us managing to struggle on and see some nice places I grew more and more concerned for Michelle as she was hardly sleeping or eating and in a great deal of pain. Despite this we managed a trip to Garda on the bike from a mountain top sosta ten miles away but our hearts weren’t in it really and it’s not our kind of place.

I can write about it all now as in the last few days she has recovered but the ordeal she suffered was horrendous. Don’t worry there are some funny bits!

We are camped up on a Sosta in the mountains at a village called Brentonico. Michelle’s Kidney stone has moved but she hasn’t passed it and on a Monday evening I’m worried. She can’t pee, her stone is on its way out but stuck and she’s in quite a bit of stress. This is going to sound a bit irresponsible but we do nothing immediately as it’s happened before and by morning she has passed it. At seven in the morning I am awoken to her telling me she needs to go to hospital. She’s bursting for the loo but can’t go.

The new sat nav comes in useful at last as it knows where the nearest hospital is. Rovereto which is 12 miles and twenty six minutes away. Trouble is we are 4000ft up and in a motorhome. You have never seen a motorhome fly off a hill so fast. We make the hospital in twenty minutes flat. Of course we all know that it’s impossible to park outside a hospital in a car never mind a twenty four foot long white brick. In the end I just park it next to the car park on double yellows making sure I’m not obstructing anything, write a quick scrawled note saying emergency and put the hazards on.

Now I’m not knocking the NHS. They do an amazing job and have some great doctors and nurses but sadly for them and us they are underfunded and badly managed. When this happened at home it took three hours to be seen. In the hospital in Rovereto we are seen immediately. We sign a few forms, flash Michelle’s EHIC card and are taken off to see the Doctor.

Of course there is the language barrier. How do you explain that your wife has a stone stuck in one of her most delicate little places and if you don’t get it out in the next five minutes she may explode?

No matter, they wheel in an interpreter. From Mozambique!

He speaks perfect English though but I start to wonder just how good his Italian is as despite him understanding us they don’t seem to be getting the message. Eventually the penny drops and within minutes they have the stone out. I make it sound simple but it’s clearly agony for Michelle and despite a local aesthetic I can see it really hurts. You see this is the difference between men and women though. Why isn’t she screaming like mad? I would be. In fact I think I would have insisted on being knocked out completely or preferably not there at all!

We think that’s it but no. Michelle ends up with a catheter in and an intravenous drip before they send her off for some scans and ultra sound. Results in, the consultants consult before worryingly announcing that they are transferring her to another hospital at Trento where there is a specialist.

All this happens within two hours. I’m guessing now that this isn’t going to be straight forward and they will probably keep her in at Trento. This then presents me with the problem of what to do with Hank as I’m going to have to follow the ambulance. Our little African friend has now disappeared and nobody speaks any English. To make matters worse I discover that there are two hospitals in Trento which is 15 miles away. Nobody seems quite sure which one she is going to. The ambulance drivers arrive and whisk her off before I have any more time to worry about never seeing her again and then there I am. Sat in Hank, revving my engine, looking mean with the prospect of chasing a screaming Italian Ambulance through the Alps. Nobody can ever say our trips are dull.

I toss a coin and program in one of the hospitals into the sat nav in case my Lewis Hamilton driving skills I sported earlier are no match for Mario Andretti who is poised at the wheel of his very quick looking sleek ambulance and off we go.

There is no way they are getting away though. Thankfully the summer traffic sees to that but I do manage to carve up plenty of cars, wagons and the odd motorhome at roundabouts in an effort to keep up. To the three motorhomes I did manage to very rudely pull out in front of I apologise if you’re reading this. It was nice of you to wave and I’m sorry I acknowledged your kind happy holiday gesture with a grimace, screaming tyres and cries of “get out of my F***ing way!”

Amazingly we don’t get separated and I pull up at the hospital as the ambulance neatly turns into an underground entrance to the huge hospital with the electric gates closing quickly behind it leaving me outside! Ah well. At least I know she’s in there somewhere!

This time however the nearest I can get parked is a mile away. Pig, once again comes to the rescue and of course even at a hospital you can park a scooter anywhere.

Finding Michelle in the large hospital would be easy you would think. The receptionists here speak good English. How hard can it be? Very hard actually. “Maybe she is in Emergency” suggests one. Ten minutes later. “Nope”. “Err. Maybe she’s on floor three?” 15 minutes later err nope! I give up but Michelle cleverly sends me a text trying to describe where she is as she must have realised I’ve got lost but it’s a bit vague as she came in the secret entrance.

Back to reception I trot. They must know where she is. “Ah. She will be on floor seven” says the receptionist. “Where the specialist is”. She tells me to follow the red line to the elevator. I do and get in only to see it only goes to floor 5. I get out, find another one that only goes to floor 3. Back to reception. “Ah no, not those elevators, they only go to floor 3 and 5” If she only knew how close she came. I eventually get to floor 7 in the floor 7 lift only to be told. “No. She will be on floor 3”!!!!

Another text gets a slightly more detailed response which suggests she might be on floor 3 near the toilets.

I find Michelle in what seems like an age later already sat with the chief consultant who isn’t looking too happy. They have found anther stone deep in her Kidney. They don’t think it’s moving anytime soon though. The long and the short of it is one suggests we go home now and another says we should be ok to continue. It’s a bit of a bitter sweet end really as we both assumed that would be the end of it.

Anyway it looks like that’s it. Tests over and they are going to let her out. Errr. No not quite. Italian procedure dictates that she has to be returned to the hospital she came from before she can be discharged. Yep. You guessed it by Ambulance! This time however Mario has a head start as I’m parked a mile away, have to get the bike back on and then find my way out of Trento. They only beat me by five minutes though but this is long enough for them to have whisked Michelle off to another room and another Intravenous drip. Antibiotics this time. An hour later though they disconnect her and we are told we can go. I’m assuming there will be a payment of some kind but no. All taken care of apparently.

I have to say the attention and care she received was first class although I learn later that the guy in the back of the ambulance was less than thorough. After spending the first five minutes of the journey texting on his phone he promptly went to sleep and let Michelle’s Drip run out.

So drama over but I’m still very concerned about her. We head up to a lovely little Sosta we found near a little lake at Villa Lagarina for a couple of days up in the cooler mountains for some well earned R&R.

She’s still very tired and sleeps for hours really deeply for a couple of days. The decision to carry on or go home is an easy one for Michelle. I think if her head was hanging off she wouldn’t complain and would rather carry on! Women!

I agree to another week and if she doesn’t vastly improve or shows any signs of getting ill again we are off.

I think at this stage it would be appropriate to thank two dear friends from www.motorhomefacts.com who were super helpful and supportive throughout Michelle’s ordeal. Mrs W. (Lesley) and Aldra (Sandra). Both of whom are or were in the nursing profession. Thanks ladies. You don’t know how much your support was appreciated and when you’re a long way from home it’s nice to know there are people you can be in touch with who care and can offer advice. Even if we don’t always listen straight away!!

Thank you.

Michelle’s improving so we make plans to head down into some of the more tourist hot spots. We plan to see Lake Idro and Lake Iseo. It’s a disaster. The first Sosta at Idro doesn’t exist and all the ones I had lined up for Iseo are either so dreadful you wouldn’t even leave your vehicle on it let alone think about spending a night there or full.

In the end we both know where we are heading and despite being a little disappointed that Italy finally let us down we both quietly know what’s just the other side of the Alps heading west. France!!!

We end up driving all day and spend one last night in Italy on a nice little Sosta just west of Turin that is sadly occupied by the loudest people we have ever met who all seem to know each other before quietly early the next morning we take our leave and slip out of Italy and back to France!

I don’t want to say I’m disappointed with our time in Italy as the Dolomites were just amazing but sadly it’s been Marred and much of it was not much fun at all for Michelle.

Now as I write this we have been back in the Haut Alps for four days and I am glad to report that Michelle is almost back to her old self. I started to see this when she started yelling at me again. Always a good sign but she’s managing to go out walking again and ten miles on the bike cause her no problems anymore.

So fingers crossed for a long and late summer in France!