Blogs are like buses. You don't post an entry in ages and then two come along at once!
Anyway just to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2009. Hope you don't get bitten by the Credit Cruncher monster and lots of nice things happen to you and your families.
I am cosied up in my big fat face knee high slipper socks at my in laws house in Southampton. Lovely lovely lovely and Christmas day tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
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Oh my giddy aunt, nearly 2 months since I last blog posted. It's now become so daunting to post but if I don't get it over with then I will just stop for good and I don't want to give up after all this time!
I have been keeping an old fashioned actual physical paper diary come scrap book since we have been travelling, which I know is soooo un techy but it is very satisfying to leaf through the fruits of my labours and clasp it to my chest in pride. Sad eh! It's full of maps and old ticket stubs and I intend to keep it forever and read it back when I'm old and wrinkly. Anyway I'm keeping it by my side as I type this so that I can remember what I have been doing and when.
Back to the massive recap then...
So Rome was really wonderful. REALLY wonderful. Just epic, beautiful, awe inspiring and dripping in thousands of years of history. Couldn't really do everything or even take it all in, even with the massive amount of time we had to explore it. St Peters Basilica, the Colosseum, Pantheon, Roman Forum, the Vittoriano building, Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, Villa Borghese and on and on and on!... The most amazing sculptures by Bernini in the Galleria Borghese just took my breath away. Google the Rape of Persephone and you will see what I mean. We also met some really nice fellow travellers in Rome, including Scottish Alan & Lesley who we spent a lot of time with and one very drunken evening.
After Rome we drove south south south to the Bay of Naples, arriving in Pompeii on 3rd November. We stayed at the camp sounding 'Camping Spartacus' which was about 2oo yards from the entrance to the ruins and was a campsite full of orange, satsuma and lemon trees. We stayed at that site until 19th November as it was just a cheap and great central location for lots of day trips out. We made friends with a little black dog called Nerina who would come and see us with her tail wagging madly every time we came back to the van after a day out.
We ate so many oranges and lemons (the satsumas tasted funny) that I still have some in the van from the bumper crop we harvested before we left. The oranges were the best I've ever tasted although we did have one nasty orange encounter which I shall relate:
It was the evening and we were in the van watching telly by candlelight when Nick decided to eat an after dinner orange. He had taken a couple of bites before he realised it was crawling with maggots. In the dark candlelight he hadn't spotted them... what makes it 10 times worse is that these were no ordinary maggots, they were JUMPING maggots. I kid you not, these little fellas would work themselves up into tight little balls then suddenly spring off a good foot into the air and land somewhere else. We were both literally so horrified that neither of us knew quite what to do. Eventually I leapt up and scooped the orange into the bin then Nick also leapt up, wretching violently as you can imagine and brushing them off him. I got some kitchen paper and had to go around collecting them up, and finally used the handheld vacuum cleaner to suck up any remaining lurkers, hoping none had hopped off to freedom.
Maggots aside, the time we spent there was lovely. We of course visited the ruins which were huge, the city of Pompeii was larger than my home town of St Peter Port and just incredibly interesting but also very, very sad. It is so well preserved and you can well imagine the people that lived there. There are the famous plastercasts as well of the victims in their last, dieing breaths and you can tell by their postures that there were in agony.
On the coast not far from Pompeii is another famous ancient city that was also destroyed by Vesuvius, Herculanem. We did a day trip there and it is better preserved than Pompeii athough a lot smaller.
We visited Naples, which was bustling, a bargain hunters dream and just crazy in a beautiful Italian way with miles of narrow cobbled streets that the scooters just whizz down and nearly knock you flying. We took the train to Sorrento, which was touristy but stunning on its high up location above the sea. We went by coach up Mount Vesuvius then walked around the summit which was massive and bellowing out sulphorous smoke.
Finally on the 19th November we left the site and drove south to Paestum, a town on the west coast about an hours drive south of Naples. It has some amazing classical Greek temples that are said to be the best preserved in the world. We were cycling around them in T shirts as the weather was so mild. They have a really good museum there as well that brought back all of my A Level Ancient Greek!
Paestum was the furthest south we ventured, and we had decided to travel north back through Italy as we had discovered that 99% of Croatia's campsites close in October and we would have a hard time finding places to stay there. So on 21st Nov we arrived back in Arezzo, Tuscany, where we had a cold shock as it was really wintery with snow on the tops of hills. It was nice though to be back in northern Italy as it really is a bit more civilised when it comes to driving and the roads. Not that I really mind the mental drivers but it is much less stressful when you leaves Naples, you sort of exhale and realise you have been holding your breath without knowing it the whole time you were on the roads there!
We headed north again after Arezzo, stopping for one night in Bologna then pushing on to the Swiss/Italian border to a small lake called Lugano. It is right next to Como and very pretty. While there we got completely snowed in for several days in our lakeside campsite. I made a large snowman and we went for cold, wintery walks. After southern Italy it felt like getting out of a hot sauna and plunging into an icy lake, weather wise.
On 1st December we shook ourselves out of the snow and drove north through Switzerland, through massive amounts of snow which was fun but a little scary without snow chains, finally crossing the border into the Alsace region of France and stopping at a small town called Masevaux, near Mulhouse. It is very close to Basel in Switzerland and also to Germany.
Our friends Katy and Jan from Holland met up with us there and we spent 5 lovely days with them. We went to a pretty town in France called Colmar, and into Germany to visit the Christmas market in the University city of Freiburg which is on the edge of the Black Forest. We walked in the forest and also around Masevaux which was really snowy and stunning with piney hilltops and wild deer running around. We spent cosy evenings in the van together with good food, wine and brilliant company.
8th December then, and we do a big 8 hour drive to Paris, to spend two days at Euro Disney in the FREEZING cold (but still good, tacky fun), then several days exploring the city. Although Nick got a nast cold by the end of it. We bumped into a lovely couple we had met in Rome who were also travelling Europe called Simon & Julie, with their little 3 year old daughter Holly. We spent several evenings with them in their caraven and our camper.
Finally on 15th December we left Paris and drove up to a little town called Coudekerque which is just outside of Dunkerque, then on 18th Dec we got out ferry back to Dover. After driving here to Southampton we ended our camper travels for 2008.
I have been keeping an old fashioned actual physical paper diary come scrap book since we have been travelling, which I know is soooo un techy but it is very satisfying to leaf through the fruits of my labours and clasp it to my chest in pride. Sad eh! It's full of maps and old ticket stubs and I intend to keep it forever and read it back when I'm old and wrinkly. Anyway I'm keeping it by my side as I type this so that I can remember what I have been doing and when.
Back to the massive recap then...
So Rome was really wonderful. REALLY wonderful. Just epic, beautiful, awe inspiring and dripping in thousands of years of history. Couldn't really do everything or even take it all in, even with the massive amount of time we had to explore it. St Peters Basilica, the Colosseum, Pantheon, Roman Forum, the Vittoriano building, Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, Villa Borghese and on and on and on!... The most amazing sculptures by Bernini in the Galleria Borghese just took my breath away. Google the Rape of Persephone and you will see what I mean. We also met some really nice fellow travellers in Rome, including Scottish Alan & Lesley who we spent a lot of time with and one very drunken evening.
After Rome we drove south south south to the Bay of Naples, arriving in Pompeii on 3rd November. We stayed at the camp sounding 'Camping Spartacus' which was about 2oo yards from the entrance to the ruins and was a campsite full of orange, satsuma and lemon trees. We stayed at that site until 19th November as it was just a cheap and great central location for lots of day trips out. We made friends with a little black dog called Nerina who would come and see us with her tail wagging madly every time we came back to the van after a day out.
We ate so many oranges and lemons (the satsumas tasted funny) that I still have some in the van from the bumper crop we harvested before we left. The oranges were the best I've ever tasted although we did have one nasty orange encounter which I shall relate:
It was the evening and we were in the van watching telly by candlelight when Nick decided to eat an after dinner orange. He had taken a couple of bites before he realised it was crawling with maggots. In the dark candlelight he hadn't spotted them... what makes it 10 times worse is that these were no ordinary maggots, they were JUMPING maggots. I kid you not, these little fellas would work themselves up into tight little balls then suddenly spring off a good foot into the air and land somewhere else. We were both literally so horrified that neither of us knew quite what to do. Eventually I leapt up and scooped the orange into the bin then Nick also leapt up, wretching violently as you can imagine and brushing them off him. I got some kitchen paper and had to go around collecting them up, and finally used the handheld vacuum cleaner to suck up any remaining lurkers, hoping none had hopped off to freedom.
Maggots aside, the time we spent there was lovely. We of course visited the ruins which were huge, the city of Pompeii was larger than my home town of St Peter Port and just incredibly interesting but also very, very sad. It is so well preserved and you can well imagine the people that lived there. There are the famous plastercasts as well of the victims in their last, dieing breaths and you can tell by their postures that there were in agony.
On the coast not far from Pompeii is another famous ancient city that was also destroyed by Vesuvius, Herculanem. We did a day trip there and it is better preserved than Pompeii athough a lot smaller.
We visited Naples, which was bustling, a bargain hunters dream and just crazy in a beautiful Italian way with miles of narrow cobbled streets that the scooters just whizz down and nearly knock you flying. We took the train to Sorrento, which was touristy but stunning on its high up location above the sea. We went by coach up Mount Vesuvius then walked around the summit which was massive and bellowing out sulphorous smoke.
Finally on the 19th November we left the site and drove south to Paestum, a town on the west coast about an hours drive south of Naples. It has some amazing classical Greek temples that are said to be the best preserved in the world. We were cycling around them in T shirts as the weather was so mild. They have a really good museum there as well that brought back all of my A Level Ancient Greek!
Paestum was the furthest south we ventured, and we had decided to travel north back through Italy as we had discovered that 99% of Croatia's campsites close in October and we would have a hard time finding places to stay there. So on 21st Nov we arrived back in Arezzo, Tuscany, where we had a cold shock as it was really wintery with snow on the tops of hills. It was nice though to be back in northern Italy as it really is a bit more civilised when it comes to driving and the roads. Not that I really mind the mental drivers but it is much less stressful when you leaves Naples, you sort of exhale and realise you have been holding your breath without knowing it the whole time you were on the roads there!
We headed north again after Arezzo, stopping for one night in Bologna then pushing on to the Swiss/Italian border to a small lake called Lugano. It is right next to Como and very pretty. While there we got completely snowed in for several days in our lakeside campsite. I made a large snowman and we went for cold, wintery walks. After southern Italy it felt like getting out of a hot sauna and plunging into an icy lake, weather wise.
On 1st December we shook ourselves out of the snow and drove north through Switzerland, through massive amounts of snow which was fun but a little scary without snow chains, finally crossing the border into the Alsace region of France and stopping at a small town called Masevaux, near Mulhouse. It is very close to Basel in Switzerland and also to Germany.
Our friends Katy and Jan from Holland met up with us there and we spent 5 lovely days with them. We went to a pretty town in France called Colmar, and into Germany to visit the Christmas market in the University city of Freiburg which is on the edge of the Black Forest. We walked in the forest and also around Masevaux which was really snowy and stunning with piney hilltops and wild deer running around. We spent cosy evenings in the van together with good food, wine and brilliant company.
8th December then, and we do a big 8 hour drive to Paris, to spend two days at Euro Disney in the FREEZING cold (but still good, tacky fun), then several days exploring the city. Although Nick got a nast cold by the end of it. We bumped into a lovely couple we had met in Rome who were also travelling Europe called Simon & Julie, with their little 3 year old daughter Holly. We spent several evenings with them in their caraven and our camper.
Finally on 15th December we left Paris and drove up to a little town called Coudekerque which is just outside of Dunkerque, then on 18th Dec we got out ferry back to Dover. After driving here to Southampton we ended our camper travels for 2008.
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