We decided to stay an extra day at the campground above Innsbruck. They had wonderful new facilities, excellent wifi connection, and an easy bus into the city. But instead of a relaxing day, we, of course, walked five miles and exhausted ourselves hitting the high spots. The Tyrolian Folk Museum tickets turned out to be half price for seniors and included admission to three other museums, so we visited more than we had planned, including a quite incredible tomb for Emperor Maximilian, who was never actually buried there (but arranged to have larger-than-life statues of his fellow European monarchs clustered around the tomb as if he were).
When we purchased our two new tires, we were told to have someone check the lug nuts after 100 km or so, so when we left the campsite we first headed back to Innsbruck to find a tire place. The first one we found didn’t have the right kind of wrench and sent us to a motorhome repair place about 10 miles west, where a mechanic had us park barely off the road and did the job for us. Then it was south to the Brenner Pass over the Alps to Italy. We expected a hard climb, but the uphill parts were interspersed with plenty of flats and even downhills, all accompanied by trucks, trucks, and more trucks. There was a lot of snow on the mountains around us but none near the road. The views were spectacular, and on the other side of the pass we descended into a flat valley between mountains. It was about a mile wide and went on for miles and miles. And then suddenly the mountains all around us ended and we were in very flat (like Kansas, only with trees) farmland. Lots of vineyards and blossoming fruit trees everywhere.
Since we are trying to get to the south of Italy before the heat and crowds, we are driving on the Autostrada. The driving is sometimes tense. Susan reports that gritting her teeth and holding on tight has no effect on David’s driving (you may take that as you will). We are usually in the right lane with the trucks, passing only on long uphill climbs. There are frequent places to stop, many rest areas (sometimes every couple of miles) and truck/restaurant stops. The condition of the roads is very good, but there’s lots of repair work in relatively small patches that doesn’t seem to slow anyone down.
We paid € 1.33 for gas this morning (about $7/gal.) and we are using it at a rate of 9 -10 mpg! The cost doesn’t seem to reduce the amount anyone drives around here.
At the end of the day we spent far too much time driving around Verona looking for a place to stop for the night. The GPS claimed to have found two campsites, but after much city driving, we discovered that both were closed, so we headed about 15 miles west to Lake Garda, where the lake is lined with campgrounds and is a total tourist trap. The campground we found had 1200 sites, about a third of them for motorhomes and the rest little cabins to rent. We were surprised to see how full the motorhome section was this early in the season. Rover attracted a little attention. and we gave a German couple a tour inside. After a hard day on the road, we decided to eat in the campground’s restaurant where the Cokes cost more than the wine. So we bit the bullet. And also bought a three-pack of Heineken's in the store.
Today we left the flat land and headed south, eventually coming into the rolling hills of Tuscany that really do look like the Italy we see in pictures. But from the autostrada it often looks industrial and commercial, not to say run down, and we are looking forward to getting off the busy highways that really aren’t much wider than the local ones. Tonight we are in another large campground with very tiny sites that is mostly empty. The farther south we go, the more Spring has set in, and it is a green and lovely place.
