Our Travels with Rover

     Always excited to be on our way again, we had forgotten what jet lag feels like and how heavy our luggage could be. It is a simple thing to prepare for a road trip when your motorhome is sitting in your driveway. It is altogether another thing to take everything with you, all at once, out the door into a taxi and onto an airplane. All, we’re guessing, 180 lbs. of it--at least one-third of which were maps and books. David’s suitcase was overweight at the airport, so Susan added the 6 lb RV-waterpump to the 21 lbs of books in her backpack and we were on our way.

     Two hours after landing at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, we were in Rover, looking for a gas station. Gas has gone up since last year: 1.46 € / liter (about $7.50/gal.)  And then it was on to Waalwijk, an hour away. to pick up--and pay for--our new AGM batteries (including a nearly 20% value added tax!) But that’s OK, because everything works!

     It was our plan to get the batteries, stop at a grocery store in Waalwijk, and camp nearby, so we could unpack. But it turned out to be market day and there was a line of cars waiting to get into the grocery store parking lot and we knew it would be impossible to put Rover in there. So we gave up on the groceries and, with jet lag closing in on us, decided to find a campground. We wandered around the countryside for a few miles until we came upon a small campsite with a little store attached. There was no way to take a nap with our luggage still all over the place, so we unpacked, organized, ate a sandwich, and fell into bed exhausted.

The next day we headed off to Germany, getting “lost” again trying to get east from the campground. (It had us wondering what had happened to our GPS: if hadn’t shown up when we unpacked.) Our destination was the home of the American/German friends we had met last year. Still jet lagged, it was a long hard 253 miles. But good German hospitality, beer, and wine helped us make a great recovery and we are blessed again to have this oasis in such a handy location.

     After a trip to the store on Friday to replace our missing GPS, we were on our way south and east on German autobahns. There were no speeding cars passing us here--we were all going bumper to bumper for miles, usually in the slow lane with the trucks until we went up a long hill. The whole 150+ miles were very congested. The price of gas doesn’t seem to bother anyone here.   

     We found a campsite near the highway on top of a hill in a tiny town that translates “high town.” The campground owner was very excited to have his first American campers. When we tried to hook up the water, it wouldn’t work. “It’s too early in the season, it was only 4 degrees C last night.” The little restaurant there (where the waiter spoke Italian!) served us schnitzel and pommes (potatoes), and when he brought us two kinds of mayonnaise for the french fried potatoes, we knew for sure we were in Europe again.

    We spent a day and a half parked behind the tire store in Wörgl without incident. We saw no one, and probably no one knew we were there. There was no light at night at all.  On Sunday morning we went to a packed Catholic church service (since we had much to be thankful for!)  It was first communion for about 30 7-year-olds . . . but not a frilly white dress or veil in sight. And Susan thinks she was the only woman there in a skirt.

    In the afternoon we biked around the town and along the river, watching a flock of swans take off from the water--a noisy undertaking. In the evening we were visited by the young man who had helped us the day before and his wife. He was just checking to see if we were all right. He brought us juice; we shared our wine. 

    On Monday morning we left the parking lot behind the building and parked in front so we could be the first in the door at 8 a.m. The man at the desk said he had nothing to fit our 16” rims, but he made a call and sent us another kilometer down the street to an even bigger truck tire store. We arrived about 8:30 a.m., and they had us on our way by 10 a.m. with two new tires. In the process we discovered that the we had been driving on two tires that were 10 years old, probably original to the vehicle with 58,000 miles on them. We were grateful to learn that we had had good reason for our trouble and that it wasn’t a newer tire gone bad too soon. For all the trouble it could have been, we came through it about as easily and cheaply as we could.  And now we have new friends in Austria.

    We are now camped just south of Innsbruck by a small lake, surrounded by mountains. The view is arresting, to say the least. We are tempted to stay a while.

                                          

     We drove 255 miles in light rain to get through Naples and all the way to Pompei. We are in the Spartacus Campground, a little place with tiny sites. We have other campers within ten feet of us in three directions, but it is in a great location, literally just a few hundred feet from the exit of the autostrada and directly across the street from the Pompei ruins with Mt. Vesuvius in the distance. The main entrance and the train station are just a short, but dangerous, walk up the hill. (In fact, it is necessary to walk across an entrance to the autostrada! What were they thinking!)

                             

    If there are five inches, drivers will take four of them. They do stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, but will fly past in front of you if they can make it and will pass a foot behind you. It is exciting just to cross the street.

    On Saturday we took the train to Naples. The city was a big surprise and bigger disappointment. It is teeming, full of litter and grafitti and chaotic traffic. People sell everything imaginable from every corner and doorway, especially knock-off purses, watches, shoes and sunglasses. We had to walk through a pretty scruffy part of town to get to the Duomo (their cathedral), which was like being in another world: very clean and well kept. Beautiful paintings everywhere. There was a wedding just finishing up and before we left another was beginning. What a wonderful aisle to walk down. The bride came in on her groom’s arm. She was obviously pregnant and wore a skin tight strapless dress, fitted over her hips and belly, which then flared out, above the knee in front with a 6-8 foot train behind covered in ruffles. It was the most awful, inappropriate wedding gown Susan had ever seen. We apologize for not taking a picture. The street outside was lined with wedding shops with gorgeous dresses and lots of little white communion dresses.  

    We caught a bus to the big city park along the Mediteranean Sea and discovered we were in the midst of a Formula One Show Run with crowds forming and blocked off streets barricaded. But when we figured out it was going to be just one vehicle showing off (sponsored by Red Bull), we decided not to stand around and wait for it to happen. So we went to the arts district where they sell nativity sets like doll houses: huge things where you can populate whole towns around the “Holy Family.” And of course they sell all the pieces. All very charming. But since the city was not charming we made our way back to the train station and back to Pompei.

    The showers at Spartacus Campground leave a little to be desired. There is only one hook inside the shower stall and no half wall or baffle to keep everything from getting wet. Imagine taking a shower with your clothes and towel inside the shower stall with you. It also takes about 5 minutes before any hot water arrives. We considered moving on, but the location is just too handy and helps us avoid driving anywhere. (And did we mention that there is a fairly big grocery a short walk down the street?)

    Sunday we took the train to Herculaneum, another town destroyed by the Mt. Vesuvius eruption in 79A.D. It is much smaller site than Pompei. It had been buried under yards of mud before the ash and lava came, so some of it is very well preserved--even some food and fabrics survived.

    We spent Monday at the Pompei ruins. It is a huge and impressive site, and you can easily lose yourself for a day. There is still more to be uncovered, but the archaeologists are now concentrating on restoring parts of it. The larger theatre (which we couldn’t get into) is going to be used for outdoor concerts.

    It was difficult to walk. There are narrow sidewalks, but the streets were sewers, paved with large stones. It is a totally handicapped inaccessibe place. The houses line the streets: tiny room and large gardens.  Much of the stuff that survived being buried under ash and lava for 1700 years was sold to the wealthy in Naples before archeologists and historians took charge. But there are still frescoes on some walls and beautiful tile floors. We could pretty much go where we liked (us and hundreds of school children and lots of well behaved stray dogs.)  Mt Vesuvius looms over it, but it really doesn’t look that high or impressive any more. Its last major eruption was in the 1600’s. No one seems to mind that it is there. According to a guide book, 600,000 people live within 7 km of the summit today. For the moment, we are among them!

                                       

    Travel is supposed to be broadening: the traveler visits strange lands, hears new sounds, observes unfamiliar customs, and emerges from the experience refreshed, enlightened, more appreciative of the variety of ways people may organize their lives together. And so we have nearly always found it to be.

    But.

    Southern Italy is . . . uh . . . difficult.

    It may be particularly so for those of us who are of the Northern European Persuasion (NEP). Brought up by Dutch Calvinist parents, latterly a part of Norwegian / Swedish / Danish / German Lutheran environments, we have absorbed the social teachings of those traditions, and by now we’re too damn old to change.

    Among the NEP social teachings we’ve become aware that others don’t share over the past few days are:

*whether there should be a difference between one’s behavior while, on the one hand, drunk in a bar or attending a sporting event and, on the other, while interacting with others, sober and in public (the NEP answer: yes, there should);

*how one should walk down a crowded sidewalk (NEP: to the right, in a straight line, at a more or less constant speed);

*how one should wait for tickets to something (in a line, with due regard for those who got there before one, without shoving);

*what the odds are that strangers fifty feet away are interested in hearing one’s opinion about anything, including one’s family or friends who are five feet away (NEP: really long);

*and (at the risk of putting too fine a point on it) what are the chances that one really is the center of the universe and that everyone else recognises the fact and will unhesitatingly defer as one sails through life (NEP: not bloody likely).

    So: we are finding southern Italy to be warm; lots of it is wonderfully beautiful; the sea is a gorgeous blue, and the food is delicious . . . and it’s also . . . uh . . . difficult.

    Much of this was reconfirmed for us yesterday when we took a jampacked ferry to the Isle of Capri. We are here now because this is considered low season and we thought we would be avoiding large crowds. Wrong. Ferry after ferry comes from Sorrento or Naples and dumps loud crowds, who all press forward to the funicular which brings us, 50 at a time, to Capri Town on the top of the hill.

    Capri Town is an insanely expensive tourist town, immaculate, covered with flowers. There are only half a dozen actual two-lane streets on the island. The rest are 8 or 10 feet wide and meant for walking. Little three-wheeled trucks maneuver around the pedestrians as needed. To escape the crowds, we took a 90-minute walk toward the south end of the island and the nature park. The path was never more than eight feet wide (sometimes only two) but always paved. And after a mile or so we started to encounter small flights of stairs (significantly, they usually went down, toward the sea).

                  

We passed homes and could not figure out how people got to them regularly with groceries and such (possible answer: that’s why God invented servants). And how were they even built?

    It was quite a lovely walk, looking down on the sea until we came to the end and found about 300 steps taking us up to the main road at about a 10% grade. We took it very slowly; David’s heart surgeon should be proud of his work.

   The town, while lovely, is basically a shopping center for all the big designer names from Paris and Milan. One store showed an $1100 pair of shredded blue jeans, and there were lots of outdoor cafes and plazas with amazing views. We took a crowded little bus to Anacapri, a couple miles away. Big buses would never make it around the hairpin curves.

    Anacapri is an even smaller town and we visited a little church with a tiled floor depicting the flight of Adam and Eve from the Garden. It was charming and worth the trip.

                                               

We bought some more limoncello and some lemon chocolate and took an even more crowded bus (think sardines, hairpins, and bumpy pavement) back to the port and the ferry to Sorrento. There we had to climb 130 steps to the main street, collasped in an outdoor cafe, had fish for dinner, and after recovery took the train back to Pompei. It had been a lovely day in an especially lovely place, but tomorrow we have decided to stay “home,” avoid noisy crowds, do some laundry, get some groceries and plan our next move.  And Susan is trying to get up enough nerve to restring one of the window shades. 

CHARM ALERT:

This is a trullo house.

    

                               

The little town of Alberobello has more than a thousand of them, quaint and cute as can be. This morning we drove from the crummy unlevel campground just up the hill on the outskirts of town to a large, level motorhome parking lot practically in the middle of town. Who knew?

    The unique architecture of its trulli makes Alberobello yet another another complete tourist town. It is set on several small hills with the houses on stepped or steep streets on either side. The north side has hundreds of trulli houses still inhabited, while nearly all of those on the south side have been turned into shops selling little trulli houses, trulli dish towels, trulli paintings, trulli manger scenes, trulli-you-name-it. You can even rent one for a holiday. But the houses themselves are adorable: each one about 10 feet square inside and often connected to another with open arches to provide additional space. One might expect to see little trulli gnomes walking about. This was worth the drive across Italy to see.

                     

 

    Unlike other cities that we’ve found dirty and full of litter, Alberobello was sparkling clean and full of flowers. After we spent a couple of hours walking around the town, we looked for an internet connection since we hadn’t had one since Pompei. We finally tried a computer store (down steep trulli steps to a tiny space made with  three arched roofs--probably three trulli) and talked the owner into selling us an hour of good wireless access. But he was closing in an hour for lunch, so we hurried back to Rover--only a block away--to get the computer and reconnect with the world. (We have been able to pick up BBC World News at 10 p.m. the last few nights, and that helps a lot, even though--or maybe because--it devotes only 2 minutes or so to U.S. news. “Oil spill” . . . “Car bomb discovered” . . .”Twins lose”. . .)

    After lunch in Rover (a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Susan, as a break from the never-ending ham and cheese), we left Trulli-land, charmed, and drove north to Bari, where we are writing this in the worst spot we’ve had in three years--far worse than behind the tire store in Wörgl, which had had the additional advantage of being in the middle of a vibrant little town. This place is a motorhome storage lot. There must be a hundred of them here: it’s like an RV graveyard.

                                                     

Overnight parking is allowed--we even have electricity (this time using the old-fashioned “Italian” three-prong plug)--and it’s guarded 24 hours a day. But we are too far from anywhere to do anything. We had really wanted to visit the Basilica and  St. Nicholas's vault. (Yes, Virginia, Father Christmas is dead and buried in Italy.) Instead we took a walk and were glad to find a tiny grocery. We are surrounded by a military installation with high walls and barbed wire fencing, like a prison. But for tonight it is home. “Well, shoot. . . .”

    Readers may wonder why we don’t simply move on. First, we cannot just keep going unless we know where we are headed, especially in a crowded city: choices of camping spots around here were very limited. Many campgrounds do not open until mid-May. Second, the traffic doesn’t allow for any indecision: it can take time to find a place to safely pull over and reassess our choices (and drivers in this part of the world will let you know very quickly if they think your indecision is wasting a couple seconds of their time). And in fact we didn’t have any other choices. 

    So we are where we are. We took a walk and found a grocery store. And later another motorhome joined us in this popular place. (But its license plate has strange lettering: “CL.” Where could they be from? The Czech Republic is “CZ.” “ChiCom Labrador”? “Colder Latvia”? Clearly, we won’t sleep tonight.)

    Arrivederci, Roma. We didn’t throw coins in the Trevi Fountain because we probably won’t return to the city (note the cause-and-effect confusion there). We spent seven nights in the Tiber Camping and had no trouble filling our days with easy trips into the city. One of the museums on our list--the Borghese Gallery--was booked until Tuesday, so we decided to make a reservation and do everything else at a more leisurely pace while waiting for Tuesday to come. The museum is in a large park, originally owned by a noble family intent on impressing other noble families, and the collection includes some of Bernini’s most famous sculptures (David, The Rape of Persephone, and others so famous they won’t let you even take a camera in with you). Equally memorable was David being shat upon by a pigeon roosting above the entry door.

    On Monday we visited the Vatican, thinking everyone else in town would have been there on Sunday to see the Pope. But apparently the other Lutherans in town hadn’t bothered either, because we stood in a line a quarter mile long on Monday to get into the Sistine Chapel. The line moved quickly, and, remarkably, they just keep the doors open and keep directing people in. It is a labryinth path to get to the actual chapel, through musuem rooms, tapestry rooms and art galleries, with as much art on the ceilings as on the walls. 

    The chapel itself is not overly large, but we must have shared the space with at least a thousand other people. We are told that 25,000 people visit the Sistine Chapel every day (at €15 or $20 each). It was dismayingly crowded but impressive nonetheless. After lunch with a British couple who shared our table, we visited St Peter’s.

                                            

It’s simply big: very, very BIG, and full of buried popes in every side chapel. We had to go through airport type security in both places, but were free to wander once we were inside, especially in St. Peter’s where there was plenty of space for the crowds. No one was selling anything inside, but you didn’t need to get very far to find the bookshops and official and unofficial souvenir shops (Pope John Paul still has his own shop). So for a couple of days we returned to the campground a bit earlier than usual and a bit less exhausted, did some more laundry and relaxed.

    Before we left the campground we were able to give Rover her first real bath in a long, long time. This is the first campground that provides a place for camper washing, and it’s a good thing it did: the cottonwood trees had really made a mess. It rained almost every day, and when it rains on cottonwood fluff it turns to a slimy, stringy mud (not unlike pigeon s--t).  Our awning was full of it. We swept off as much as we could and then  rolled up the awning a few inches to sweep off some more . . . all this standing in swampy grass. Then we took Rover to the camper wash and put the awning down again to hose it down. It was quite a messy wet job and we both got soaked and took showers when we were done.

    Most Americans are not aware that many campgrounds in Europe offer rentals of small bungalow cabins. The cost is very reasonable compared to a hotel. The cabins at Tiber are around € 40 ($52) a night.  We paid € 105 (or $135) for our seven nights for the motorhome site. We would not have found a hotel in the city for one night for that price.  And of course we didn’t buy gas for six days in a row.

    On our way to Assisi today we paid $7 a gallon for gas. Along the autostrada we heard a loud bang and immediately our hearts stopped. We neither saw nor heard nor felt anything, but we pulled over at our first opportunity (after driving through a tunnel).  We found nothing, but in the distance we could hear fireworks. We don’t know why, but we often hear fireworks during the day--the loud banging ones, not the colorful ones we associate with the Fourth of July. We heard them every night in Pompei. So we decided nothing had exploded, we still had all six tires,our hearts resumed a healthy rhythm, and we continued on our way.

    We have a beautiful view of Assisi, this town on a hill, right out our front window from the campground.

                                                

We visited the crypt where St Francis is buried. When he died in 1226, a modest little crypt was built around his grave. Later a small but impressive church was built over the crypt, and later still, a basilica was built over the church, after which Giotto filled it with murals of scenes from Francis’s life. It all attracts thousands of visitors and pilgrims every year, but today wasn’t at all crowded. The city is very hilly, clean, quaint and lovely. It was a welcome change from the busy-ness and litter and grafitti of Rome . . . in spite of the wild taxi/bus ride we had from the campground into the town.

    The rain started around 10 pm on Friday night and didn’t stop for 24 hours--a nice, gentle, steady drenching. We spent most of the damp and chilly Saturday inside Rover until around 2 pm, when we put on our waterproof shoes, raincoats, ponchos, gloves and pink (!) Giro hats, took up our umbrellas and headed out to that day’s Giro d’Italia’s bike route, about a mile downhill. We got there just in time to watch the sponsor parade of decorated cars speed past--without tossing out any merchandise, the pikers--and then we found a wet curb under a tree to sit on for an hour to wait for the riders.

    A couple of hundred people had gathered just outside the little hill town (Casina) and spread out along the road lined with parked cars. The road takes a pretty sharp curve right at the turnoff to the town, so we crossed it to get to the inside of the curve so no one would go flying off the road into us as they went around that corner. 

    The riders came up the long, steep hill, looking throughly miserable in the cold and wet, accompanied by the many motorcycles, helicopters and support vehicles. They were strung out over quite a distance, but it was all over within ten minutes.

                  

    Then the second event began: The Departure. It consisted of people running back to their cars, determined to be the first on the road, pulling out at the same time, nosing their cars onto the crowded street, heading in all directions, pushing pedestrians out of the way, honking their horns, creating an instant traffic jam . . . and taking it all very seriously. It was as enjoyable as the race (and lasted longer). Those of us on foot just kept walking around the cars, through the rain and up the long hill. We had considered driving Rover out to the route because of the rain, but we were glad we hadn’t, and the rain wasn’t much of a problem until we had to find a place to hang our wet stuff when we returned. 

    (PS. The first of 2010's "Things We Have Learned" is now on the menu.) 

    The weather finally cleared to beautiful sunshine. Our next visit was to Pisa, just a few miles east of Florence. Our stopping point there--”The Leaning Tower Campground” is how it translates--is only about a quarter mile from the Tower, so we parked Rover and walked to it.

    The medieval city planners must have had tourists in mind because the tower, cathedral and Baptistry are all in a row down a wide lawn about three football fields in length; alongside runs a pedestrian street lined with market stalls of all kinds, mostly souvenirs of little tiny leaning towers (this is a great timesaver for the busy tourist: up one side, down the other, and back on the bus to your hotel).

                                              

    Pisa’s cathedral was once the largest in Italy and is absolutely beautiful. It is interesting to see very modern additions to some of these 1000-year old places: here it was a new altar and pulpit, both very different from the originals. We did not go up the tower and we resisted having our picture taking in what appeared to be the obligatory stance of pretending to hold it up (obligatory not only for tourists but for Snoopy and Disney characters on t-shirts). 

    We walked around the city a little, dodging the crowds of students in the afternoon, and then stopped by a grocery store on our way back to Rover. Later we shared a glass of wine with a couple from Florida who are touring for six months using a very affordable buy-back program from an RV dealer in the Netherlands.

    The next day we traveled only 16 miles to Lucca, whose claim to fame is the 2.5-mile long 13th century wall that surrounds the old city. It is topped by a paved road in a parklike setting used by walkers, runners and bikers and giving very peaceful and lovely views into the old city. We walked around and through the city and then back to Rover. We’d parked her in a camperstop (a parking lot for motorhomes, usually with few or no services) that we shared with 15 other for the night, just a couple of blocks from the city wall in a nice neighborhood.

    The next day we got back on the autostrada and headed north along the coast, looking at mountains again. We had located a campground that would serve as  starting point for visits to the Cinque Terre and Genoa, as driving to the former is impossible (no roads) and to the latter is difficult (big busy city). We had picked out Sestri Levante because it was very close to the  autostrada, in spite of the fact that it did not have any internet service (surely there would be some in town).

    But just a few feet after leaving the autostrade tollbooth, we were about to make a turn when we saw the campground sign accompanied by a “2.5m” overhead sign (Rover is 3.05). So we had no choice but to go straight instead. Then we saw a second sign for the campground, followed it around a long block and under the autostrada no less than three times, avoiding the low overhead (but introducing us to a one lane bridge--always fun), 50 meters up a steep-ish hill . . . and arrived at the campground.

    This one was the tightest place yet. The spot the owner put us into was fairly large, but by evening we had been joined by two Dutch couples and their cars and trailers. They fried up a huge amount of fish for dinner just outside our door and kindly gave us a plateful for our dinner. They were supposed to be leaving before us, but one of them had car trouble, so when we were about to leave a few days later, it involved a bunch of trailer shifting.

                                       

                                              (Rover's the one waaaay in the back, center.)

    This campground was a little too far from the town center for easy access. We walked in and out the first afternoon, but once was enough: the next two days, we took up the owner’s offer to drive us to the train station and pick us up on our return. Oh . . . and no Wi-Fi in town.

    The first day we took the train to the Cinque Terre, the five fishing villages along the sea that are (mostly) inaccessible by cars. We were expecting a gorgeous ride along the sea, but the trip was literally about 90% in tunnels, from which the train emerged only to stop at tiny stations. The villages are absolutely overrun with tourists. Just getting off the train at the first stop was really difficult, because way too many people had to funnel from the station platform up a flight of narrow steps, and into an even more narrow street. The towns are undeniably lovely and charming, but they seemed overwhelmed by the weight of tourism.

    We walked from the first town to the second along a paved walkway above the water’s edge, with gorgeous flowers blooming all along the way. Between the other towns, though, we took the train and managed to visit all five in one day . . . including the 382 steps up to Corniglia, where we rewarded ourselves with lunch.  And we managed to hit “Lemon Days” in Monterossa, where we were given free tastes of limoncello.

                                                  

    The next day we took the train in the other direction to Genoa, the home of Christopher Columbus and now a busy port city of 600,000 with its own old center. We walked all over, avoiding every Renaissance museum and palace, and when we discovered the cathedral was closed--with nary a sign about open hours--we got back on the train. We got off again at Santa Margherita Ligure, a small, moderately charming, total tourist beach resort town. From there we took a tiny bus on a scary ride along the cliffs to Portofino, an even tinier, considerably more charming resort town, with yacht harbor, fancy shops and cafes (this is the harbor you see in pictures of the Italian Riviera). We saw the whole thing in an hour, bought some gelato and a t-shirt to spur the Italian economy to greater heights, and took the bus and train back to Rover.

                                                 

    With the possible exception of Pisa, none of the places we’ve visited the last few days has lived up to our expectations, and none has tempted us to stay longer. And doing without internet for five days has not been easy. On the other hand, we have been on the road for six weeks now, so maybe we are just tired. So we are headed north to the lake country, where we hope to relax for a few days, avoid crowds, and add to our list of Things We Have Learned.    

    We hated to leave the beauty of Iseo and the lake country, but we haven’t seen quite all of Italy yet. So we drove a long way (for us): 103 miles to Modena. The campground there is practically within the cloverleaf exit of the Autostrada--lots of traffic noise, but great wifi. We rode our bikes the 3 miles into the city. (It was Sunday, so the traffic wasn’t too bad.)  And we ended up riding the bike path around the old city center and riding into “Ferrari/Maserati Days,” featuring a group pretending to race about a 10th of a mile along city streets, vintage cars reving motors and backfiring and delighting the mostly older men crowding around. 

    The next day we drove to Bologna, where the campground has been modernized quite a bit: Good sanitary blocks/sites separated by bushes/nice restaurant/ open pool. But there were few places to get water and the only place for us to hook up a hose was at the dump, which was configured in a way we couldn’t use. So we just didn’t bother with either. (A heads-up for those of our readers thinking of taking their American RV to Europe: although we have been pleasantly surprised by how many campgrounds have had dump stations that accommodate the American-style black and gray water tanks, and while we can also often find one at the big truck stops on the Autostradas, still we’ve found it best to use a dump when we find one  rather than wait until our tanks are full before searching one out.) 

    Bologna is a beautiful city once you get into the old city center. Many of the buildings are built with long arched porches / colannades / galleries across the front. (There are 25 miles of these covered galleries in this city!)  They are about 12 feet wide, wide enough to walk comfortably side by side and still pass other walkers . . . and no motorcycles or cars are under them. They would be a great place to be on a rainy day.

                                         

    

    Bologna is a university town and has a history of left-wing, even Communist, local government (there’s a street named after the WWII Battle of Stalingrad, for instance). We arrived in the city center just in time for the sort of rally you’d expect of such a place: anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, with lots of flags and shouting and police standing around the edges. It was right in the square in front of the unfinished exterior of their wonderful basilica. It is the 5th largest in Italy and had been planned to be even bigger than St Peter’s at the Vatican when finished, until a Pope decided it was big enough and had a university built in its way. It is obviously unfinished on the outside, but the inside is bright and clean and contains a wonderful meridian line that marks time and helped to discover the need for a leap year day for our calendar (so we’re told, but we had precious little astronomy in our education, so we’re taking it on faith). We missed seeing the sun shine on the line because (of course) the building closes like everything else for early afternoon naps.

                                          

    This city also boasts two leaning towers--in fact, 22 towers, built by competing wealthy families in the 12th and 13th centuries, have survived. 

    We decided to stay a third night as June 3 is Italy’s Independence Day, since we knew much of the city would be open. (Also, our experience driving on May Day, another holiday, had convinced us not to be going anywhere near a coast on a holiday.) On that day we saw another pro-Palestinian rally blocking the streets, and we walked around a huge open air market.  

    Then we headed toward Ravenna. The city has no campground, so we ended up a few  miles away, on the Adriatic Sea again . . . this time in a campground that has a nudist section. We were asked at reception if we wanted “naturist or textiles?”  Well, shoot….  Since it was in the 60’s and raining, and also because our children are reading this blog, we opted for textiles. As a result, we have yet to see a single nude individual, even on the beach where the most visible things were the off shore oil rigs.   However, all was not lost, for the site had water and a dump station we made use of right away. (Once again,the water we are finding is wonderful. We do use a filter on the hose before we put it into our fresh water tank, and so far we have not had any problems.) However, the bus that the guidebook had assured us would take us into Ravenna had been permanently cancelled, so we were forced to take a day off: a cool day of relaxation alongside a nudist camp. We’ll drive into the city tomorrow, find a place to park, get our fill of Byzantine mosaics, and move on.

    We are trying to write a description of our visit to Venice, combined with a farewell to Italy, while trying to convince the campground owner’s dog to go away (the latter is harder than it might seem, because he is really good at begging for attention and we find we really miss having a dog).

                                                                 

    There are several campgrounds on the Venetian  lagoon. We are at Fusina. It is a fairly large place with what are called “unmarked pitches,” i.e., not too large open spaces between trees, so pull in wherever you wish. And so people do, trying to optimize the view. There are motorhomes here bigger than Rover--something we are finding more and more often. We are parked about 20 feet from the water, with our nose facing Venice. There is a shipping channel right in front of us and we have seen several tugs guiding massive container ships and car carriers past us. Great free entertainment.

    We took the local ferry to Venice. It is right outside the campground gate: ferries every hour all day and half the night. We bought the ticket that took us to Venice and back and also gave us unlimited rides on the vaporetto (water taxi) in the city. We had been to Venice once before, but that was a cold and rainy March. Today was sunny and very warm. There were a lot of tourists, but nothing overwhelming like the Cinque Terre.  We walked and walked and took the vaporetti five times , including to Murano, another island where the beautiful glass work is done: factory after factory and store after store selling gorgeous glass jewelry, dishes and imaginative art pieces.

                                                                

We returned to Venice ,where we had dinner on a floating deck (we will have to eat in Rover for the next week to make up for that).

                                                               

    Venice is truly a unique place. Much of it looks like it is about to crumble and fall into the canals. But there are no cars, motorbikes or even bicycles. The streets wind everywhere and end at canals or go up steps to little bridges. Sometimes the streets are just narrow alleys where you can’t spread your arms out without touching the walls on both sides.

                  

    Because we’d done most of the tourist things when we were here before, this time we spent just one day in the city and then relaxed and did some laundry at the campground . We were adopted by the campground dog who wanted to play ball with a pine cone, and he fell asleep on David’s foot. Not everyone appreciates the dog, but we enjoyed his company, which he seemed to sense, for he kept returning to us.

    This campground is a very active place with a noisy bar at night, like many of the large ones in Italy. Fortunately, we are on the far side by the lagoon, about as far from the noise as we can get. Others seem to appreciate the fact as well, because if a space opens up on the waterfront, it is quickly filled by new arrivals.  

    Tomorrow we will drive along the sea and into the mountains towards Austria. We have been in Italy for 7 weeks, quite a bit longer than we thought we would be.  It has been wonderful and exasperating all at the same time. We know we are blessed to have this opportunity. But the opportunity tomorrow will be to get out of the country alive and well . . . and move north. 

    Susan did not lobby hard enough for a new battery, and David did not think enough about the accessories that could drain one that was weak. We are such a team.

    We drove the 125 miles from Graz to Vienna without incident, but when we got there, all it took to kill the chassis battery once and for all was using the hydraulic leveling system. We had just enough power to raise the windows and here we are. We couldn’t go farther without some kind of help.

    Someone is watching over us, because we got it: the closest commercial establishment to Camping Wien (Vienna) West is--drum roll, please--an American auto parts store. The proprietor searched his catalogues and computer and shook his head, suggested we go to a nearby Midas shop “just two kilometers away” and said he would make some phone calls. Our problem is the specific size of the battery and the amps it needs to start a 10-cylinder 6.8-liter engine. After one bus and two tram rides, we found the Midas. They actually had a possible contender, but they would not deliver it, the garage door would not accommodate Rover, and the parking options on the busy street  were not good. Still, it was a possibility. Back to the auto parts man, who had learned nothing helpful from his colleagues around western Europe. This time we asked whether there was a battery store--someone who could figure out what we actually needed, not just look for a copy of what we had. (For example, we are not in Minnesota any more and do not drive Rover in extreme cold conditions, so we do not need the cold cranking amps we had had in the old battery.)  One bus and one subway ride later, we arrived at a battery store and within 10 minutes the woman placed a battery before us (she lugged it out from the stock room herself--an impressive feat). The dimensions were good, but the posts were reversed. “No problem, I can get another one that’s right, today.” And since she lives--drum roll, please-- about two blocks from the campground, she delivered it late that afternoon on her way home, picked up the old one for recycling, and stayed around long enough to make sure it would fit and work. It did and it does. 

    All of the above happened during a stretch of four days while we were trying to enjoy Vienna--all the while with a dead battery in the back of our minds. But € 177 later all is well, danke.

    Vienna is a beautiful city, especially in June with flowers blooming everywhere. It is obvious that many buildings have been cleaned and repaired and many more are covered with scaffolding that indicates they are in the process of being cleaned and repaired.

                 

         St Stephen's church, with scaffolding for cleaning.              Rathaus (City Hall)

  

Buildings built before and after the war stand side by side. The former have the lovely Baroque carved garlands draped above their doors and windows; the latter are plain and flat. Almost everything in the city center is less than five or six stories--the limit to what was useable before elevators were invented--while taller modern buildings are found on the outskirts of the city.

    We have been to palaces, museums and churches. One day we took 13 separate bus, train and tram rides (fortunately, we had bought a transport pass that allowed unlimited rides). The city is full of tourists, but not overcrowded: it makes for a bustling downtown pedestrian area. Strains of Mozart seem to come from everywhere. There is also a fair amount of horse poop, as horse carriage rides are a popular tourist item. We checked the various concert, theatre, and opera schedules but found nothing that interested us sufficiently. For one thing, many of the productions start quite late, which complicates the process of getting back to the campground with limited bus service at an even later hour. Also, we tend to tire ourselves out by walking around during the day and campgrounds are usually outside a city’s center, so the prospect of getting back to the campground, cleaning up, resting, and then making our way back into town can be daunting.

    So here we are in the city that was home to the western world’s greatest musical composers; it is synonymous with the Habsburg dynasty (about which we have learned waaay too much, having  toured two of their palaces, with free audio guides); and, because most of the imperial architecture dates from the 1800s, a lot of what is on display is original, including some of the clothing and massive amounts of gold and silver table service. Nevertheless, despite all this grandeur, our two favorite experiences were much more mundane. One was our visit to the exhibit at the Austrian furniture museum, featuring the history and philosophy of IKEA, including a collection of many of its pieces over the years. This museum also has furniture available for film use and showed clips of movies highlighting their pieces. The other was the sight of people standing at crosswalks: the street is a minor one, there is no traffic coming….yet they are actually waiting for the traffic signal to change. Forty people of all ages, standing even in the pouring rain (as it did all day today); in Minneapolis you would be standing on the sidewalk alone.

    (And if our preference for IKEA isn’t lowbrow enough, we must report that we have found four Starbucks and have had coffee at three of them.)

    P.S. We’ve aimed this blog at people who are considering shipping their American RV to Europe, like we’ve done, and like Ron and Adele Milovsky did before us. Lest you be taken aback by our mechanical problems on this trip (the tire that lost its tread and today’s report on the battery that was difficult to replace), remember that both these problems could have been avoided had we taken a few precautions. For instance:

--just because the four tires you can see are four years old, don’t assume that the two rear inboards will be that fresh, too--ours weren’t, and it was one of those ten-year-old inboards that lost its tread;

--if your RV is 6-7 years old and its chassis battery is original equipment, and if the battery would be hard to replace on a continent that has rather few 10-cylinder gasoline engines, then replace it before you ship the RV to Europe; and

--if your battery shows signs of weakening, don’t have the engine turned off when you begin leveling your RV with your hydraulic levelers.

    We tunneled our way to Switzerland: tunnel after tunnel, several of them 2 or 3 or 5 miles long, and one of them a full 10 miles. It is not our favorite way to travel. Really long tunnels give one too much time to think about exactly what it is that is above one’s head . . . and pressing down . . . and subject to shifting . . . and Europe has earthquakes, doesn’t it? Add to that the mesmerizing repetition of the lights and wall markings flashing past and . . . 

    Fortunately the longest tunnels did not have oncoming traffic to add to the drama, and generally the traffic was light. We stopped before leaving Austria and got a € 22 refund on our toll vignette; then we stopped at the Swiss border and paid a € 20 road tax toll for 5 days. € 233 for Austrian tolls; € 20 for Swiss tolls.

    We drove towards Zurich to a campsite supposedly on a lake southeast of Zurich. It was a cramped, unshaded place full of old trailers and half a dozen short-stay motorhomes. It had about 20 feet of swampy, rocky shoreline and no good transportation into the city. But it did have accordion music and raucous singing at a party that quieted down promptly at 10 pm. So we stayed the night because we were hot and tired and in the morning moved to another Zurich campground 12 miles away.  This one was pretty big, shaded, busy with touring vehicles and had good bus service right outside the gate. And at night there was always a group gathered to watch the “fussball” games on tv. Access to the city was so easy that we went in for the day and visited churches and a great art museum and the birthplace of the Dada art movement in 1916 (and subject of a play by David's favorite playwright, Tom Stoppard).

              

  "We have Monet Water Lilies and Rodin sculptures. . .                  Cafe Voltaire, birthplace of Dada

  I know--let's put them in the same room!"

We then returned and rested and went in again for dinner in the evening at a big beer hall restaurant. That night Switzerland was playing soccer, so there were tvs set up at the outdoor bars attracting lots of attention. 

    Zurich and Lucerne, our destination the next day, are both located at the end of a lake. Both city centers stretch around the end of the lake and make the most of their locations with tour boats and buses, fishing and swimming. Lucerne has the advantage of being surrounded by tall mountains. At Lucerne we were camped across the street from the main swimming beach. We could not make our electrical connection work and didn’t know exactly what wasn’t working, so we decided to give our house batteries some exercise and they performed well. We could see the top of Mt. Pilatus from our campsite, and we were able to walk to town along a paved walk all along the water’s edge, past homes and hotels, all of them covered with flowers. All of the waterfront is public. Once again we discovered we had come to a town on the day of its summer fest. As we get closer to the center there were food and drink booths everywhere and stages set up for musical performances that went on all day and half the night all over the city. We were especially intrigued by their new performance space (which we could not get into) since it was designed by the architect who did the new Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis--they share some of the same outward features. 

    We joined the crowds crossing the wooden bridge and walked all over town.

               

At night we walked back over to the beach at 10:30 pm to watch a half hour of fireworks over the darkened city. Even the fireworks were a bit unusual in that they tended to be grouped by color: red, red, red and then silver, silver, silver, over and over again, 20 or 30 in a row. After the fireworks were over we watched the city lights come back to life and reflect in the lake. It was a beautiful sight. We didn't learn until the next day that, while we watched, the US soccer team had lost to Ghana in overtime.

    Today we left Lucerne and the mountains and drove our longest day yet--275 miles to Metz, France. We had two detours that frustratingly added to the length of the day, but since it was Sunday the traffic wasn’t too bad. We are camped along the Moselle River on an island in a city campground where we stayed when we first visited the city last year. We met a retired couple from Iowa who have biked around Europe for years--this year’s trip began in Amsterdam, will go to Rome, and back again. Even after having dinner with them and hearing their stories we can not imagine it.

    The weather for the past couple of weeks has been either cool and even rainy or extremely hot and humid. The last few days have been the latter, which makes it hard to relax after driving or walking around. But by 8 or 9 pm the sun is usually behind trees or mountains, a welcome cool breeze arises, and, while the Europeans in the campground watch fussball or play petanque (?), we can log on and learn how far the Dow and the Twins have plummeted. Lately the answer, in both cases, has usually been "holy c---!"

    Metz is a small walkable city, and the municipal campground is right in the city and on an island on the river. It’s one of our favorites. We returned because the new Pompidou Center had finally opened and we were not disappointed. It is an unusual and beautiful structure, and the art chosen for its premier was wonderful. We were glad we had made the effort to return. We had several more conversations with our new Iowa biker acquaintances and also with the Danish family parked next to us, exchanging camping stories and places we must visit. It is always fun to have someone else to talk to at length.

                                               

    We stayed two nights in Metz, recovering from our long day and then headed north towards Luxembourg. We needed gas and groceries. We exited the Autoroute when we saw a large commercial complex and bought just a little gas (at € 1.45 per liter) since we knew we would soon be in Luxembourg where it is much cheaper. But the shopping center had erected 2.5-meter high barriers at the entrance, so we were unable to get our vehicle into the parking lot to buy groceries: these are huge shopping complexes that apparently don’t want any money from people in camping cars (as they are called in Europe). We got turned around heading back to the A and got trapped in a detour and about 15 miles later we were finally on the right road headed in the right direction. As soon as we crossed the border we exited to a small town and bought gas (€ 1.17 / liter). Luxembourg proved to be one big road construction zone. We were headed north to Ettlebruck and the George Patton Museum, but first we had to travel about 20 miles through small towns and several detours and road construction zones. In road construction zones they like to make one of the lanes 2 meters wide--Rover is 2.5 meters wide --always exciting.

    We finally arrived at the campground in Ettlebruck, high on a hill up a tight winding road. The owner gave us a map directing us to a grocery store where he knew we could park and showed us where the museum was (where we could not park). So we drove back through the town, found the grocery store and did what we hoped to be our last grocery shopping. Then we drove back into town and found a place to park about a 15-minute walk from the little museum, which proved to be a collection of things that had been dug up after the war and correspondences to and from Patton. Then we made our way back up the winding hill, hot and exhausted. We opened a second bottle of wine that night and actually had enough electricity to turn the AC on for a few minutes. But at night it cooled off nicely. We are surprised how far north we are and how late it stays light. We can sit outside and  read at 10 pm.

    The following day we drove to Bastogne, Belgium, where there is a large American Memorial and War Museum. Getting there was not without incident. We relied on the GPS, which again took us through ridiculously tight streets and dumped us onto the main artery through town, where a large parked truck took up 1/4  of the roadway. The regular cars could pass each other, but we needed someone to stop to let us pass. This wasn’t happening. So finally David just took his turn, forcing the oncoming car to stop, back up the few inches he had available, and pull far to his right to let us (just barely) get through. Except for the line of cars behind us, we probably didn’t make any friends in Bastogne.

   Then it was off to the museum and the memorial. It is quite a special place, remembering the Battle of the Bulge, where 76,000 American soldiers lost their lives over Christmas 1944. The museum tells the story well (and in English) and the memorial--in the shape of a huge star--looms over the beautiful countryside.

                                             

It is always amazing to see a lovely little town in France or Belgium and then see the pictures of its destruction during the war. We made it out of Bastogne without going through the center again and drove all the way to Ghent, Belgium (but not without bypassing Brussells on the ring road, accompanied by a million trucks that all had the same idea). It was around here that we started to see signs warning of future road closings for the Tour de France. Another long hot day.

    So we stayed in Ghent two nights. We had been here before also and had missed a few high spots in the city, so it was a natural stopping place on our way to Rotterdam. We are having unknown electrical problems. The transformer shuts itself off, so we are running a lot on the house batteries and LP gas. The campground was even nicer than before with the absence of hundreds of soccer players who had been here previously, but the city was a dusty mess of--you guessed it--construction. And again it was very hot. So we visited the 13th century castle we had missed the last time and returned to Rover to keep an eye on our electrical problems (and did a lot of laundry of things we intend to leave behind.)

    Then it was off to Rotterdam, where the city is hosting the start of the Tour de France.  (But not before another bout of road construction and a complete absence of detour signs messed us up again.) Susan had worried about getting a spot in the Rotterdam campground ever since they told us they wouldn’t take reservations for what would be a very busy weekend. But we arrived early in the afternoon and they had a lovely shaded spot for us. (Many people prefer treeless places that allow them to get satellite reception.) And then we watched a lot of people arrive the rest of that day and into the next.

    Rotterdam was hopping. The day we arrived The Netherlands soccer team won a semifinals spot and the place erupted. David was watching it in the bar and Susan could tell they won by the hundreds of horns that started blowing on the nearby roads. That alone would have been enough to make it a festive place (orange flags everywhere), but the Tour festivities for “Le Grand Depart” were spread over three days.

          

    Orange flags in a Rotterdam sports bar                                Le Grand Depart

We went into the city on Saturday. Unlike much of Europe, Rotterdam is a very modern city, completely rebuilt after the war: wide boulevards, public art, pedestrian shopping streets. We walked through the market and then headed for the bike route for the prologue time trial for 193 riders, each starting one minute apart. We found a place under a tram underpass where the cyclists rode by on our right and five minutes later came past on our left just before the finish line. It was a good place to be because clouds moved in and it started to drizzle just as the race started. The temperature dropped from the upper 80s into the low 70s with a cold breeze off the harbor. And the one accident that we know of happened right in front of us--a cyclist sliding on the wet pavement into metal fencing, injuring a couple of bystanders. We could see the grimace on his face, but he got up and continued on his way. The crowds were amazing--people everywhere. But our space was not easy to get into, so it remained not too crowded. The only downside was the ever-present loudspeakers. The Dutch cycling fans really know their Dutch riders, and they also gave Lance Armstrong a wonderful welcome. It was really fun and exhausting to be part of it. 

                

              Lance Armstrong in the Prologue time trial                                            Le Grand Depart, Stage 1

    On Sunday the race began with a ceremonial group tour of the city, and again we found a good spot in the shade to watch them go by. Then we were able to hurry a couple of blocks to see them go by again--this time with thousands of people. Then the riders disappeared into the crowd on the bridge. All of this was over by noon, so we spent the afternoon cleaning and packing and making notes for next year, with a break to watch the campground’s TV to see the day’s stage end in Brussels.

    We had returned Saturday to find we had left a light on for 12 hours and the circuit breaker at the campground’s plug-in point had shut off, and the refrigerator had run off the batteries, which were showing very little charge.  So we ran Rover’s engine several times to recharge the batteries. We don’t know what the problem is, but suspect that the transformer is fried. We have refrigeration (on LP gas) and enough electrical to run the water pump, so we can winterize the plumbing system before we put Rover into storage. 

    The campground was pretty empty on Monday when we did one last load of laundry and headed out. We were within 2 miles of the storage facility when we hit our final road construction/detour. It was really tricky to get there. And it was a good thing we didn’t have a flight to catch until the next morning. It is hard to believe that our twelve weeks is over and we are heading home. We’ll post again when we have added up all the numbers we have collected over the last 4783 miles (at least 500 of which were totally unnecessary!!)