Sunday 17th April 2011 – ANEK 'Hellenic Spirit' somewhere between Italy and Greece

We slept extremely well and if the road and if railway were noisy over night, we didn't notice it. I suspect that a weekday morning would have been noisier.

Given that we only had a 30 minute drive to the port at Ancona to do today, we had a very leisurely start to the day, both having showers and a relaxed breakfast. We still arrived very early, about 11:30 for our 16:00 departure but there was nothing to distract us between Senigallia and the port. We had bought a return ticket for Ancona to Patras in the Peloponnese knowing that there was an option to change either leg from Patras to Igoumenitsa in North Western Greece. Subsequently we had decided to start our visit to Greece at Igoumenitsa and return from Patras. We were able to make this change, without charge, at the ANEK office at the port and we then drove round to the embarkation point. We had been told at the ANEK office that we could go off to explore Ancona, leaving the motorhome in the port provided that we returned by 14:30. We took the opportunity and were very glad that we did. The port area was full of history from Roman times to the Mediaeval and behind the port was some stunning architecture such as the 13^th century church of S. Maria Della Piazza built on the site of an early Christian basilica and incorporating Roman material; the 15^th century Governor's Palace and many beautiful 19^th century houses. If you are leaving from Ancona port, do get there early and have a look at the town.

We were one of the first motorhomes to board and as such, we had a position on the side with views directly out over the sea. This was the same as the trip from Bari to Patras that we did on our 14 month trip around Europe in 2007/8 when we were the only motorhome but this time there were many motorhomes and we were lucky to get such a good position. With 'Camping on board', where you can stay in your motorhome over night, they always advertise that electricity is available. Last time, we couldn't find it but this time Jane spotted drums of power cables 5 metres up on the roof. But how were you supposed to get the plug to the motorhome? I asked one of the staff and was supplied with a very long pole with a bent piece of wire attached. It was very efficient at retrieving the plug, we were soon connected and the pole was passed around all of the other motorhomers.

We enjoyed our normal entertainment of watching the rest of the lorries, coaches and cars being loaded. Every time I think that they must be falling out of the other end of the ship, it just seems impossible that they all fit. We spent a while investigating quite the most luxurious Greek ferry that we have travelled on before returning to the van for Raddichio Rissotto – we were after all still in Italian waters!

Photos: The Arch of Traiano; The author's better half with Ancona in the background.

Saturday 16th April 2011 – Senigallia, Italy

A straightforward journey today east to the sea and then south along the coast to an aire at Senigallia. Just before the sea there was a site marked on both of our maps, Necropoli di Spina and we decided to take the short diversion to it. We drove a little further than we expected from the map but we then came to a tourist sign proudly displaying 'Necropoli di Spina' down a turning to the right. We expected the site to be very close but nothing was visible and eight kilometres later, with no further signs, we gave up and returned to the junction. We had another good look around but still couldn't see any sign of it. We did come across another minor archaeological site but that was closed.

However the route back to the main road did allow us to drive alongside Lake Spina. The whole area is a wetland with a mixture of land drained for agriculture and wetland in its natural state, very similar to our own Somerset Levels wetland. We had already seen egrets and were sure that there was plenty more interesting birds and wildlife in the marshy areas. When we reached the lake we saw three birdwatchers equipped with large binoculars and telephoto lenses on their cameras. We then came to an area where the road was lined with cars and over a hundred fishermen were fishing the waters of the wetlands. None were fishing the lake on the other side of the road, so it was obviously the wetlands that provided the best fish. This was proved when we watched an otter swimming across the open water just before we reached the fishermen. Just a few minute later, after we had passed most of the fishermen, we saw another otter swimming. In all of our years in Somerset and many walks on the Levels, we have never seen an otter although we know that they are there. Here we saw two within a few minutes and whilst driving past!

The rest of the journey was uneventful, passing resort after resort with occasional views of the sea. Arriving in Senigallia, we headed for the first of two aires shown in our book. This no longer existed and we found ourselves on the sea side of the railway separated from the main road by a series of low, too low for Henrietta, bridges. We eventually found an underpass and headed for the second aire, in a car park on the SS16. This was open and popular with seven motorhomes there when we arrived and more joining during the evening. With the main road next to the aire (fortunately no lorries) and the busy railway line (with express trains) just a few metres further away, it wasn't the quietest site but it was acceptable.

We had time for a long stroll along the promenade and watched the proprietors getting their private beach facilities ready for the season. One of the abiding memories of Italy in season is the private beaches with their regimented rows of sun umbrellas, a very unappealing sight.

Photos: The aire at Castelmassa with the Po in the background; The second photo shows what we saw of the Necropoli di Spina.

Friday 15th April 2011 – Castelmassa, Italy

Before we set off, we decided to go down to the lake and, once again, we heard English being called out, this time by a different voice. A timekeeper sat on the shore was keeping track of the pairs rowing a set course. I went over and chatted with him. It turned out that he was with a rowing charity that helped junior rowers in the London area. They had brought a group of promising rowers from a number of rowing clubs and were training them on the lake. It certainly wasn't a holiday! They were up at 06:30, rowing by 08:00, back on the coach at 15:00, three hours homework each day and in bed by 10:00. Apparently the training was very hard work and most of them were shattered – this was their last day. We also found out that the previous day it had been the English rowing team who had been there for two weeks. This would explain the Antipodean voice yelling “Keep those oars up! The waves at Henley can be one foot high!”.

As normal, we tried to avoid the motorways but it wasn't long before we were caught in the urban sprawl that seems to spread all around Milan and the journey became slow and tedious. We joined the motorway ring road around Milan and left on the SP415 towards Crema and Cremona. Soon there was a significant improvement with rural scenes replacing suburbia.

There were two noticeable features in the flat green landscape. The first was farms with the farmhouse, livestock buildings and barns totally enclosing a large square courtyard. This is very reminiscent of the standard layout of an ancient Roman villa, which was after all an up-market farm. The other feature were the many very large walled cemeteries placed in an open areas outside village and towns. Huge mausoleums poked their heads over the high enclosing walls that were obviously designed to encourage the souls to fly up to heaven rather creeping out into the surrounding area.

Jane had spotted a number of aires close to the River Po and that was where we were heading. The journey was much easier than yesterday, still flat but without the traffic delays. We approached the river but could not see it but what we could see was a massive bank, flood defences for the river and we follow this for miles. We saw a sign to the first of the aires and this took us up onto the bank where a narrow road along its summit. However, despite the directions, we could not find the aire and decided to look for the second one. Some miles further on, we again ascended the bank but this time found the aire on the top of the bank with a wonderful view of the Po. We sat and watched as the sun set colouring the sky and the river a glorious red.

Photos: The life of the lonely timekeeper, Gavirate; Sunset from Castelmassa aire.

Thursday 14th April 2011 – Gavirate, Italy

Never having visited Lake Maggiore, we decided to investigate it on route. We travelled down the east side and were very impressed. Pretty Swiss villages gave way to pretty Italian villages and all the time the lake was in view with the backdrop of dramatic mountains, some with snow-topped peaks.

We came across a viewing area and parked up. We sat drinking coffee on the enormous picnic tables taking in the view and listening to the bird song. This was very soporific and by the time that we moved on, we had decided that we didn't want to drive all the way to Lake Iseo. I had spotted Lake Varese on our route and asked Jane to check whether there were any options to stay there. She discovered that there was an aire close to the lake at Gavirate and we set the satnav up to take us there.

When we arrived, we found the site right on the edge of the lake and the facilities were very good. For €1 for every 3 hours we had a generous pitch with a view of the lake and fresh water and dumping facilities provided. Electricity was available at €1 for 12 hours. We sat outside in the sun enjoying a very late lunch and listening to English instructions being barked out to rowers on the lake. In the afternoon we took a pleasant stroll along the lakeside and back though the town.

Photos: View across Maggiore from the viewing point to Carmine (Italy), just south of the Swiss border; Rowing on Lake Varese – possibly the shoes of the England rowing team!!!

Wednesday 13th April 2011 – Lake Maggiore, Switzerland

We plugged in our destination into the Garmin Satnav and set off. At the very first turn my Sitnav (i.e. Jane) said “I don't know why it has done that – we are going in totally the wrong direction.”. However, we were heading due south and that seemed OK to me. It took us on a route down a pretty valley through villages with lovely timber-framed houses and we were soon in France via a road that was not on Sitnav's map. This enabled us to fill up with fuel in France before we crossed over the Rhine and back into Germany at junction 56 of the A35. Unfortunately, there was a considerable delay at this point due to the repairs being done to the dam at the massive lock for the ship canal. There were also many roadworks on the German E35 where the road widening looks likely to continue for many months, probably years to come. Although the delays were only speed restrictions, we would probably been better off to stay on the French side and cross the Rhine further south.

The E35 took us down alongside the Rhine (although we rarely saw it) and into Switzerland at Basel where we bought our vignet (€35 with 2 Swiss Francs change!) to allow us to use the Swiss motorways.

The scenery became much more mountainous and pretty with alpine houses clinging to the slopes. There were lovely views over Lake Lucerne. The road tunnels became more numerous and we continued to climb until we arrived at the Gottard Tunnel. Our memories of this tunnel from many years ago were of huge queues, huge heat and fumes. However, it was relatively quiet, the controlling traffic lights were only operation for lorries and although it got up to 29°C, the fumes were not a problem. Some ten miles later we emerged back into the sunlight and started our sharp descent.

We decided to spend one night in Switzerland and we chose a site, Iseo Camping, from the ACSI book. It is located near Locarno, just north of Lake Maggiore. The route to the campsite is somewhat convoluted involving a journey south to a bridge crossing the river that feeds the lake before travelling north to the site. We did this in rush hour and the traffic was bad leading to a good 30 minute delay. It has to be said that the site did not justify the effort to get to it and the local Swiss taxes added an extra €5 to the normal €15 ACSI price. We would have been better off travelling an extra 30 minutes on the main road to reach the Italian campsites on Lake Maggiore.

Photos: Our pitch at Dahn with Altes Bahnhof in the background.

Tuesday 12th April 2011 – Dahn / Reichenbach, Germany

The temperature had dropped by 10°C since yesterday and it felt really cold in the strong breeze. Strong sunshine and strong precipitation (mainly rain but some hail and sleet) was the order of the day. We took the E40, E411, A13, A8 before leaving the motorway at Pirmasens. Too much motorway driving for us really but it we want to get to Italy fairly quickly. The roads were not too busy but the scenery, although rural, was not very exciting until we left the motorway. We did experience some exciting Belgian driving, the most interesting being a silver BMW that came in from the outside lane to the middle lane, clearing Henrietta by no more that two feet and then proceeded to undertake three cars before return to the outside lane. Needless to say, this was all performed at great speed and to the accompaniment of some expletives from me!

The journey from Pirmasens to Dahn is very pretty with forest, valleys and beautiful coloured cliffs and rock formations. There are a number of campsite options on this road but we wanted to try for Altes Bahnhof between Dahn and Reichenbach. This came out of our Camperstop Europe 2007 book and as its name suggests, it is the old station building of what is now a preserved railway. The restaurant allows motorhomes to stay provided that the occupants eat a meal there. We arrived just before five o'clock after a 480 km journey and parked up in the car park just over the other side of the railway track from the restaurant.

Photos: Teufelstisch (Devil's Table) formation.

Greek Sojourn Spring 2011 - Monday 11th – Klein Strand, Jabbeke, Belgium

We have had a few days of glorious weather in Somerset – it felt like Summer but it is only early April. The grass has been cut, weeds extracted, runner beans and courgette seeds planted and copious rhubarb sticks pulled and distributed to friends. We are ready!

We woke at 06:45 to find the skies overcast and the temperature lower – it must be time to leave for warmer climes. By 08:30, the last minute packing had been transported to Henrietta and I climbed into the driver's seat next to co-pilot Jane.

The weather forecast said that the cloud was spreading from the West and travelling through Wiltshire we outran it and had sunshine all of the way to Dover. It was great to be behind the wheel of Henrietta again and the journey went easily with only a small delay on the M26 where drivers on our eastbound carriageway were slowing down to view the accident on the westbound carriageway. We felt very sorry for the people in the 10 mile westbound queue, many of whom were wandering around on the road. It was noticeable that all of the motorhomers in the queue had their front seats rotated and were probably enjoying a cuppa. I have always thought that the enterprising thing to do under those circumstances would be to sell drinks from the van!

We travelled on the 14:20 Sea France crossing and were in Calais 90 minutes later after a very smooth crossing. Despite the lovely weather, it was freezing out on deck and the constitutional was done at pace.

Our plan for this sojourn is to visit Greece and, given the distance involved, we are going to make a fairly speedy (by our standards) journey down to Ancona to catch the ferry. We have often travelled to the south of France to get to Italy so this time we decided to try a different route. We have not visited Belgium or Luxembourg in Henrietta and we wanted to correct this anomaly. Travelling north on the E40 we crossed into Belgium and stopped at the Klein Strand campsite in Jabbeke, just a few kilometres from Bruges. This turned out to be a huge site with many permanent pitches but also plenty of touring pitches. Klein Strand has 3 restaurants, a supermarket, a lake for fishing, swimming and watersports and excellent facilities for children. It took Jane 25 minutes to book in – we had stopped at a second entrance and it was a long walk to the main reception. I was just about to send out the search party when she returned.

The pitch was good and we sat out to enjoy the last rays of the lovely warm sun. After dinner, the wind got up and the rain started. We went to sleep with sound of rain on the roof and the van gently rocking in the wind. Great motorhome memories.

Photos: Some serious rowing was going to be done somewhere on the continent; One of the many permanent pitches at Klein Strand – this one had a gnome (oh dear) and a shed named T' Zumernest' - could almost be in our native Somerset (or should I say Zummerzet?).