Italy from top to toe

[Wanders from Glos]

Yes and no, as you will find out.

Yikes that sounds worrying

 

[seasideBill]

Yes and no, as you will find out.

Do San Marino tourist tat shops still specialise in replica guns, knives, swords and other weapons? Just about all the tourist shops had this stuff when we visited a few years back - didn’t get it?

 

[Two on Tour]

Do San Marino tourist tat shops still specialise in replica guns, swords and other weapons? Just about all the tourist shops had this stuff when we visited a few years back, didn’t get it?

I take it that you did not read through my post #147 then.

 

[seasideBill]

I take it that you did not read through my post #147 then.

Missed that…. I must pay more attention (as my wife often says).

 

[Fraggle 22]

Do San Marino tourist tat shops still specialise in replica guns, knives, swords and other weapons? Just about all the tourist shops had this stuff when we visited a few years back - didn’t get it?

Shop like that in Gt Yarmouth believe it or not

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[Two on Tour]

From San Marino we headed a little further down Italy to the must-visit town of Urbino and having got there and looked around we asked ourselves must visit, why?
Unless we missed a lot of sights to see on our wander around, we thought it was a waste of time and bugger all of interest to see and to cap it all we unable to turn the van around in the car park and had to reverse the van two hundred yards up a steep incline to get out, taking a few thousand miles off the clutch plate in the process. ........... anyway here are a few photos of what we did see.

Moving on further South we arrived about 5.30 pm at our stop for the night the sosta at Citta di Castello which is just across the road from the walls of the town. In the early evening a few ferrel cats came out to sunbath on the warm tarmac across the way from us. At first very timid, but one cat got a little more brave when Yvette enticed it over with a trail of strong cheese.
By the time we had sorted ourselves out and had something to eat it was knocking on 9.30 pm, and as it was a warm pleasant evening we decided to go for a walk around the town. After walking along a couple of streets we could hear music and the sounds of merriment, and turning a corner we were in a large square to find an odd mixture of a disco and people next to it dressed up in medieval garb offering goes with crossbows at targets.
Moving on to the next square it was set out like a school sports day with running lanes, basketball, volleyball and a high jump.
Bearing in mind that it was now heading for 10 o'clock at night, the square was full of kids and parents in what appeared to be having their sports day.
Most other streets there were alive with food stalls and stalls selling handmade craft items.
What started out as a quiet evening walk around the town turned into a fun night out.

As usual on this trip, we were serenaded through the night by barking and howling dogs, what is it with them, are they afraid of the dark or what.

 

[Two on Tour]

Time for some more updates on where we have been in the last two weeks.

We left Citta Di Castello and headed towards our first stop, which should have been just under 4 hours to get to, unfortunately, an hour beforehand we came to a halt, as a young girl had been knocked down on a pedestrian crossing just moments before. We had no other suitable roads to take, so had to sit and wait while the emergency services worked on her. It was very sad to watch and we hope she survived, with no long-term injuries.
It was whilst we were sat waiting, that Yvette noticed we had lost the mirror guard off the nearside mirror, along with the blind spot mirror that sat on top, no idea when or where that went
After an hour's delay, we were on the move again. Having climbed up some steep and twisty roads to get to the hilltop village of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, which is an abandoned village that is being rebuilt, we found that all the parking that we thought we would be able to use, was unusable. So having driven through a couple of times looking at options we left again. By this time it was mid-afternoon and we decided to head towards a sosta to spend the night, the first one was not suitable and we tried three more, which were all unsuitable for various reasons, such as too small an entrance to get into safely, on the side of a busy road, didn't feel safe, etc.. We found another potential site at Roccascalegna and headed off, by this time we were both getting tired and fed up. En route we came across the road closed due to roadworks and a sign saying diversion, well.. this diversion was basically a farm track and that is being generous! We definitely should not have been driving it in our 7 meter motorhome After some 'interesting' twists and turns and hills and after 12 miles, yes you read that right, 12 tortuous miles!! we finally got back to a decent road.

This is an example of the majority of our diversion route, some bits were worse! Which was two way but we were fortunate not to meet much coming the other way.

We arrived at the sosta, which was on top of a steep hill and up more narrow windy roads at 6pm. Thankfully it was okay and we were finally able to relax a bit.
The sosta was at Roccascalegna and had some lovely views, including of the castle in the village, which we visited the following morning on our way out.

 

[TheMachMan]

That didn’t sound fun.
We had a similar experience in Italy a few weeks ago with a road closure and ending up driving through a road so narrow between 2 buildings we only just got through with a PVC!
On reflection of our time in Italy we were surprised by the lack of camping & Sostas in some areas. I think we’ve been spoilt by France. We will go back next year, better prepared & readjusted expectations.

 

[seasideBill]

That didn’t sound fun.
We had a similar experience in Italy a few weeks ago with a road closure and ending up driving through a road so narrow between 2 buildings we only just got through with a PVC!

Yes been there (several times)… it makes you realise why buying a PVC was such a good idea!

 

[Two on Tour]

Whilst servicing the van the next morning before heading off to the castle, we noticed that we had lost the rear two plastic wheel centres now as well, so we have now lost all the wheel centres and the nearside mirror guard. Italy's roads are really shocking, they actually make Belgium's roads look quite good!

It was quite a steep and narrow entrance into the castle grounds but there was parking next to the picnic area which we thought coaches would probably use, so we parked the motorhome there. It is the wider bit in the photo below, you can just see our motorhome parked up if you look closely.

We once again stretched our legs and walked up the steep access path to the castle. It was very reasonably priced to get in €3 for me and €4 for Yvette.

It wasn't a huge castle but it was interesting to look around and the views were stunning, being so high up.

This view was back across the village and we could see where we had been parked up the night before

These were the steps to get into the castle and a lot of the walk up the hill to get there was similar stones, it must be lethal in the wet.

One of the rooms in the castle had some torture equipment in it.

Yvette said the Spanish Horse below made her feel a bit sick. They would literally sit the victim on top of the triangular-shaped wooden horse and put weights on their ankles to split their bodies in two. Yuk! This torture method was mainly reserved for use on women.

Some less tortuous equipment.

On the way out of the castle, we met an English couple who were part way through a 5 week tour in their very nice TR2.

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[Lenny HB]

they actually make Belgium's roads look quite good!

UK roads make Belgium roads look good.

 

[Two on Tour]

From the castle we travelled to stay on an olive grove in Campomarino, which was free to stay. What3Words location - scoreboard.drivers.questioning.

After the stress of the day before we decided to have a more relaxing day, Yvette caught up on some washing and we chilled for the afternoon. Our lovely hostess brought us a tiny cup of strong Italian coffee each and an Amoretti biscuit in the afternoon. We looked around the onsite shop and purchased some of their award-winning olive oils, red wine, tomato sauce and a large bag of almonds.

The following day we had a traveling day to break the back of the journey to our next towns. We stayed on a free sosta at Castellana Grotte. What3Words location - rummage.camps.figure. Not much to write home about, it was basically just a big car park with free services and just a few short miles to our first visit tomorrow.

 

[Wanders from Glos]

That didn’t sound fun.
We had a similar experience in Italy a few weeks ago with a road closure and ending up driving through a road so narrow between 2 buildings we only just got through with a PVC!
On reflection of our time in Italy we were surprised by the lack of camping & Sostas in some areas. I think we’ve been spoilt by France. We will go back next year, better prepared & readjusted expectations.

We enjoyed Italy but will probably leave it a couple of years before returning, we especially liked Tuscany. We did find life less expensive and less frenetic in France so the combination of the two worked well. Lot more Brits in France though.

 

[Two on Tour]

Our first stop this morning was just a short 30 minute drive of 11 miles to the beautiful town of Alberobello. We had originally planned to park at a campsite for the day rate of €10 but on the way into the town we passed some free parking (W3W: demands.flouride.outnumbered) and parked there instead. We have found many parking spots have Italian motorhomes parked in them, which seem to be long-term parked/abandoned.

Alberobello is full of quirky little round houses called Trulli's, it was a really interesting town to look round, something quite different.
These building are not specific to the town and they can be found dotted around the area.

We then drove a further 6 miles to Locorotondo (W3W: jammed.loosens.fogged), there is a lovely big free motorhome parking area on the edge of the town, there are no services but we didn't need any today. It is another lovely old town to look round. We were sat in the park near the centre of the town, taking in the ambiance and enjoying a cool breeze, when we heard music and a live band seemed to be walking in our direction, we realised it was a funeral procession, it was very moving to see it pass by.

 

[Holly's mum]

We enjoyed Italy but will probably leave it a couple of years before returning, we especially liked Tuscany. We did find life less expensive and less frenetic in France so the combination of the two worked well. Lot more Brits in France though.

We are due in Tuscany in a few days, I am looking forward to Tuscany.

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[Two on Tour]

The following day we moved on to Ostuni, to look around. It was another old town, known as the white city. Many of these old towns are very hilly and have stone paving, that is very uneven and quite slippy, even when dry.

This sign by a local bar made us laugh, check out the second one down on the right.

We then headed for the beach, but as we had been off grid for a couple of days, and needed services, we stopped at the seaport at Brindisi, to use the free motorhome service area there. (W3W: emphasis.format.note). We parked up at the beach by Maluha Bay at Torre Chianca (W3W: ladders.cavern.toolbars). We had a cold drink and late lunch at the beach bar and then spent some time on the beach and in the sea. The water was quite murky, with lots of detritus in it but at least it was cool. We walked down to the beach in the evening to see the sunset over the sea and then talked to the feral cat and her kitten on the way back to the motorhome.
If anybody wants to stay at Maluha Bay for a few days, there is an old abandoned campsite a mile or so away where you can dump your grey and black and the tap is still on for fresh water. (W3W: outwork.spent.dart)

 

[Itsmcb]

Excellent travel blog, thank you for taking the time to write it. Also the addition of all the what3words locations is great for anyone travelling in the area, I wish more people would add them to their posts.

 

[Holly's mum]

Excellent travel blog, thank you for taking the time to write it. Also the addition of all the what3words locations is great for anyone travelling in the area, I wish more people would add them to their posts.

You've reminded us that we were going to bring it up to date when we returned home but we've been so busy on rallies and other trips we've not updated it yet, so this is my task for the next few days.
I've just reread the thread to get myself back into Italian holiday mode

 

[Holly's mum]

We had initially contemplated spending a couple of days at the beach but it was too hot for lying out for any length of time and so we decided to moved on the following morning.
Our plan was to head to Lecce and have a look round there before heading for our night stop but it was total mayhem and we couldn't find anywhere to park, so having driven round a couple of times and got very stressed (mostly me to be fair!), we headed off towards Matera. On the way we saw signs for what looked to be an interesting town called Taranto, I did a quick Google search and we decided to drop off the SS road we were on and take a look. This turned out to be a very bad idea, as once again the traffic was terrible and we ended up in the middle of the town with no idea where we were going. Having managed to negotiate our way back to the SS road (several miles back in the wrong direction ) we made a note that Italy was not the place to divert into a big town without having forward planned parking and how to negotiate said town.

We arrived on the outskirts of Matera with the motorhome complaining about having to climb another steep hill in the heat and found the campsite we were planning to stop at. The reception was closed for their 3 hour lunch break, so we found a bit of shade to park in, whilst we waited for them to reopen. Meanwhile we looked round the site and had a chat with a young English couple in a van. The site didn't look that brilliant for the cost of it and when a member of staff came out to talk to us, he was extremely rude and so we decided to leave and find somewhere else to park. On driving into the town we spotted signs for motorhome parking and that is where we ended up. Best part was, it saved us €50 as the parking in town was free W3W for parking: string.spells.tiling.

As it was still very hot, we waited until late afternoon to walk into the town, just a 10 minute walk from the parking. Matera is another hill town, with slippery stone paving to walk on, so flat, comfortable, non slip shoes are the order of the day.........shame I didn't realise and put sandals on It's a very interesting town on several different levels, with amazing rock formations and caves that people used to live in.

An example of the steep alleyways and the stone steps

We found this really unusual church, it was very ornate (and cool inside!!) but had skulls and some other macabre decorations

We found a snail nursery too, this was just one of the plant stems that was full of snails.

This beautiful statue was made from brass

 

[Holly's mum]

The following day we headed to Paestum (W3W:washable.figs.impatiently) which is the site of an ancient Greek ruined city, including three temples to Hera, Athena & Neptune, an amphitheatre & a museum. It was a major settlement in it's day and is still impressive today.
The museum houses some of the freezes and pottery, etc.. recovered from the site during excavations.

We parked at Parking Da Matteo, (W3W: waterfall.fogged.overthrown) which is just across the road from the archaeological park, day parking is €5 and if you want to stay overnight it is €10. The car park is manned and monitored until 8pm, so it is quite safe parking and has some shade as well, which with the temperatures when we were there, was very welcome.

After visiting the site we had a very nice salad lunch (no photo's sorry!) at Bar Anna (W3W:zeroing.correlations.episode), which was just opposite the exit. €7 for one of the tastiest salads we have ever had.

Paul sent the drone up, when we got back to the motorhome and got an aerial shot, which shows the scale of the site. Two of the temples are close together, whilst the third is off to the far right of the site.

You can see how the columns were built up from circles layered on top of each other

The third temple

It's a huge site, this gives a sense of the scale of just part of the site, you can see the third temple in the distance

There were some lovely mosaic floors still in good condition, considering their age and being exposed to the elements

The Amphiteatre

Some of the freezes and artefacts found on the site, which are housed in the museum, just across the road

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[Holly's mum]

We travelled to Salerno on the Amalfi coast after Paestrum, ready to explore the following day. We stay at Parcheggio Camper, W3W.delight.hoaxes.fear, which is a basic sosta but right opposite the beach and has security barriers and CCTV.

In the morning we walked into Salerno town centre (just a small 40 minute walk in the heat), to the tourist information centre, to get information on catching the bus to Sorento and the ferry back to Salerno. We found that we had to catch the bus to Amalfi town and then change to another bus to get to Sorento. The bus journey was interesting to say the least and hats off to the bus driver, as those roads were not built with buses in mind there were literally millimetres to spare when passing other buses and the odd lorry. It took 1.5 hours for the bus to do the 23.5 km to Amalfi town. As the next leg of the bus journey would be a great distance and take longer we decided not to do that leg. We had a look around Amalfi town which we found to be very crowded, very touristy, a bit run down in places and not as nice as other towns we had visited. We then caught the ferry back to Salerno, so that we could see the coast from the sea.

This was in Salerno on the way into the town

A few views from the bus, on the way to Amalfi. The covering on the windows made it difficult to see clearly and to get good photo's

Nice crowded beach

Amalfi town

A local resident

These tourists hadn't read the restriction signs on not being able to drive a motorhome along the coast road during the day, so the Police were writing them out a nice expensive ticket.

Some views from the ferry on the way back to Salerno

 

[Holly's mum]

From Salerno we travelled to Pompeii, we left Salerno at 18.47 on a Friday evening, to make the 24 mile journey to Pompeii, that won't take long we thought how wrong we were, the traffic was just solid most of the way and it took us nearly 2 hours. We arrived at our night stop at 20.30 and were worried that we wouldn't be able to get in, as we were staying on a sosta that was in someone's back garden but as we pulled up outside where we thought the sosta was, to work out where we needed to go, a lovely lady came rushing out to us and directed us through a very narrow gateway into the sosta. We stayed at Area Sosta Camper Ametrano (W3W:complains.bakers.hits), it was €20 per night for secure parking behind gates and an easy walk into Pompeii the following morning.

The actual town of Pompeii is lovely to walk around before you get to the archaeological park, as you get closer to the park you get bombarded with people trying to sell you guided tours and headsets, etc.., we politely declined and bought our tickets from the automatic machine at the gate, which was quicker than queueing.

This is the modern day town square

The archaeological site is huge and this is only a part of the old city, there is still a vast area that has not been uncovered yet, the work is ongoing and will be for many years to come.

These shots from the top of the tower on site, give an idea of the scale and size of the site. It must have been very impressive in it's day.

A few shots from around the site

Some of the buildings are so well preserved that the paintings on the walls are still in excellent condition

And of course we had to include a cat picture, this little feline was trying to get a free lunch and succeeding

 

[JoeP Harrison]

We did simil

We crossed via the chunnel this afternoon and are heading to Italy for seven weeks having no real plans other than to be in Brescia on the 12th and 13th of this month for the build-up and start of this year's Mille Miglia 1000-mile road race, after that it is pretty much take it as it comes.
We have parked for the night in the small village of Steenwerck before heading off down through France in the morning with the plan of crossing into Italy via the Col du Mont-Cenis in a couple of days, but the weather is not looking very good at present so the views going over the Alps may not be as spectacular as we had hope.

We will try and keep you updated with where we are and what we do on our travels as the days go by.

We did similar trip in 2022, crossed via Mont Blanc tunnel, travelled to Pompeii & from there along the Mediterranean, onto Sicily & then covered southern Italy as far as Brindisi. Loved Puglia, then up to Ancona & ferry to Split, home via Croatia, northern Italy, Mont Blanc into France & home via Cherbourg, we loved every minute of it, except being pickpocketed in Naples!

 

[Minnie]

If you get to Napoli, next door is Pompei, well worth it. We did it this spring, ferry from Patra to Bari and up.
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Every first Sunday of the month it’s free tickets, hence the busy site.

Yes we were surprised by the free tickets too.

 

[Holly's mum]

Welcome to the worst night of our trip, let me explain

We had initially planned to stay a second night at the Pompeii sosta but a constantly barking dog made us decide to move to a campsite at Ercolano, where I could do some washing and we could walk to the archaeological site of Herculaneum, it was only a short distance to travel so should not have taken too long.

We left the sosta at Pompeii at 4.15 on the Saturday evening and should have comfortably been at the campsite in Ercolana by 5pm, unfortunately we were using Google Maps and it let us down badly on this journey, we were taken on some very narrow and unsuitable roads, which were 2 way and had solid walls either side!

Fortunately there were a few gateways for the cars to pull into to let us past, I am sure they were cursing us though

Then when we got to within 5 mins of the site, we reached a bridge that was only 2.8m high, we are 2.85m, so this wasn't going to work.

We turned our Sygic satnav on that has all our dimensions in, so should have taken us safely to our destination, WRONG!!!, it proceeded to take us on even more narrow unsuitable roads, which were still 2 way, had bits of concrete sticking out in places, lampposts, overhead hazards and the odd 90 degree corner

We then met an ambulance on blue lights coming the other way, he had to reverse up, as we had nowhere to go, fortunately it was near a junction and a wider bit of the road.

Just before we reached the 3m bridge.

I walked backwards in front of the motorhome as Paul drove through, to be sure we weren't going to catch anywhere.

And then we ended up with an even lower bridge at 2.4m ahead of us. I did walk round to the bridge to see if there was another way through but there wasn't.

There was a small housing estate up the road to the left of this sign, where we were able to turn around and then park on the side of the road across from a football ground, where there was a tournament taking place, to decide what to do. Being a Saturday evening and with the tournament as well, there was traffic everywhere and we decided that to try and negotiate the narrow roads to get back out again was not a sensible option that evening, so we decided to wait until first light on Sunday morning, when there would hopefully be no/very little traffic about to make our escape. We used the time to research a route to get us out of our predicament and under the road & railway line (which is what all the bridges were going under).

After a night of just sleeping on the sofa's fully dressed in case we needed to move at short notice, at 5am on the Sunday morning, as it was just starting to get light and seemed quiet on the roads, we headed off on our researched route, we met just one vehicle coming the other way and that was fortunately at a wider part of the route, where we had met the ambulance the night before.

The most annoying part was that having retraced our route out, we turned off down a road to take us under a higher bridge that we could fit under, that we had driven past the night before! If only Google had taken us down that road on Saturday night but never mind, it was what it was.

A lot of the roads in Ercolano are cobbled streets and not very nice to drive on, our poor motorhome did get tested somewhat on this trip!

We arrived outside Herculaneum at 6am (it was too early to go to the campsite), had some breakfast and freshened up and waited for the parking to open at 8am, praying that we weren't moved on as there was no parking allowed along the road, fortunately it seems the Polizia Municipale don't start patrolling the road until after 8am. We passed the time whilst waiting by watching some kittens playing in a garden centre next to where we were parked but we don't seem to have any photo's of the kittens, so you will just have to trust me that they were very cute.

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[seasideBill]

Welcome to the worst night of our trip, let me explain

We had initially planned to stay a second night at the Pompeii sosta but a constantly barking dog made us decide to move to a campsite at Ercolano, where I could do some washing and we could walk to the archaeological site of Herculaneum, it was only a short distance to travel so should not have taken too long.

We left the sosta at Pompeii at 4.15 on the Saturday evening and should have comfortably been at the campsite in Ercolana by 5pm, unfortunately we were using Google Maps and it let us down badly on this journey, we were taken on some very narrow and unsuitable roads, which were 2 way and had solid walls either side!

View attachment 817311

Fortunately there were a few gateways for the cars to pull into to let us past, I am sure they were cursing us though

View attachment 817314

Then when we got to within 5 mins of the site, we reached a bridge that was only 2.8m high, we are 2.85m, so this wasn't going to work.

We turned our Sygic satnav on that has all our dimensions in, so should have taken us safely to our destination, WRONG!!!, it proceeded to take us on even more narrow unsuitable roads, which were still 2 way, had bits of concrete sticking out in places, lampposts, overhead hazards and the odd 90 degree corner

View attachment 817321

View attachment 817322

View attachment 817323

View attachment 817324

View attachment 817325

View attachment 817326

We then met an ambulance on blue lights coming the other way, he had to reverse up, as we had nowhere to go, fortunately it was near a junction and a wider bit of the road.

View attachment 817412

Just before we reached the 3m bridge.

View attachment 817379

I walked backwards in front of the motorhome as Paul drove through, to be sure we weren't going to catch anywhere.

View attachment 817380

And then we ended up with an even lower bridge at 2.4m ahead of us. I did walk round to the bridge to see if there was another way through but there wasn't.

View attachment 817347

There was a small housing estate up the road to the left of this sign, where we were able to turn around and then park on the side of the road across from a football ground, where there was a tournament taking place, to decide what to do. Being a Saturday evening and with the tournament as well, there was traffic everywhere and we decided that to try and negotiate the narrow roads to get back out again was not a sensible option that evening, so we decided to wait until first light on Sunday morning, when there would hopefully be no/very little traffic about to make our escape. We used the time to research a route to get us out of our predicament and under the road & railway line (which is what all the bridges were going under).

After a night of just sleeping on the sofa's fully dressed in case we needed to move at short notice, at 5am on the Sunday morning, as it was just starting to get light and seemed quiet on the roads, we headed off on our researched route, we met just one vehicle coming the other way and that was fortunately at a wider part of the route, where we had met the ambulance the night before.

View attachment 817416

View attachment 817417

The most annoying part was that having retraced our route out, we turned off down a road to take us under a higher bridge that we could fit under, that we had driven past the night before! If only Google had taken us down that road on Saturday night but never mind, it was what it was.

A lot of the roads in Ercolano are cobbled streets and not very nice to drive on, our poor motorhome did get tested somewhat on this trip!

View attachment 817419

We arrived outside Herculaneum at 6am (it was too early to go to the campsite), had some breakfast and freshened up and waited for the parking to open at 8am, praying that we weren't moved on as there was no parking allowed along the road, fortunately it seems the Polizia Municipale don't start patrolling the road until after 8am. We passed the time whilst waiting by watching some kittens playing in a garden centre next to where we were parked but we don't seem to have any photo's of the kittens, so you will just have to trust me that they were very cute.

Absolute nightmare, had similar experiences but thankfully not that bad.

 

[Holly's mum]

The site at Herculaneum is a lot smaller than Pompeii but is just as interesting, it is strange when walking around the site to see modern buildings towering above you, just outside the ruins. Less than 25% of the ancient site has been excavated but the buildings in Herculaneum are much better preserved than those in Pompeii, as it was closer to Vesuvius when it erupted, so was covered in mainly pyroclastic material, which preserved more wooden objects and other organic based materials. Many of the buildings still have their upper floors intact, and a couple even have their original wooden balcony. Remarkably, some of the shops still have fittings.
Although smaller than Pompeii, Herculaneum was a wealthier town and you can see that when walking around the buildings and site.

A local pottery store

An interesting statue

This picture shows how much the floor moved during the eruption

Having spent a few hours walking round Herculaneum we travelled to the Agricamping Stone Vesuvio campsite (W3W: tamed.crispy.excuse), where I did some washing and we had a relaxing afternoon and evening.

The motorhome parked next to us was GB registered, the owners didn't return until quite late in the evening and turned out to be an Australian couple with their 10 year old son, who had been living in the UK for a few years but were on their way back to Australia, via a year travelling around Europe. Their son was really interested in history, so they were visiting as many historical sites on the way as they could. They were a lovely family and we hope they are still enjoying their long trip back to OZ.

 

[Holly's mum]

We left the campsite at Ercolano at 10 the following morning.
Today was a travelling day to get us up towards Rome, and other than stopping for lunch, diesel and food supplies, it was a relatively uneventful day. We stopped for the night on a grassy car park opposite a sports hall in a village called Rocca Priora (W3W: sidewalk.candle.raccoon), we were able to park under a tree to get some shade, which was very welcome, as temperatures were still in the mid to high 30's centigrade.

After a quiet evening and night we headed off just before 8am to our camping stop for visiting Rome, we had checked the day before that there was availability and that we could arrive early in the morning, which was all confirmed by the site owners. We arrived at Camping in Garden, Ciampino (W3W: outlast.barman.energetic) at 8.15am and were met by the owners daughter, who gave us a map of Ciampino, with the route to the train station and also a map of Rome.

The campsite is basically an aire in someone's back garden, there is room for 5 vans and as the owners are motorhomers themselves, they understand what is required and have set it out lovely. The parking is behind locked metal gates, so very secure. There is a wooden building that has a toilet, washing up facilities, a couch and area to relax in if it is too cold to sit in the outside seating area, which is also provided. There is grey and black waste dump, fresh water and EHU is included in the price of €25 per night.

Armed with our maps and directions, we walked the 10 minutes to the train station and caught a train to Rome Central train station, a journey of 20 minutes.
On arriving at Rome Central station we purchased day travel cards to get us around the city on the metro, €7 each for the day.

We headed to the Colosseum as our first stop, unfortunately it was sold out for the day so we just looked round the outside. We were told that you need to buy tickets several days, if not weeks, in advance at the busy times of year to ensure getting in.

We walked towards the center of Rome and passed the Forum of the Peace

and then the Temple of Venus Genetrix

This guy looks pretty relaxed

We did all the usual tourist hotspots and spent a very pleasant day exploring Rome

The Trevi Fountain

Church of St. Ivo alla Sapienza

Piazza Navona

Castel Sant'Angelo

The Pantheon doesn't look anything special from the outside but it is stunning inside

This is the temples from earlier from the other side

We popped along to Vatican City, well whilst in Rome I guess you have to

We even took a selfie

Some of the churches were incredible inside and cool, which was a welcome relief from the heat

This chap obviously wasn't getting a lot of customers

I liked the local police transport

We sat for a while on the way back to the train station near the Colosseum and listened to a very talented chap on his electric guitar. We then caught the metro back to the main train station and sat there for 2.5 hours as there was a problem further down the line and the trains weren't running. We weren't sure the train was going to stop at the small stop we needed for the camping, so the campsite owners advised us to get off at the stop in Campino and Gino, the owner of the camping site, came and picked us up in his car. We spent a very pleasant evening talking late into the night with Gino, his Peruvian wife, who didn't speak much English and a Dutch motorhomer, who had been staying there for 3 weeks.

 

[Holly's mum]

After a long hot day in Rome, the following day we wanted to do something a bit quieter, so we travelled to the Museum of Italian Miltary Aviation (W3W: accredit.archives.picture) just outside Vigna Di Valle, on the shores of Lake Bracciano. It was a beautiful setting, a total change from Rome the day before and just what we needed to recharge our batteries a bit. Plus the museum was air conditioned, which was very welcome on another very hot and humid day. If you are interested in airplanes, then we highly recommend a visit to this museum.

The first hanger was full of lots of different types of engines, a few of which are shown below

Then onto a rocket/missile

And a cockpit

The site was originally the base for the Italian Naval flying boats and the museum
was developed from there. The photo below is from the days of the flying boat base

Some of the flying boats are still there

The display hangers were very well organised, going from the start of mans flight through to quite modern day airplanes

There was a whole section dedicated to the Schneider Trophy which was a race for seaplanes and flying boats, designed to help encourage technical advances in civil aviation but it became a contest for pure speed. It was run 12 times between 1913 and 1931. In 1931 Britain met the conditions to retain the Trophy permanently. More details about the Schneider Trophy are here.

Some of the planes had such powerful engines that they had to develop cooling systems that used surface radiators on the wings, struts and floats. The planes were highly dangerous and although they did achieve some success in the Schneider Trophy and gaining speed records, it was at a cost, as several were involved in fatal accidents.

For a change today we didn't seen any kittens, instead we give you a Coypu, whose was enjoying his/her lunch when we came out of the museum

And numerous cormorants & gulls

We left the museum just before 4pm and headed towards our planned night stop, which was a site that had Llamas, Alpacas and Donkeys but the road for the last 1.8 km looked too narrow to turn down, so we pulled over and looked for somewhere else. We found a lovely quiet sosta on a fishing lake called Laghi Albatross, near Viterbo (W3W: bikes.unrepeatable.archery). It was free to stay, nice and quiet and had grey & black dump and fresh water, for free. There was a restaurant by the fishing lake that served a really good 3 course meal, plus coffee for €15 a head, so we ate there on the first night. We can recommend the wild boar stew.
It was so lovely and quiet that we decided to stop a second night and have a rest day, I did a bit of hand washing and gave Paul a hair cut and we did little else for the day.

The sunsets there were lovely.

 

[DBK]

Many thanks for the posts, I'm not sure why I missed this thread but I've caught up now.

My mind isn't quite made up about Italy. There are some amazing places to visit but also some dumps! For example we really enjoyed Sicily but others have been horrified by the litter you can find there.

I guess the country reflects the people who live there - and they live life at volume 11.

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