Paestum

We were going to head to a truck stop along the way, but since we got started early in the morning we decided that as cool as it sounds, hanging out in a truck stop for the day wasn’t exactly what we were looking for. So we decided to do the 5 hour drive to Paestum. We stayed for free again, this time it was supposed to be 5 euros/night plus 2 for electrical. No one was around to collect here either. We drove around the ruins first and decided it would be best to visit the following morning. We are finally south enough in Italy for it to actually be warm during the day, still cool at night though. I had a very early start the following day, and unfortunately Julie couldn’t get back to sleep either although she tried. At around 5am I shifted my weight to get comfortable in bed and managed to pull just about every neck muscle I have. I was in so much pain that no matter what I did, it hurt. I was in this state for most of the day, around 5pm I was able to move my head back about an inch without pain. We ended up visiting the Greek ruins anyway but decided that an extra night was necessary. The ruins themselves were pretty impressive, I do wish they would have allowed us to actually walk in the ruins, but I could understand why they fence it off. Julie and I did enjoy walking around and felt the €4/person entry fee was worth it. That night we decided to head to Pompeii, to camping Spartacus where we intend to view the area and finally have a shower.

Fiuggi

On our drive to Paestum we decided to stay in Fiuggi which was about 3 hours away from Santa Fiora (Paestum was 8 ½ hours away). We stayed for free in the restaurant parking, but the sosta was supposed to be 8 euros, luckily for us no one was collecting once again.

San Gimignano,Siena and Santa Fiora (all in one day)

Can you believe that we made it to day 200? It is hard at times for us to think that we have actually been away that long. Until we start thinking about everything we have seen. Day 100 had seemed to take forever to approach, but 200 snuck up on us. Unfortunately we didn’t do anything exciting to celebrate this momentous day. We couldn’t find any good parking in San Gimignano (closest spot we could actually fit into was 4 km away down the hill). We originally wrote off Gimignano but Shoestrings said that it was so highly visited that we should only check it out in the middle of the week in the middle of winter, which was precisely when we were here. When we determined we couldn’t park, we skipped it and made our way to the capitol of Tuscany, Siena. Parking in Siena was 25 euros so we didn’t stick around, we did however stop in a McDonalds where we had a quick bite for breakfast(chocolate filled chocolate chip muffins) and I had two Macchiato’s to drink (espresso mixed with warm milk). Since we didn’t stop here either we were well on our way to our next stop in Santa Fiora. We ended up staying here for 2 days where it was very windy and cold. We spent the two days planning the next leg of our trip south. Since the further south we go, the less camper friendly it becomes.

Cusona

On our way to the hill-top, walled city of San Gimignano we realized that the sosta we were heading to was actually located in Cusona, about 10 km away. The drive through Tuscany was pleasant, although the roads were narrow, which at times made for close calls with other cars. We managed to get close enough to San Gimignano to take a picture of the town before doing our U-turn and heading towards our rest spot for the night. When we arrived in the industrial area of Cusona we quickly came to the conclusion that we would not be the only ones staying the night. When we got closer though, we noticed that the other campers were actually spending as much time as they could here. So we decided to pull in anyway and camped the night with the gypsies. They weren’t typical gypsies though. They seemed to be well off as all the campers were new. One of the men helped back me into the parking spot. There were two electrical outlets, but surprisingly only one was in use (but all the campervans were hooked up to it using a splitter). We had electricity until around 7pm when the breaker blew. None of us could figure out how to fix it so we went without. We decided to get going early the next morning, around 9ish. When we got the van ready to pull out, I noticed that a large camper had decided to park right in front of us at some point during the night, essentially blocking us in. If the guy wouldn’t have moved I planned on backing out over the curb. The same man that helped guide me in the previous night came over and started speaking to us, he suggested we knock on the camper door, when we said we couldn’t speak Italian he took it upon himself to do it for us. A moment later we were on our way.

Florence (Firenze)

Well, on day three in Casola Valsenio it was still miserable, so we figured we would move on and take our chances. We needed gas, so we stopped at a local gas station on the way out. The gas attendant offered Julie and I “carnival treats” while she filled our tank. We just couldn’t refuse, how could we? To get to Florence was long and tiring. The road curved up and down so many mountains that Julie had to take an anti-nausea pill and my arms were getting tired of gripping the steering wheel. Luckily our sosta (camper parking location) was far enough outside the city center that we didn’t have to contend with too much traffic. Now we lucked out huge at this sosta. It was supposed to cost 10 euros, however, upon arrival we found out that the new 2008 price was 12 euros which didn’t matter in the end since we ended up not having to pay. On the way in, no one was tending the gates (lunch hour) and when a local pulled in behind us, he just simply got out of his car and swiped us in. On our way out, we managed to leave right behind a lady (once again no attendant). Our first stop in Florence was to the Academia Museum which houses Michelangelo’s “David” (the guy who fought Goliath). The rest of the museum was sort of a waste of time, although it did have other known statues (Julie pointed them out to me). Michelangelo’s David was so much larger then Julie and I had expected. It was truly impressive. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures in the museum. Afterwards we followed the tourist hordes to the Duomo plaza. All of the famous statues that were housed in the museum we just went to had replicas on display which you could view for free outside. Although we don’t regret paying to see “David” we would have liked to skip out on paying the €6.50/person entry fee. We were crossing the plaza to have a better chance to take some photos when a guy on a cell phone started telling us to back up for a moment and pointed at a crane that had a film crew in the basket. So we watched some guy wearing religious garb walk slowly for the camera. Once they were done we were allowed to keep walking so we did. We passed by another museum, this one was the Uffizi, where a car bomb was set off not too long ago, we decided not to go in as it was another €6/person. The Ponte Vecchio bridge is the only bridge in Florence to survive the bombing of WWII and is special because it used to be lined with butcher shops until the Uffizi family requested it to be lined with jewelry shops. We did some browsing and thankfully Julie didn’t like anything. It was getting late so we headed back to the van. When we turned on the laptop we found out that we had internet access, so we updated our blog and downloaded more TV shows. We stayed up late that night because it was Fat Tuesday and the church/concert hall was playing loud music until the wee hours of the night. With the way Italian men are with women, Julie has no interest in heading out to a bar. Too bad too, Fat Tuesday is supposed to be fun.

Casola Valsenio

What better way to spend a Sunday then to drive the windy roads in the mountains to a little town to park for free. The town was small and charming. But damn was it cold. It was around zero during the day (we didn’t dare to venture out at night to figure out just how cold it dropped down to), foggy, raining and windy both days we spent here. We occupied our time watching movies in our bed under the mound of blankets we have. We stayed for two days here because the weather was so poor. We didn’t want to visit Florence in the rain.

Bologna

Our original stop was in Casalechio di Reno, a sosta with electrical, however gypsies deterred us from actually staying the night. We decided to head to the Bologna campsite a day early. The campsite was fairly nice and very modern. We paid a bit for that convenience. Since it was late afternoon we spent the day at the campsite cleaning our clothes and the van and of course, ourselves. We still have the broken camera, but we decided to see if we could go on with it having a loose button, maybe glue it back on. The second day we ventured into the center of Bologna. A rooster tried his best to make sure we wouldn’t miss an early start. The damn thing wouldn’t shut up from about 6am until 10am. Julie was so close to going outside and strangling it. The bus to town stops right in front of the reception kiosk of the campsite, which makes visiting very easy. Bologna is a very cosmopolitan city, with the main strip being lined with trendy clothing shops and fancy restaurants. The wide sidewalks were jam packed with people which, at points forced others to venture onto the road. One thing I found interesting though, was that the sidewalks were all covered. We made our way to the tourist office located in the center square. On the way we passed Neptunes fountain, with its very provocative women at each corner. Once we had our map we sat outside the tourist office on the steps leading into the main square and tried to figure out our next step. While we were waiting a band started up, and that’s always nice. All the museums in Bologna are free, but we didn’t see any of interest (figures). There are two leaning towers here, so we decided to take a stroll over to them. They sure did lean. We weren’t all that impressed with Bologna and since the day was cool and cloudy we decided to head back to the campsite. We needed to rush to catch the bus though, in fact we missed it, but luckily Julie spotted it and flagged it down. Because of the way the bus fare system works in Italy, we managed to ride for free on the way back to the campsite (we weren’t supposed to).

Ferrara

The guide book described Ferrara’s castle to have a moat, working drawbridge and to be intact. What we didn’t expect was it to be completely surrounded by streets and made of red bricks that made it look “new”. We decided not to stay here but to take a walk around the castle and take some pictures. This is when we discovered something horrible. Our camera was broken. How it happened, we don’t know, but the little button you press to actually take the pictures fell off. I managed to take 3 pictures after trying very hard for a few minutes. This event really put our moods down, especially since we are entering the leg of our trip that is going to be filled with the most famous of sites.

Venice

Our drive to Venice had us stopping through a few towns along the way, originally we had 3 towns to break up the drive, but we forgot one so we ended up doing a huge drive one day, oops. If it wasn’t so cold we would have visited the surprising town of Montagnana because it was a walled town. The largest factor for us skipping our visit though was that we have been to well over a dozen walled towns. The town was surprising because we had seen nothing like it so far in Italy. Punta Sabioni was our campsite for two days while we visited Venice. In summer this place would have been packed so we were thankful for visiting out of season. The ferry ride was 13 euros each for a 12 hour pass. It dropped us off near the main square, Piazza San Marco. Carnival was on and our first sight of this was the theme park area set up along the Grand Canal heading away from the Piazza San Marco. As soon as you got off the ferry there were about a dozen stands selling the famous “Carnival masks”. We perused these for awhile before walking along the Grand Canal to the tourist office. Our first taste of Venice was nice and it continued to be so, but the most regrettable thing is that everything costs. During our walk there were artists trying to sell pictures or offering portraits, there were also many offering face painting traditional with Carnival. The tourist office didn’t have much of anything useful except that it sold tickets to a play that told the history of Venice. That would have been cool to go to see, but 50 euros each is a little steep. We wandered the many streets with numerous shops selling just about everything but almost all sold masks. There were so many tourists here that you didn’t really need a map because you could just follow the crowd to find some new and interesting area. We went to a small pizza shop for calzones, at 4.50 they were the cheapest. They were good, but Gino’s makes them bigger and better. We spent a fair amount of time taking photos of the people fully dressed up for the parties (most wandered around posing for photos). We found Venice so nice that we definitely want to come back, hopefully for Carnival. We didn’t attended one of the “parties” because they were 80 euros each to attend and require advance booking.

Torino

We figure the main reason we came here was because of the Olympics. The city is an industrial town and not all that pretty to see. This is why we didn’t stay for long. Although this didn’t stop us from taking a stroll along the river to have a better look at a castle. We had planned to spend the day exploring Torino, but since we didn’t want to stick around we headed off to our next stop. The RV store we stayed at the previous night had another store along the way to Venice so it seemed like a logical stop. This store however was not nearly as nice and we weren’t too sure where to park so we had to go in and ask.

Genola

We attempted to make it here today, but I had such a bad headache we ended up pulling over on the side of the road near a river in the mountains dividing France and Italy. The rock colours were very cool to see. Some were striped purple and white and others were burgundy. The next morning we took up the drive again. It was very windy and we did have to stop a few times because of sheep being on the road. When we arrived at the tunnel connecting France to Italy we had to wait 10 minutes before we could pass through. France was warm mostly, no snow anywhere except on some distant mountain tops and you could tell that even those parts were becoming green. Once we popped out of the tunnel and into Italy, it was a drastic change. There was about 2-3 feet of snow everywhere and it wasn’t for awhile before the snow stopped and we started to see the grass again. The place we stopped at was nice; it provided us with free electricity, and a complete service station. There was an amazing sunset that night, something we have rarely seen on this trip.

Monaco

We have a tendency to miss busses and trains by mere moments, and this was the case when visiting Monaco. The map the campsite provided us showed the train station just a short distance away, but it turns out that it was quite a bit further down the road. We had figured that it would take about 5 or 10 minutes to get to the station and we planned to be there 10 to 15 minutes before the train arrived, so we left the campsite 20 to 25 minutes before the train was scheduled to arrive. We missed the train by 5 minutes and had to wait about 45 minutes for the next one. The train ride was rather long but once we arrived we found a tourist office and made quick work of figuring out just where we were. The main harbor is just a few minutes walk from the train station and we spent most of our time here. Seeing the houses and large buildings built on so many different levels with the cliffs being in your face was great. Some of the boats in the marina were amazing, a few I found just perfect. I know I will never be able to buy one, but one can hope. While we were walking around I was tempted to visit a café, but at 8 euros a cup, we decided to just keep walking. We didn’t think we would see people ice skating while being here in Europe, but they had a small open air ice rink right on the harbor. Almost all of the skaters were using rented skates, figure skating style. We think two guys actually had hockey skates. We watched them skate for awhile before heading back to the train station. Tomorrow it’s off to Italy.

Villeneuve-Loubec

We picked up our bread delivery this morning at around 9:30, turns out we were the last to do so. We had planned on visiting Monaco today but since we weren’t fully geared up to go we decided to do something different. The campsite is mostly popular because of its location, but the main reason people come here is the large indoor/outdoor pool that is open year round (says our camping guide). So Julie and I finally got to use our bathing suits on this trip. We were the only ones swimming and we did so for a couple of hours. They have a hot tub too, but unfortunately it wasn’t running. You figure they would have it running in winter more than in summer. It was a very nice relaxing day and the dip in the pool felt amazing. We later walked through the park to a nearby grocery store for some supplies.

Nice

The campsite was fairly nice and even offered local bread service, which we took advantage of. We spent the first day washing our clothes and repairing the light with the silicone. Thankfully it worked without much of a problem. We originally signed up for 2 amps of service at the campsite, as it’s the cheapest, but we ran out of amperage when we hooked up our heater so we had to up it to 10 amps. We didn’t want to be cold when it could be prevented. The following day we woke early to catch the bus into Nice and go on walkabout. Nice was nice enough to spend a few hours in. The most interesting thing we saw was the photos along the beach front taken by a scuba diver. All the weird sea creatures could be found off the coast of Nice, some just 10 meters off shore. Most were gross looking. We wandered down the coast to a short, but steep hiking trail to visit some roman ruins. The fact that the tourist office mentioned it as a sight to see was why we ventured here. It was however, not worth it. The ruins could have been mistaken for a pile of rocks. The hike though did provide a great view over Nice and its beach. There were many sun bathers, some topless and this is in January! We saw some people take a dip, but they only lasted a few seconds in the water. Nice’s beach was by far the strangest one we have come across. There was no sand to be found, just small round rocks.

Cannes

Ah, the lovely city of Cannes. Honestly I think celebrities only come here because they have to for the film festival. The waterfront was the nicest we have seen in Europe thus far. That didn’t do it for us though. The main strip was nice enough, but the constant traffic is a huge distraction. We took our van to a Speedy hoping that we could get the lights fixed but they said it would have to be done by an electrician or a VW dealership. Luckily there was a VW dealership just down the street so we made our way there. After waiting around an hour for help they told us we would have to wait about 5 days before they could fit us in. This didn’t work for us, so we made our way to the campsite in Villeneuve-Loubec which is just outside of Nice. We are using the campsite here to tour Nice and Monaco. We were also going to use it to visit Cannes, but since we weren’t impressed with what we saw, it was just Nice and Monaco.

St Tropez

John and Linda told us about a free parking place in Le Lavandou right on the coast. St Tropez is about 30 km from Le Lavandou so it seemed like an ideal place to rest for the night before visiting St Tropez and moving on to our next rest stop. It was a Sunday (Jan 20th) night when we arrived in Le Lavandou, so we called our parents as we have been doing just about every two weeks since we left Canada, and told them about the craziness of the past few days. St Tropez conjures up images of the exotic, well for me anyways. Julie found this stop boring (but she doesn’t like boats). The boats in the harbor were the largest I have seen to date. Strolling along the pier and admiring the large crafts was all there is to do in St Tropez. The cafes were expensive so we skipped this and moved on to our next rest stop, La Mole.

Marseille

The book “The Count of Monte Cristo” has been adapted to many movies and plays. There is even a sandwich called the “Monte Cristo” it’s essentially two pieces of French toast with ham and swiss cheese in the middle. Chateau D’If is an Island Fortress that is located 3 kilometers from Marseille where the hero Edmund Dantes spends 17 years of his life for no apparent reason. The fortress at one time was used as a prison and the story was actually loosely based off a true story. Julie and I decided that since we both liked the movie it was a worthy sight. We did have reservations though. Marseille is not known to be safe and petty theft is wildly expected. The first day in the city proved that Marseille is gritty and grimy with run down buildings and almost every inch of every building is covered with graffiti. We found parking under a highway overpass that was very sketchy but only 2km from our destination. We paid 3 euros for 4 hours and made our way to the port to locate the ferry that runs to If island. When we arrived we were told that all the remaining ferries for the day were sold out. It was around 2pm. So this was a disappointment to say the least. We did not feel comfortable leaving the van where we did and to learn that we had to come back tomorrow and do it all over again wasn’t appealing. There was a free place to park some 20 km from Marseille so we headed out of Marseille as soon as possible. The drive took us around 1 ½ hours because of traffic.

The following day we headed out rather earlier to beat some of the traffic in Marseille. Along the way we stopped for breakfast at a small bakery. We parked in the same spot as the previous day and proceeded to the port. This time the port was lined with a fish market which made Julie happy, until she saw the prices. The ferry ride was pretty short to the small island. Once out we were offered a tour but decided to view it on our own. We learned some interesting things, for example; during the first filming of the Count of Monte Cristo they actually dug a whole to connect two cells (which they weren’t allowed to do). If anyone has seen the most recent movie, they didn’t use Chateau D’If for the prison. The view of Marseille from the island was a nice one. Upon our arrival at the van it appeared to be still safe and sound. But when I went to “unlock” the door, it turned out not to be necessary. Sure enough, someone had broken into the van. Julie and I shocked, started to go through our things to see if anything was taken. Since we brought everything we find irreplaceable with us we had to go down a list of items we have in the van. We did this for about 30 minutes before I decided to move on to our next destination and have a better look after our nerves had calmed down. Before we left Marseille we believed that they had taken batteries and memory cards. Thankfully though, after a longer search we located everything and nothing was stolen. Some theories have come up about why nothing was taken, the first is that two traveling Canadians don’t have anything worth stealing, then we thought they might have been looking for drugs (Dutch plates on a VW). Even though we bring what we consider valuable with us whenever we leave the van, everything we have in the van is important to us and we would hate to loose even the smallest thing.

Avignon

We just had to go here. Julie taught me a French childhood song about dancing on this particular bridge in Avignon. The bridge of Avignon is famous for the childhood song, and the town also had an impressive palace and a few churches. We parked on the opposite bank of the river which provided us with an extremely nice view of the ruined bridge. The bridge itself used to have 22 arches and now only has 4. We were planning on actually walking on the bridge itself but it was 4 euros each to do so. Not exactly what we would call a necessary expense. We had a nice spot, but since it was still early enough to continue on our way, we opted on leaving for another free aires, this time in a tiny town called St Paul Les Durance. Early that day I had attempted to fix our head lights and managed to make matters worse. I have changed car head lights before, but not on an old German van. I accidentally pulled off the glass covering attached to the light assembly. So now we have one partially working headlight that is now covered with a plastic bag.

When we arrived in St Paul Les Durance we took a stroll through the tiny town to a general store to buy some silicone in hopes to reseal the glass to the light assembly. That same night we also replaced the light bulb with much trouble, only to have the entire light stop working (except the high beams). We did buy the silicone but did not use it as we were told it took 48 hours to dry completely and we have a few more stops before we actually get a break for a few days. We decided it would be best to fix the light at the campsite in Nice. After this troublesome event we decided not to drive at night anymore and get our van to a garage to get fixed.

Pont du Garde

We were woken up at 8:30am by the sound of a horse. It was young and was being walked around. The area we stayed at had a great view of the walled portion of the city. House boats were docked right in front of us. It seems that in the off season no one collects fees. So we took our time getting ready. I did the usual van check up, cleaned up the van and threw out what garbage we had collected. Julie took the time to relax and finish reading the book that Freddy gave us back in Marbella. Todays drive was an interesting one. We had both heard about the famous Pont du Gard, but neither of us really knew why it was so famous. We understood that it was a bridge of some kind but that’s it. The drive to the Pont du Gard was rather uneventful. We had to pay for parking at the site, if we had stopped a few km away we could have parked for free (huge oversight on our part, especially since John and Linda had told us parking wasn’t free). The sight itself is free which made us happy and we both found the bridge to be very impressive although not quite different from the one we saw in Segovia, Spain (the aqueduct in Segovia was completely intact and still being used by the town). After that we headed off to our free parking area for the night, which had dumping facilities and free electricity. The drive there was stressful again, as it turned dark almost as soon as we left the parking lot. Driving without any lights feels pretty unsafe, I tried to use the high-beams most of the time, but traffic was heavy with it being the end of the work day. Our free aires in Valréas turned out to be at a farm (and vineyard) and the electrical hook up was French, so we couldn’t use it. We also weren’t alone, which is always interesting for us, because we have found ourselves alone quite often since it started getting colder. We decided to spend the night watching some movies and have a few drinks to help calm our nerves. With most of our movies being stored on our external hard drive the computer seems to burn threw its battery faster. Having neighbors, we didn’t really want to disturb them. Previously, I had checked out the area and I did notice two electrical connections, the French one and what looked like a household German one. Well our van has all German outlets, and we have an adapter for our laptop. So I went outside in the lightly misting rain and charged the laptop. Julie didn’t feel that the laptop was safe alone so I stayed outside with it while she did the dishes and got the bed set up (she joined me outside when she was done). I brought my Ipod and a beer and it was a rather nice experience. The farm was very quite, the stars were out despite the fact it was raining and it wasn’t too cold. I’m actually glad we weren’t able to connect the van.

Aigues-Mortes

The drive here was pretty eventful, but not in a good way. Road construction put us on many detours that actually added 1 ½ hours to our already long drive. It was around 9 o’clock when I was about to enter a roundabout. A taxi had signaled to leave the roundabout and at the last minute swerved back into it, I wasn’t anticipating this. As it was late and there was barely any traffic on the road I was driving faster into the roundabout than I would have if it was during the day. That being said, I had to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting the taxi, which luckily I did. But after the sudden stop the van shut off and would not turnover. There was barely enough power to even light the interior light. Julie and I pushed the van onto the corner of the roundabout, rather then leaving it in a live entry lane. We put out our triangle and Julie adorned the vest and held a flashlight. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out why the dam van wouldn’t start. I even tried hooking the leisure battery up to the main battery with the booster cables to give it a charge to see if that helped matters. It did not. I asked Julie to see if she could flag someone over, so as Julie would tell you, she was waving her arms “as John McClain did in Die hard 2 when he was trying to signal the planes to land” flashlight in hand. Anyway, many cars passed by without stopping until one lady with her brand new car decided to see if she could help us. After a short while of trying to boost the car without any success, she offered to drive behind us with her hazards on so we could roll the van closer to town. We only rolled about 200 meters before we decided that the van probably wouldn’t make it up the hill that was approaching. Because we were convinced that the battery was the problem we started looking into where we could find a gas station to purchase one, however the nearest one was about 5 km away (in a straight line from our current position). Not knowing if it was a good idea or not, we decided to see if we could replace the car battery with the leisure one, it was then that I realized what the problem was. Thankfully the only problem with the car was a loose connection with the battery post. I tightened it and off we drove. Our enjoyment though was short lived, because we noticed immediately that the headlights were not working properly. We had no normal lights, they were working more like daytime running lights, but the high-beams still worked. After an extremely stressful drive, we finally arrived at our destination. We also learned at this time that the spot we had chosen to park at was not free, so we hoped that we might escape in the morning without having to pay.

Gorges de Tarn

Today was another long drive. We were headed to what is referred to as the “Grand Canyon of France”. We both think that’s an exageration. Although the small towns amongst the high valley walls were nice to see and the extremely windy road was fun to drive on, there was nothing “Grand Canyon” about it. That being said, we did stop for lunch at the edge of the road overlooking a small town on the valley floor. The weather wasn’t pleasant either so this didn’t help us enjoy the area. After lunch we decided to head south to the coast again to another aires, in Aigues-Mortes.