What a week!

Week 5 was absolutely superb. Loads of excellent sites seen, loads of lovely views, villages, towns, roads, people, food, drink - and just exactly what Italy should be about. Diary uploaded to www.doyourdream.co.uk/trip03week5.php Having fun - but you'll be pleased to hear its raining in Florence!

Its a Flippin' small world!

Back in November 2008 we met a couple - Barry & Hazel - in a campsite in Holland where they had a little Mazda Bongo camper. We showed our van off and showed how much you can cram into a small space. Then another "internet contact" was selling his sister van to ours, a Horizons Unlimited Innovation model, and I helped set up a web advert for him. Anyway - he ended up trading it in. Barry & Hazel decided to upsize a little and saw Andys old Innovation van at a dealer and ended up buying it - obviously trying to keep up with the Joneses :) That was coincidence enough, but yesterday we accidentally bumped into them at Lake Trasimeno in Italy! They were heading South, and us North, and bizzarely we chose the same spot on the same day - and considering this area has oodles of camping spots the probability is really quite low! Now where is my lottery ticket....

Week 5 going well - L'Aquila

We're in L'Aquilia and having our 3rd night hear. Nice town, and loads for us to do. Had a long 17m run today so ache like mad, and assuming we can walk we're planning to go biking in the mountains tomorrow.... Some plans for the rest of the week, up to Assisi and then over to a super lake we missed on the way down. Loads of camping spots so should be a much more relaxing week than last. Bizarre weather - gone from snow, to t-shirts, to icy without moving. Hey ho - makes the mountains look lovely!

Week 4 over (phew!)

Week 4 has been interesting! Full diary listed here: http://www.doyourdream.co.uk/trip03week4.php One heck of a lot of driving (800 miles?) and not a lot of nice random finds! However, some truely amazing places visited - Pompeii, Paestrum, Matera, Alberobello to name a few. All worth visiting - just a shame its not spectacular between. Heading north and back into the depths of loads of sites & places we've got lined up - fingers crossed for week 5 onwards!

Pompei and cold!

We've left the quiet, relaxing, and hot coast and are now in busy, chaotic and **** freezing Pompei. Some interesting "roads" between Naples & Pompei that look and feel like they were pre-eruption. The shorts & t-shirts have been replaced by fleece and winter coats. We definately prefer the quieter side of Italy so will be running further south to more relaxing areas before heading East and then north again! 3.5 weeks in - 1/2 way! :(

Spanish trail riding video (from Dec 08)

At last, after 3 months of waiting, Gowry has finally chopped together a small video of our Spanish trail riding adventure in Andalucia in the south of Spain. 3 months ago! I mean - its not as if he works hard or anything.

Friends in Rome

Really knackered after a busy few days in Rome - tomorrow we rest! Its been a really social time for us - a couple of days ago we met a young Canadian couple (Ryan & Dawn) who have been touring Europe in an old VW van for well over a year going to places we would not dare and just winging it from here to there! Lovely people who have just gone out there and done it and have some lovely stories to tell over a beer! They appear to have had an amazing time but sadly are heading North to UK to sell the van to pay for flights home! THAT is the way to do it - full respect to you guys!! (Very generous too - offered us there internet and train passes when they left!) Then the next day we met some friends from home in Rome and they gave us a lovely guided tour with beers, wine, and food thrown in. So nice to "bump" into people when we're away. (Sorry for the blog pic guys - but hey - you are now famous!)

The tower in Pisa is a bit wonkey....

We’re just in Pisa enjoying the Tuscany area of Italy.  The leaning tower is mightily impressive as is the surrounding old town.

Off into the Tuscan hills tomorrow, then down to some lakes, then heading to Rome for a few days to chill, do the ever mounting stack of washing, and to meet up with some friends for beers and pizza no doubt!

The van is doing really well – some of the roads we’ve been down, the challenges of Italian driving, and the fun camping is fairly easy in our van!  We’d hate to be in something bigger.  Considering we’ll have been away from any real facilities and formal campsites for 10 days without any issues – is anything bigger needed? 

The sun has been glorious over the last couple of days – we’re making the most of it!

 

Its not ALL plain sailing and fun

Yesterday was a bit of a disaster.

We planned a morning run but it was raining, so cancelled and went to see Lake Geneva.  Geneva was covered in fog and drizzle so nothing could be seen, so we thought we’d stay the night and check it the next day.  Signs everywhere preventing overnight parking.  So we went to a campsite that was more of a mudbath so left.

So we gave up and went to a nice site 5m from Sion in a valley in the Alps.  We then went for a 10m run – 5m one way was great, but the return journey was a horrific headwind which almost killed us.

Getting back I had to fix the vans demister as it wasn’t working.  It also wasn’t documented in the ford workshop manual.  I managed to fix it but in the process broke one of the retaining clips off the cog.  Fortunately gaffa tape was my friend.

Then we got an email from our neighbour at home saying there had been some trouble with scroats who kicked a big hole in one of our fence panels when jumping over it.

Oh joys.

Today has started better waking (with aching legs) with good views of the mountains and  just checked and we won £100 on the premium bonds

 

See – its not *ALL* fun! J

Strangers eMails - thanks!

We just checked our email in Bern today, and we had more emails from strangers (or friends we haven’t yet met!) than from people we know!  And these weren’t from people trying to sell us Viagra, but people commenting on our site and adventure, or indeed offering and sharing their similar adventures.  As the people who actually contact us are the tip of the iceberg of views – we’d like to thank you all!  February saw 936 unique visitors to our www.doyourdream.co.uk website.  And thanks especially to those who found the google ads useful – this has covered my annual hosting bill that has just come in – and will hopefully give us a tank of diesel in the coming months J

If you wish to contact us, you can do so via our GUEST BOOK which allows you to leave your email address (which only we can see) or even contact us in private – otherwise its not easy for us to get back to you!

To help those off you off to Italy and to anywhere we will go, we’ve also started to set up a campsite database of where we stayed which will hopefully be useful – especially as we’ll be aiming to stay in most places for free.

Anyway, thanks for making our day with all your nice emails!  We do read them all  and reply when we can.

R&M