Reading the news over the last week and wondering how you are getting on with the earthquakes. Has the van been rocking and rolling?
Although I see from the flag by your avatar that you are in Portugal, so maybe you gave up on Italy earlier on.
Hi Bramco. Thanks for asking, and thanks for your previous advice, which we followed. We did 3 weeks touring around Italy, in a (roughly) clockwise direction. We decided to skip the northern lakes, and Venice, which we will do at a later date. We entered Italy through the Frejus tunnel. We used ACSI campsites almost everywhere ( good value using the discount card), but we thought the standard of sites was fairly poor. Someone could make a killing out of selling toilet seats in Italy! We spent a couple of days in Florence - there is a very good campsite close to the centre - camping Firenze. You can cycle or get a bus into the centre. Florence is a very buy place, full of American and Japanese tourists, but certainly worth the visit. We then do the very scenic route through the Chianti region and Val D'Orcia, visiting Siena (we liked it better than Florence!), Pienza, Montepulciano, then camped at Castiglione Del Lago on the west side of Lake Tasimeno. This was a great campsite, Badiaccia, which has superb facilities but was closing the following day! We were one of only 2 camper vans on the site. This is a great area for cycle rides. Next was Perugia, and Assisi, Terni, Reti and L'Aquila. This route skirted the region which has been badly affected by the earthquake about 3 weeks earlier. Some roads were still closed. We then headed across to the east coast, and down to the National Park of Gargano, which we had read was very scenic and an essential place to visit. This was a disappointment - really slow, poor roads, untidy, and we picked up 2 punctures in 24 hours! Then down past Bari to Monopoli. This is a really nice place, with a campsite by the beach. Greenpeace Rainbow Warrier was in the marina, and we had a tour of the ship. We then visited the incredible Trulli houses of Alberetto, then the amazing town of Matera. Both world heritage sites, and not to be missed. Heading west via Potenza, we next stayed at Paestum at your recommended Del Pini site - very nice private beach. The Amalfi coast came next; an exciting drive on narrow cliff edge roads with tourist coaches coming the other way. Amalfi, Positano, Sorrento - all very attractive, but very difficult to park to explore. Next came Pompeii - no signs to find it, scruffy area, lots of Americans and Japanese, and a very very large site - but fascinating! We then planned to climb to the rim of Mount Vesuvius. Great, but the cloud then descended as we were climbing up (more crowds!) so when we got to the top, we couldn't see more than 3 or 4 metres ahead of us, and certainly nothing inside the volcano! We skipped Naples and Romes as we had been there before, so we blasted up the Autostrada, heading north, and in our quest for toilet seats, we decided to have a night in a B&B in Ceveteri. Amazing value and great breakfast. The California had a rest overnight. Further along the east coast, we stayed at a site which had also been recommended on this forum, Maremma Sanssouci at Castiglione della Pescaia - a very busy site in a pine forest by the beach, at which we must have seen about 50 Californias of all nationalities. It has an excellent restaurant. Pisa was our next stop. Great to see the leaning tower again after 45 years. The guide books rave about Cinque Terre - 5 small towns linked by a railway. We stayed nearby for 2 nights, and spent the days exploring. This was a big disappointment. Really busy, stuffed full of souvenir shops and cafes. Standing room only on the trains, and expensive tickets. I!m sure these towns look great from one of the many tourist boats, but our advice is give it a miss. By now the weather had turned and we had some rain and colder nights. We high tailed out of Italy, via the south of France, across Spain, and down the our favourite place - Praia da Luz in the Algarve. We are still here. Overall, we were a bit disappointed with Italy. The country seems to be disorganised and untidy. Lots of litter, and terrible road surfaces. They have fantastic historical sites, which they don't make the best of, and we didn't find the people to be very friendly. However, their food is superb, their ice creams are the best ever (apart from Dixons in Huddersfield) and the cost of eating out is very reasonable. We are very glad we did the trip, but won't be taking the California back there. As expected the Cali performed superbly, and emerged unscathed.
We have loads of photos (still on the camera) if anyone want more detail of any of these places.
