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Pompeii seems like a very interesting place to have ignored, we were going there but we now have no confirmed ferry to Corfu so we decided to drive down towards Brindisi in case a ferry becomes available.  We found a little site by the seaside and thought a bit of rest and sunbathing would be in order.  The seaside was rocky and I fell over three times on the rocks because the seaweed was invisible and they were slippery, this happened in slow motion and the people in the sea were most amused, the whole of my back was covered in brown sludge, I got some disgusted looks on my walk back but I couldn’t tell anyone it was seaweed.

The village was gorgeous, azure sea and little boats, it was a walled town that looked like every architect from 1600 to 1950 had had a go at designing a house, the whole effect worked and it was really pretty.

We moved on after two nights owing to the crappy seaside and are now in Alberobello a little further down the coast.

Oh my god what a city, I was so excited to see it and it didn’t disappoint.  The campsite was up a very steep hill in a village overlooking Florence and the views were spectacular.  There was a shuttle bus to the village itself and from there we got a bus into the old city.  We left early, R not being a city fan, hoping there weren’t too many people and that it wouldn’t be too hot for Sunny, Florence is stunning, exactly as I imagined it would be and better.  Every corner has something more exciting around it, the architecture, statuary and art is fabulous.  Because we had the dog we weren’t able to go inside the buildings so no art museums or cathedrals but it didn’t matter there was enough to see without going inside.

We spent the whole day just wondering around and taking photos, we didn’t even stop to eat!  A decision was made that we need to come back for a stay in a posh hotel for a week, without the dog!

We went back up to the campsite for a bit of a rest and then decided to walk back down to the village for supper, the walk was a couple of kilometres downhill and quite steep but gorgeous with houses dating to 1450, cypress trees and flowers, it was like being on a film set it was so perfect!   The restaurant was overlooking the city, Sunny was welcomed with open arms, the food was amazing and the wine was superb.

Unfortunately when we finished our meal there were no taxis left and we had to walk back up the hill, by this time it was vertical.

We left the little campsite in Italy with a view to travelling to Florence,  somewhere I have always wanted to go.  After about 10 minutes of travelling the tyre was losing pressure again, (the actual car tells us that!) we were in the middle of nowhere, off the beaten track and nether of us can speak Italian (my assumption that I can just put an a on the end of French has proved erroneous).  We passed a car mechanic shop and with the help of translate on our phones we were able to explain what we needed.  They sent us to Quick Fit where another handsome man explained that he had not got a replacement tyre and that it could take a few days to get one.   He then offered to do a proper repair but that it wouldn’t be ready until 4pm, this at 9.45am.

We couldn’t go anywhere and it was getting hotter and hotter, Sunny wouldn’t be able to walk on the pavements which meant we spent the entire day in a car park.  R took the opportunity to spend the whole time sunbathing while Sunny and I hid in the shade.  Luckily we had already bought water and a picnic for lunch so we had sustenance and I read my book.

At 4pm the tyre was ready, it was refitted to the van and we left heading for Florence, a little bit nervous that the tyre would blow.  The trip was four hours on the map but we forgot that there had been a bridge collapse in Genoa so it too six hours instead.  I moaned all the way because I needed a wee and I thought we should just stop for the night in a rest stop.  R didn’t murder me and we arrived in Florence at 10pm, a little fractious and very tired but the view from the campsite was amazing and you could hear the bells from the cathedral.

After much discussion we  made an executive decision not to go to any of the tourist places in Italy, rather to allow the sat nav to direct us, avoiding motorways and A roads.  We put in Brindisi as our final destination, a total of 751 miles and were told we should arrive at 11.45, we made the natural assumption that this would be 14 hours of driving and decided that we would stop when R was tired of driving.

I really should have recorded the whole journey.  We started out at about 9.30 from France on a D road, it was absolutely spectacular I actually ran out of hyperbole and found myself sitting very quietly just looking out of the window.  The roads were clinging to the sides of the mountains and we zipped along like little goats, me clinging to the hand hold above my head with my foot on an imaginary brake.  Every turn was more beautiful than the last, our way was blocked by goats and a rather handsome goatherd (for a goatherd that is) with an excellent Parisian accent!  After several hours of travelling we had still only gone 50 miles owing to finding out that the road was blocked by workmen only when we found them.

We pressed on, determined to reach Italy by nightfall, gaily singing the self preservation song as we teetered on the edge of the road unfettered by a safety barrier.  We finally reached Italy, after dark with no place to stay, roads made of broken glass and advice from the forum that overnighting in a lay-by in Italy was not a good idea.   Luckily we found a campsite and without a word of Italian managed to get a pitch for the night.

We had travelled 150 miles in 12 hours, while very picturesque, I think tomorrow we will go back on the motorway.

We travelled from Valencia, north towards France and I had noticed that we would pass the Costa Brava.  This is where I spent most of my childhood summers, notably in a village called L’estartit firstly camping and then when the baby of the family arrived, staying in apartments.  The campsite I remember the most was called El Molino, which I googled and booked.  I have memories of rolling an enormous bottle of water from a shop near a windmill and the feel of pesetas to spend in said shop,  of being told off for laughing at my sister as she ran, of my brother being called No and of being free.  The campsite smelled exactly the same, of hot earth and pine needles, the shop is a house now and the windmill was much smaller.   You can’t walk through the site to the beach now because there are houses there and the sand dunes are gone but the beach was gorgeous, powder sand and sparkling clean sea.  I am incredibly lucky and grateful to have had such brilliant holidays in such a lovely place and am very sorry for being such a bitch when we went to Argeles!

We moved on and into France, we were to stay at El Molino but we have to be in Italy two days earlier because the ferry is cancelled.  We had a campsite to go to  but when we got there it was opposite a nuclear power station and looked like we could be murdered overnight, at the very least find our dog’s head on a stick in the morning so we moved on.

About half an hour down the road and next to a really beautiful village, in a valley between two foothills we found a perfect site, hardly anyone there, pitches in wooded glades and a gurgling stream running through the middle.  Apart from the nuclear power station and ramifications of the minor earthquake at 7.34 we would have thought we were in paradise.  We didn’t stay long, I’m not a fan of radiation.

We spent a pleasant little sojourn in the mountains during which time we visited, on the advice of my friend, some beautiful villages up in the hills.  Well there they were, balanced precariously on the mountainsides, looking for all the world like tiny piles of sugar cubes sparkling in the sun.  We drove along roads that had the deliberate positioning of a giant ribbon tossed by a giant with no apparent care for health and safety, particularly mine.  I nearly had a fainting fit at the sheer drop, we couldn’t possibly be held up by the tiny string of cotton they classed as a safety barrier, R driving recklessly laughing his head off at me.  He has a sick sense of humour, that one.

The three villages, each one more beautiful than the last were definitely worth the drive though. I consoled myself after nearly having a heart attack by buying a 2m by 2m rug from a lady with a loom, God knows where I’ll put it!

We drove on that afternoon up to Valencia and the scenery was amazing, we saw a desert, gorges, mountains, cave houses and so many castles each one more interesting than the last.   At one point we passed through an industrial working town and in a tiny little gap between two blocks of flats, on a scrubby bit of grass were two horses and two camels, had to look twice to believe it!

Spain is a country with so many different terrains it makes me wish I’d studied geography and geology with a bit more enthusiasm.

 

We moved from the van into the beautiful house in Cabopino and had the best few days with our Yorkshire Lass and her Hypochondriac, we ate, drank, played games and it threw us all back to our twenties.  Although I don’t believe we could have afforded to buy practically an entire cow to barbecue in those days, nor quite so much gin.   Sunny behaved like a star and seemed to be tempted to stay behind when we left, he has fallen in love with the Yorkshire Lass!

Shared memories are such a wonderful thing and we are so lucky to be able to make new ones.  I did learn one important lesson, never ever use plastic cutlery when at their house, it may have been used in ways one can hardly imagine.

We moved on and up into the mountains to a site over looking the Sierra Nevada, there’s hardly anyone here and all we can hear are cicadas and horses, the total antithesis of the one in Marbella.

We came to this area specifically to see a school friend of mine that I hadn’t seen for 33 years.  She hadn’t changed a bit and has made a stunning home here in the mountains where we sat watching the colours change, the goats come home and ate, drank, laughed, made new friendships and revived old ones. I didn’t realise how much I missed her until I saw her again.  We were supposed to leave here this morning but it’s so gorgeous we are staying an extra day!

 

Portugal gained points and requires further investigation but we had a plan to follow so we drove to Spain.  We had a passenger, a girl from Bari in Italy who had been volunteering on the farm she was lovely and we dropped her off in Seville.   Seville is the most fabulous city but it was too hot to explore at 42 degrees so we kept going to Cadiz.   We stayed overnight and drove to Cabopino in the morning.

Cabopino is where we spent many holidays curtesy of our gorgeous Yorkshire Lass with whom I have been friends for 40 years and her fabulous family so we were so excited to see them.

We had made no warning of our arrival and surprised both of them most satisfactorily but I can’t post the video for fear of offending!  We had booked into a campsite a couple of miles down the road, a campsite which is to camping what battery farming is to hens but we drank so much out with the gorgeous Yorkshire Lass and her hypochondriac golfer that we hardly noticed the motorway and fighting cats.

We have been rescued and offered sanctuary at the beautiful house that echoes with memories of children, laughter and enduring friendship.  Much food and drink will be consumed no doubt.

Portugal had not, until today, proved the idyll that I had expected and then we went to the home of a guy that R had employed as a teenager.  He’s grown up now and owns a smallholding in the Algarve to which we were invited.

He had lived for a few years in a beautifully converted van but now has renovated a gorgeous little farm house with wonky walls and stone floors.  He is managing the land in a very eco friendly way and showed us all his projects which he is managing on a shoe string.  The day we arrived he was replanting his avocado trees that had been dug up by wild pigs.  We tasted fresh physalis which were so different than in the shops, really fresh and lemony and sat overlooking the valley where the view changes daily.

He took us into the local village and we had the most amazing barbecue with the best chips I have ever eaten (even R agreed) and made me realise that there is more to explore in Portugal and to stop being so precious about the loos.  He built his own out of bamboo and made a hot shower out of 200 metres of black pipe and it has the most fabulous view.  I am properly humbled.

We left Llanes in Northern Spain yesterday and travelled to Porto in  Portugal, across country.  It has been very interesting observing the driving habits in the countries we have visited; in France they follow the (sensible) rules, in Spain they almost follow the rules, it would appear that in Portugal, rules are simply guidelines.  We also didn’t realise there was an hour difference between the two countries which caused much confusion.   We arrived at our chosen campsite with R suffering from terrible man flu, having consumed several gins he fell asleep at 8pm.

It seemed to be raining all night with loud splashes on the roof and at 7 o’clock I  was rudely awoken  by what sounded like an air raid siren, obviously I panicked a bit but nobody else seemed bothered.  I got out of bed only to find that there was a heavy sea mist which meant you couldn’t see further than your hand, I guess this was what the siren was for and explained the actual foghorns in the night. The mist had caused condensation on the Eucalyptus trees which covered the site, to sound like rain as it fell in the night.  (I didn’t realise Eucalyptus seeds look like little buttons all ready to be sewn on.) We decided not to bother sightseeing in Porto as we couldn’t see anything and pressed on.

We travelled the length of Portugal today which means we have travelled about 750 miles in 2 days and the scenery has been spectacular, at one point we found an altimeter on the phone because our ears were popping, we were 1.5 km high and travelling across endless plains, as flat as Norfolk, we passed mountains and reservoirs and watched the environment change from green to red to brown.  The most surprising thing for me were the rice fields, miles of them, I think I forgot that rice can grow in Europe.  We saw flocks of storks circling on thermals looking for all intents like synchronised swimmers in the air.  Their nests were perched on top of the electricity pylons like messy miniature haystacks, it was a lot to take in.

Portuguese is actually double dutch, I don’t think Jose Mourinho is here, the drivers are crap and I can’t see the sea from the campsite so nul points so far Portugal.