Having made the last minute decision to skip San Marino we realised quickly we had travelled at least an hour and a half in the wrong direction and now had a 6-hour journey down to where we were heading. This would have been fine as we knew we were staying for 6 days with our friend at the other end, had we not experienced what everyone fears most with a hire car…the dreaded engine light coming on (obviously in the middle on nowhere)! A quick phone call to the AA let us know that a mechanic would be sent out to check the car within 2 hours. This was not a great start to our journey. Exactly 2 hours later a tow truck arrived and informed us they would be taking us to the Volkswagen dealership in the nearest town, almost an hour away in the wrong direction to our final destination. Having witnessed our beloved ‘Hamster’ being loaded onto the truck we jumped into the front cab and headed off to Terni. They were absolutely lovely to us at Volkswagen. Giving us espresso and juices while we waited and chatting to us in limited English, but we had to laugh when the response to “How long will this take?” was an Italian shrug of the shoulders that appeared to say…“How long is a piece of string?!”. It turned out that the answer to that question was another 2 hours. The brand new car we had hired had either a collapsed pipe or collapsed pump (our Italian isn’t great and neither is our knowledge of car engines) and although they had replaced it they had told us that because the mechanic didn’t feel confident in a right hand drive he hadn’t been able to test the car properly before handing back over to us. This left us mildly concerned that it might happen again, as we sped back down the road that we had already driven twice that day, towards our final destination. I do have to add though that both the AA and Volkswagen were brilliant. From the engine light switching on to being back on the road took 6 hours in total. The AA rang 3 times to check in that we were ok and everyone we had dealings with was so kind and friendly. Our fears of breaking down in our least favourite country had come true and we had come out of it unscathed! We finally got to Torremaggiore (a town in Southern Italy) at 11pm tired and ready for the ice-cold beer and pizza that Parsley had waiting for us (thank heaven for good friends). We spent 6 glorious days relaxing with our bestie in the heat of southern Italy whilst characteristically indulging in all the culinary delights that it had to offer. On one day we ventured out for a day at the beach, to an area called the Gargano, which is a National Park lined with olive trees and truly picturesque Italian villages. It was definitely a day well spent, however, the rest of our time was blissfully wiled away enjoying good company, drinking too many aperitivos and staying up way too late (we are not made for Italian timing). Italy had redeemed itself slightly (although the lady who screamed at Dani for using the woman’s bathrooms at the beach and did not even apologise when she was flashed Dani’s bikini top didn’t help) but we still aren’t sold and are not planning to go back again anytime soon. Having felt the last ferry trip had been acceptable we had booked another crossing with the same company (Grimaldi), this time from Italy to Greece. It turned out that their smaller commuter style ships weren’t nearly as nice and this ship had none of the amenities we had been expecting. More like a cargo ship than a ferry, we crammed into the small seated area available and counted down each uncomfortable minute of the 8 hour journey. As is always the case when you’re arriving somewhere late at night, the ferry was over an hour behind schedule and finally at 1.30am we drove off the ship. Having decided we would stay at a motel for the night, we were lucky enough to stumble across Holiday Zigos, which was not only open at 2am but also was also reasonably priced at €40 ($60.25 AUD/47.90 USD) for the night. Comfortable and clean we were grateful for a bed and dropped off to sleep almost immediately. The wife of the owner popped her head around the door at 10am the following morning and asked if we wanted breakfast and we decided it was worth the €5 ($7.50 AUD/6 USD) each not to have to worry about preparing it ourselves. We walked into the breakfast area and there was a feast before us. There were pastries, spanakopita, bread, jams and a wonderful omelette...great way to start the day! Having had a lazy morning it was time to get back on the road and it was as we were packing up that we realised the fridge in the car wasn’t working! We tried all the girl things of switching things on and off as well as fiddling with the fuse box to no avail. It was now time to contact Spaceship for their advice and after our 6-hour delay less than a week before we were dreading their response. Dani was on the phone to the lovely man in the maintenance department who was talking her through a series of unsuccessful checks and quick fixes…once again turning the fridge on and off and examining a couple of the fuses. Eventually he had to concede that this may not be an easy fix and so asked her if she had any DIY knowledge...the answer to this question is ABSOLUTELY NOT! I could see the look of panic in her eyes so I offered to take over. He asked me kindly to dismantle the whole back of the car in order to access the back of the fridge. Halfway through removing the middle panel in the car the phone disconnected. Knowing they were likely to call back I continued to unscrew the panel and remove it from the car. When he called back he said, “Just before you dismantle the car (too bloody late!!!!) I just want you to check one of the other fuses”. Sure enough THAT fuse HAD blown and the whole dismantling of the car had been completely redundant. The familiar hum of the fridge kicked in as soon as we replaced the fuse and half grateful and half furious I thanked the man and hung up the phone. Finally we were ready to go and headed off into Greece. Unfortunately Greece’s campsites are mainly limited to the coastline and as we would be returning to Greece later in our Eurotrip we were just driving through the northern mainland. A quick Google search had offered us 3 viable options. 2 near where we wanted to be and one in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere…nowhere (Kastraki) sounded great, so that was where we set the satnav. We drove into the most beautiful landscape of enormous towering rock formations with tiny monasteries perched on top. Now it turns out that this is a fairly heavily touristed part of mainland Greece but at the time we were unaware of this and were gobsmacked at our luck of stumbling across such a beautiful location. Camping Vrachos (€18/$27.15 AUD/21.60 USD) was one of the best we’ve stayed at with a tavern, great amenities and an easy walk into the nearest town. This was not going to be the quick one night stop we had planned. After pitching up for the night and making friends with the campground cats (which Dani named Persephone, Amsterdam and Hoover) we settled down to watch some CSI and drifted off to sleep early. Waking up to the surrounding mountains bright and early the next day was heaven and I think it was this campsite that truly sold us on the whole camping thing. We wandered up to the local village in the morning and stocked up on all our favourite Greek classics. Tzatziki, taramasalata, spanakopita, olives, feta…before heading into the souvenir shops to spend yet more money on all the things we get in every country. Our ultimate downfall was the lovely family that ran the shop, as they were so nice we ended up spending double our usual buying t-shirts for both Dani and one of our nieces as well as a dress for me to wear to one of the many weddings we would be attending later that summer. Armed with food and souvenirs we ambled back up the hill to the campground. We could have stayed there forever but it was decided that after two days we should continue making our way up to Bulgaria, so I found a campsite about 40 minutes out of Thessaloniki to stay in the following night.
This campground (Camping Agiannis/€14/$21.10 AUD/16.80 USD)was nothing like the paradise we had just left. It was 90% permanent caravans that had patios built around them and the pitches available had nothing more that an electricity box. We decided very quickly that we would leave early the next morning; explore Thessaloniki and then head straight into Bulgaria. That night we had the pleasure of attempting to find sleep whilst listening to the delightful lull of Bulgarian pop music and left as soon as we had had breakfast the next morning. Thessaloniki is a sweet costal city to wander around and we had a great time exploring the old ruins and churches that are dotted about. Before we headed off we restocked the fridge full of Greek goodies in anticipation of our imminent departure. Next stop…Bulgaria!
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Having decided to return to Europe earlier than planned (we had been planning on heading through Central America until the end of July before heading back to the UK for wedding season) we had spent 2 weeks in London planning our spontaneous adventure through Europe. This started with sending our amazing travel family in the South of France a message saying…”You know how we said we’d be coming in September…how about in 2 weeks instead?!” Luckily for us they are very flexible people and within no time at all we had arranged to start our journey in France. Our original plan (we know…never make a plan) was to do our usual trains and buses around Europe so we booked a very cheap flight to France and started mapping out the parts of Europe we hadn’t explored yet and still wanted to go to. However, as so often happens our plan was completely turned upside down when we stumbled across our friends Facebook posts about travelling in a Spaceship (for those of you who don’t know what this is they are a common way to travel New Zealand and Australia and are converted camping cars). This suddenly sparked an idea that as soon as it had been formed started turning into a very different trip. Some of the countries on the original itinerary went out the window for insurance reasons and places we had never seriously contemplated (Hello Andorra and Lichtenstein) were added. 4 days prior to flying to France we had to send our friends a message saying that we would be arriving a day later as we were now driving across. We picked up the Spaceship (aptly named Hamster) in the London depot and hit the road. We had booked a passage on the Eurotunnel (€120/$180.90 AUD/143.6 USD), which is actually a train you drive on to that takes you through the Channel Tunnel and arrived in Folkstone with plenty of time to take our scheduled train. The great thing about booking is that even if you arrive early they will just slot you on to the next available train instead of making you wait around. The journey is super quick and before you could even say ‘Bonjour!’ we were there. We had planned on driving as far as Orleans that night as we did not want to fight the Parisian traffic in the morning and we checked into a chain motel called F1 for €33 a night. The next morning we were up bright and early to finish the over 1000km journey to Cabrières. I can tell you turning up at Pauline and Roman’s was a welcome sight and when they came out with cold beer and more cheese than I had seen in my life within 5 minutes of arriving we knew that we wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. The plan had been to stay 3-4 days…we stayed 6. Partially because of the wonderful hospitality and mainly to do with finally getting to spend time with our gorgeous little niece. I’m telling you it was a miracle that we even left at all and if it hadn’t have been for our now newly arranged trip to return in September I’m not sure we would have. Stop 2 in France was to go and see Uncle Nick who we had met in Bolivia. He gave us a very warm welcome, yet more cheese (sensing a theme?) and a wonderful tour of Toulouse before we headed off to Andorra. Now as a Kiwi I have a fascination with microcountries so after discovering the existence of Andorra and it’s proximity to Barcelona (which was to be our next stop), a visit here was a must! Driving to Andorra still remains to be one of the prettiest drives we’ve ever done. No one really talks about how beautiful the Pyrenees really are. Stunning mountainscapes, green fields, and quaint little villages the whole way through until you start climbing into the snow capped mountains that create the natural border of Andorra. As Andorra is a skiing destination we did notice driving through the first part that it was mainly deserted until the following winter. However, once you reach the other side of the mountain suddenly the place starts to liven up and turn into…the prettiest open-air shopping mall you’ve ever seen. Duty free stores line the streets and gas stations offering incredibly cheap petrol and diesel dot the highway. Pulling over to fill up with gas I decided to check out one of these duty free shops and, overwhelmed by excitement, I quickly left to find my wife so she could return with the credit card. Stocking up on the essentials…a fridge magnet for my mother, a pin for Dani’s mother, 2 Andorra patches, a Christmas decoration and an egg cup for fun we also filled the basket with food items that had cost a lot more in France I ‘tap-tapped’ it and we were off again. Slowly loosing hope of finding a camp ground after pulling up to one advertised, only to find out it was shut we decided to abandon the idea of staying in Andorra and started to head for Spain. Just as we reached the other side of Andorra de Villa we saw a sign for another campground. By this stage it was 7.30 at night and we were pretty tired so we pulled in only to be told that if we waited outside for another 30 minutes it would halve the price of a night’s stay. He wasn’t budging on the 8 o’clock time limit so we parked up and waited. Pulling into the campground at 8.05 we were ready, after over a week on the road to sleep in the car for the very first time. We slept surprisingly well that night and in the morning we sat admiring the green surroundings over tea and coffee while I desperately tried to get close enough to the Wi-Fi spot for news of a new baby in the family. Well rested and ready to go we set off for Barcelona. We had found a campground 10km out of the centre of Barcelona called Camping Masnou that had a train that took you directly into the city. This turned out to be a great option as we had the luxury of being by the water in a nice space without the Barcelona weekend prices. We parked up next to a lovely German couple and set up camp. Barcelona turned very quickly into one of our favourite cities. Surprise surprise within minutes of arriving Dani had booked us onto the walking tour the next day! We started with the Barcelona old town tour, which was incredibly informative and impressed us so much that we booked on to their Gaudi tour for the following day. After a wonderful morning of learning about the old city we made our way to La Bombetta, which was a tapas restaurant that had been recommended to us by our friends in France. After what felt like a lifetime (we hadn’t eaten much in preparation to gorge on tapas) we were sat at our table and went through the menu trying to decipher what was on offer. Luckily for us our Spanish isn’t too bad these days and we wrote down a list of dishes we wanted to order. Dani had just got through the list of vegetarian dishes we were ordering when the waiter decided we could not order anymore and refused to write anything else down. Boy was he surprised when not only did we finish all that we had ordered but then had to wave him back 3 further times to order what we had not been allowed to order in the first place. This turned out to be a very good recommendation and along with Segrada Familia (you need to book in advance to be able to enter, a mistake that we had to learn the hard way) and La Bocqueria one of our favourite experiences. We spent way too much money in Barcelona…not because it’s a particularly expensive city (by European capital standards it’s not really) but because we got over excited about all the cool souvenirs we could buy.
We had been planning to travel back through the South of France to get to our next planned visit to one of our closest friends in Italy. Those of you who don’t know us won’t know that our last trip to Italy had not been very successful and we had actually vowed never to return. It is the only country (out of 44) that we had experienced any homophobia outside of our everyday existence and we had decided it was one of very few countries we weren’t willing to give a second chance. This was thrown out the window when Parsley (long story) moved to Italy. Again as plans change and we had spent longer than anticipated in France we found the option of a 20-hour ferry journey from Barcelona to just outside of Rome was going to be our best option. This ferry journey cost €150 for the car and both passengers which seemed reasonable when you add up the costs of petrol and accommodation to drive round the coast. We had read reviews about Grimaldi and they weren’t particularly promising, however we didn’t find the journey unpleasant. As long as you come prepared it’s a relatively easy crossing but if you have the car make sure you get everything you need out of it before the journey starts as you will not have access to the car until you are docked again. The process at the other end was a little disorganised but it was incredible how fast the cars were unloaded once we got moving. Now came the difficult task of finding somewhere to stay for the night. We found a lake on the map and thought…if there’s a lake, there’s likely to be a campground. Pulling up at almost 9 at night we had stumbled across the mecca of camping. Beautiful lakeside plots gorgeous sunset views, impeccable amenities and great shady spots to park the car. We took out our table and chairs, sat them outside the van and had a long needed cup of tea while watching the sunset over the lake…paradise. Unfortunately we had a deadline to make for being in Southern Italy so as soon as we were caffeinated in the morning we were out. To be continued... |
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