Friday 23rd Jan to 27th

Sunday a real life expedition arrived at the site: two landrovers, a small lorry-like support vehicle and a dune buggy, all sporting sponsorship logos. A BRITISH expedition, of course, with lots of good chaps running around with clip boards and bellowing down mobile phones e.g., “ look, Nigel, I need the bloody thing here NOW!”




The dune buggy is driven through the campsite at a furious rate and has a large fan device on the back. Fuzzy picture confirms the perilous speed! It turns out they fit a para-wing to it and then it’s a microlite, which they plan to fly across the Straits of Gibraltar and onwards to Timbuktu at the rate of about 100 miles a day. It’s a windy coastline, so they have to wait for a calmish day. A film crew is all part of the convoy and the end result will appear on Channel 4 sometime in June.

2009 THE ROAD TO MOROCCO

Jan 9th. Left Alconbury in freezing conditions. Temperature first night in French motorway services near Le Mans dropped to –7 degrees (-4 inside the caravan following morning). Arrived mid-day Sat at the house: central heating full on & woodburner lit straight away.

Jan 14th- We’ve sold the house, we think! Now lots to do. However, we’re still proceeding with the holiday and have given our agent Power of Attorney to sign final documents should we get that far.

Our neighbour Paul has a friend Gerard. Chatting with them, Gerard became animated when he realised we were soon going to Morocco. Searching in his wallet, he scribbled an address on a piece of paper and handed it to us. “I once worked with a Moroccan, from Tiznit. You look him up, and tell him Gerard sent you”. Tiznit’s about the size of Huntingdon, somewhere down south in the desert. Yes, Gerard.

Jan 20th. Off tomorrow, but a.m. noticed a flat tyre on the caravan. PANIC as they don’t sell UK caravan tyres in France. Great relief: it proved to be a split valve which the local tyre depot refitted at no charge!



Jan 21st . En route: stopped for lunch at motorway rest aire, 50 miles north of Bordeaux. Unbelievably, this was also the location of a large outdoor exhibition of Romanesque carving, taken (pirated?) from local churches. See photo, the main exhibition is through the arch. We were enthralled by the skill of the 11/12th century stonecarvers. Rarther like finding a Constable exhibition in a layby on the A14.

Jan 22nd. Driving in rain & mist all day. Tonight (only) staying at Campsite Monfrague, south of Salamanca. Monfrague Natural Park has a vulture breeding programme, but we’ll need to see that another time. Next day arrrive Tarifa, most southerly point on the European landmass.

Oct 24th to Oct 26th

Back at our house in the Vendee. Seems odd after the caravan, but we soon settle in. The Vendee Globe yacht race runs every 4 years, and this year is the one. It starts 2 weeks tomorrow, Sunday 9th Nov., from Les Sables d’Olonne, 15 minutes away. Today was open day, where the public could view all the competitors’ boats and absorb the razzmatazz of it all. So we went along and were duly impressed by the 30 sleek vessels on show and the vast array of sponsors’ displays in marquees on the quayside (3 Brits, but no Ellen MacArthur who won it last time).

Thur 16th to Mon 20th Oct

We found a splendid river & gorge right on the doorstep! The river runs past the campsite, so we decided to follow it upstream along a dirt road. In half a mile it became a ravine, and in a further half-mile, when it had widened slightly, we were astonished to find a large factory-type building containing a paper museum. We had a conducted tour, in English: the valley had been producing paper since 1381 and at its’ peak contained 38 paper mills! We continued up the valley afterwards along the track and found ruin after ruin of these ancient mills, all in an idyllic setting on the banks of the river. The river was, of course, the power source for the industry, which employed hundreds of workers and achieved vast output despite the location’s difficult access.

On Wednesday 22nd we’re leaving for the house in France where we’ll arrive on Friday, so this is the last entry for the time being. Lake Garda has been wonderful & still summer weather.

Tue 14th Oct to Wed 15th

The lake towns are served by a comprehensive ferry service, some taking vehicles. On Wednesday we caught the ferry to Sirmione, via several attractive stop-offs. Sirmione is a town on the tip a 3 mile peninsula projecting into the lake, and is olde worlde and, of course, touristy. Out of the town there are lovely views, Roman remains & caves.

Our water pump packed up a week ago & we were directed to a local caravan shop, which we couldn’t find. No problem, as we can use the showers on site instead of the caravan’s. Today the mystery was revealed: you enter the caravan shop through a high-class glassware shop. There is no signage whatsoever to indicate this arrangement on the glassware shop frontage. And they actually had what we wanted - a spare pump. The set-up must do wonders for their sales of caravan spares & equipment!

Friday 10th to Monday 13th

They started to arrive Friday afternoon… the weekend rally. They were rolling in up to 11.30 pm and carried on coming Saturday morning. Over 80 campervans transformed this quiet, out of season site into the equivalent of an Italian market. The rally came complete with whistley, testing-testing 1-2-3 tannoy. They were, however, most kind and, I suppose in recognition of our being “swamped”, brought us all kinds of wine, food & cake during Sunday’s communal lunch.

Monday. Today we went by train to Venice. Venice has all the worst and best elements of a top tourist attraction. Yes, crowds, high prices, shops full of souvenir tat but in a unique setting of islands & canals, incredible architecture on a huge scale and the sense of living history as it’s a working city. It adds up to a thoroughly good day out!

Wed 8th & Thur 9th Oct

Gargnano is just up the road, a pretty lakeside village and a typical example of the numerous settlements around the lake. Mussolini had a villa here from 1943 to 1945.
Thursday was our trip to Verona, by train. Verona is full of beautiful historical buildings from Roman times onwards, but is probably best associated with Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. The story has a proper historical basis and there were indeed two feuding families, the Montagues & Capulets, with events unfolding in the year 1302. The picture is of Juliet’s balcony in the Capulet’s house, as featured in the play. The arena was most impressive, looking like the Coliseum in Rome, but everybody’s seen pictures of that. Top marks for Verona in general: more history than you can shake a stick at.