We docked at Ancona at 13:10 Italian time and were off the ship in no time heading north and then east on the motorway. We generally try to avoid motorways but the route from Ancona towards Turin is so urbanised that the journey using normal roads can be very slow and frustrating and the Garmin satnav showed that it would take literally twice as long. The journey was not very interesting, being very flat and covered either with vines and fruit trees, cereals or factories.
Three years ago when we were on a campsite near Asti, we met some Italian motorhomers who gave us a copy of a booklet called AgriPleinAir given away free to subscribers of the Italian Plein Air magazine. The book lists 'agroturism' sites that welcome motorhomes and amongst those are many restaurants where you can stay for no charge providing that you have a meal in the restaurant. This is an excellent idea and now whenever we are in Italy we will try to find one of these sites. Only a short distance from our intended route was one such restaurant, La Palazzina Di Gozzi in Colorno. We plugged the address into the Garmin and headed for it, arriving in a thunderstorm. Although the car park was open there was little sign of the restaurant being open. We eventually managed to get a response to one of the bells and were greeted by a mother and son. Our Italian is non-existent and the son's English only ran to a few words, however we were able to establish that they were in mourning and the restaurant was closed. We offered our condolences as best as we could and were told that we were welcome to stay in the car park without charge. Despite the proximity of an elevated road and the occasional noises from their animals (cockerels, pheasants, geese, horses and donkeys!) we slept remarkably well. We will definitely try to eat at the restaurant next time that we are in the area.
Photos: Arriving in Italy – docking in Ancona.
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