The grand tour of Tuscany September/October 2024 Week One

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August 31st

Start mileage 20587     Finish mileage 20760   Total done: 173 miles

Fuel costs - £80 to top up tank. 

We departed from the storage site at 0900. We had already ‘pre-packed’ Bryony over the last two days. On D minus 2 – I did motorhome checks. Standard things! Oil, brake fluid and coolant, washer bottle and Adblue. Oil was checked as was air suspension. Switched on the gas and checked fridge and heating all working. Exterior and interior electrics and lights checked. Everything as it should be. Phew!

D - minus one – clothes, outdoor equipment, bedding and food all added. Freshwater into tank. That is laborious and tedious. We cannot always get the motorhome outside the house due to the narrow road and bus schedules. So, we fill the tank using three 25 litre jerry cans, making two trips (it is freshwater tank, flush tank, toilet cassette. And, of course, switch on the taps and the boiler fills, taking forty-five litres right out of the tank immediately.

‘D’ Day – on goes the bike rack and the bikes. Onto the side benches, goes the astronomy equipment and there is rather a lot of that if I am candidly honest! Oh, and my camera gear obviously. Goes without saying. All controversial, as all Maggie loads up as ‘additional’, is a bag of knitting!

Then, because I feel guilty, we take Bryony down to the weigh station.

Now I always have a feeling of trepidation at the weighbridge. We up-plated Bryony a few years ago to 4080kg MAM. Why? Because of a miscalculation on my part; when adding a towbar bike rack and e bikes, we exceeded the rear axle limit. You can find a previous post about in the blog somewhere via the search box. Didn’t I feel a stupid newbie motorhomer at the time!!

Anyway, digressing. My relief today was palpable. The total weight was around 3600 kg with one passenger onboard and a full tank of fuel, freshwater etc. I have around 300kg surplus on the front axle and around 160 kg to play with on the rear. We are well within. Phew!

I download the Swiss Toll app in celebration, ready for our quick trip across Switzerland sometime next week. But that will be another blog post later, I’m sure.

Our journey is stopped before it starts. We are heading to Portsmouth, but only forty miles up the road we were tempted by a costa breakfast deal at Halden Hill! That took half an hour and we consequently suffered. It was the last Sunday before schools go back. It was also full-on sunshine and we were driving the A38, A35 and A31. There were tractors everywhere. We abandoned getting a coffee stop as usual at Bridport Morrisons. Chocka! No spaces whatsoever.  Then we get caught behind three different tractors all the way to Ringwood. A journey to Portsmouth that should have taken three and a half hours takes six and a half. Doubled! It was painful – 30 mph forever! Do not get me wrong – I am very pro farmers and understand why they were cutting crops and making hay bales now. But to not pull over for twenty miles – was outrageous!

We did our normal trick of stopping at Port Solent for a meal at the Harvester and turned up at the ferry wharf around 2030. Straight through and we were given a pass-through security. All the other motorhomes got stopped and pulled but we were told we could go through directly; I have no idea why but I am not complaining in any way, shape or form!

Our luck was short lived – departure was for 11pm. A text came through at 2230. A delay – problems loading – we eventually departed around 0015. Exhausted. I was asleep before we even departed port! Maggie was not. Her brain was buzzing away!

Now why don't we tow a rig like that behind Bryony!! 

September 1st

Start mileage 20760

End mileage 21180

Distance driven: 420 miles

Oh my God! What possessed me? What a long day? I decided we would aim for Prisse way down by Macon – so that tomorrow would be a short drive to Chamonix. Our route has been toll motorways all the way. The new Bip and Go tag works perfectly. We departed Ouistream at 0754. We rolled in to the Aire at Prisse at 1708. So, the total trip time – 10 hrs or so. I am exhausted but the little Aire is well worth it. We are currently sat under oak trees at a picnic table alongside a wine shop and vineyard. There are five other vans with us – spaces for six in total. It is 1830 and still 25C with a gentle breeze rustling the dried leaves on the branches. Autumn has started looking at the carpet of dried leaves below my feet. The sun is shining. Maggie has a glass of wine – we parked up and she was in the shop before I blinked – wow – she could give Usain Bolt a run for his money!

The Aire is gravel, slightly sloping so chocks are needed. It is free. We face a row of trees and a green area with picnic benches. It is a little hideaway and clearly popular with the French being on the edge of a cycle trail. You can tour the vineyard vats and see the vines too.

You get a token for the services alongside – grey, black waste and water from the shop. A couple of euros at most. It is one of the nicest sites we have visited.

So, our route – we chose a slightly longer one, but one we know well – From Caen to Le Mans and then down to Tours. From there down to Bourges and then down to Macon.

One of the things that always impresses us is how good the little roadside services are - clean, efficient, and frequent. Practically every 40 km or so. Roadsides are litter free. Traffic, in the main, is light. Services food is a cut above ours but pricier!

Today we saw buzzards and kites on fence posts practically every mile or so for part of the journey. Deer in the fields, crops of demur sunflowers (they are over and their heads bowed down now, ready for harvesting). Fields of maize, huge fields of arable crop stubble, giant hayricks silhouetted on the distant horizon.  Motionless, erect grey herons stalking the shallows of the roadside drainage pools; a colossal tower of circling crane like birds riding the thermals upwards – an avian ‘stacking’ around some invisible beacon on the ground. A drive through France is always a geography lesson on steroids! But then I would say that wouldn’t I – I taught the subject for thirty-five years!

Now, we are here, sat on the picnic bench just along from a group of French motor homers who are keen cyclists – they have the other bench and all their chairs out. A CADAC stove has materialised and they are embarking on what the French do best – having a picnic! Boules are also being polished for a later game – how terribly civilised. We shall have soup and rolls; wine and chocolate for afters and maybe, just to make a culinary point with our neighbours – a bag or two of twiglets! Afterall we are the home of ‘Masterchef’ and the Great British Bake off’ are we not?

Route – roughly – N158 – A88 – A28 – A85 – A71 – A79 (I hate to think of the toll costs but we are on a deadline – I need to be in Chamonix by 3rd September – it will then be exactly forty-one years ago to the day that I was last there – then on the 4th I climbed the Mt Blanc Circuit with some friends!). 

Monday 2nd September

Mileage start: 21180

Mileage end: 21340

Distance driven: 160 miles

Route: A40 all the way baby!

Costs: Fuel 100 euros; campsite 60 euros

It’s nearly 8 pm and I am sat lounging on one of Bryony’s side benches admiring the view. And it is a view. We are in Chamonix and I can see the Bosson Glacier out of my window. The dying embers of the sun have burnished the upper snowfield a light peach colour. Clouds wreathing Mt Blanc are shades of pink, peach and gold. The air is still and it is a balmy 18C outside. The campsite is quiet. Groups of campers, mainly climbers in their twenties and thirties are gathered in huddles chatting. Swapping war stories about the day’s great adventures. Some are runners. There was a big mountain marathon run at the weekend – a huge event by all accounts. You can tell because they were clearing away the stages and winners arch in town earlier. Many people are walking around with limps, in sandals, with compression socks on. Blisters, pulled muscles, aching limbs. Some have leg injuries as evidenced by the profusion of splints and knee braces.

Anyway, back to the camp site – Les Arolles. Ten minutes from the centre of town. I last stayed here forty one years ago to the day! Yep, to the day! Back then I was twenty something and here to climb Mt Blanc and play about climbing and bouldering on various Aigulle peaks. It seems such a long ime ago. The town has expanded – all blocks of apartments and new expensive ski chalet lodges. The atmospheric buzz of a mountain playground still exists though along the main streets with their shops and bars, restaurants and cafes.

We managed to get the last motorhome slot this morning. We are at a sideways angle on a grass terrace bank, slightly sloping downward with great views out of all windows. The facilities are simple but clean. Most importantly, it is a ten-minute walk into the town centre. 

A few weeks ago, Maggie took me to see Skegness. That was where she had a summer job in 1983. I have brought her to Chamonix where I was in the summer of 1983 after I’d finished my summer job back on Dartmoor!  Basically, I am unsuccessfully trying to relive my youth, when three stone heavier and with no cardiovascular fitness whatsoever!

Tomorrow we will do the Aiguille du Midi cable car ride to the top and the Montenvers train to the Mer de Glace. It was here I spent my worst night ever, I mean ever! Late off the glacier, I missed the last train back and it was dark and raining. So I kipped on the station bench for the night. The temperature dropped to minus 10C and there was the mother of all thunderstorms for half the night. It rained like a monsoon. By morning I was wet, tired, frozen, deaf! And exhausted. The day before I’d fallen in a crevasse and broken a crampon. A catalogue of minor disasters but character building if nothing else.

Back to this morning. We departed Prisse at 0800, filled up with diesel at Macon and did a quick food shop in the Carrefour on the outskirts. We hit several road works on the way down; losing twenty minutes in one jam on a steep hill which required almost thirty hill starts due to the stop go crawl of traffic. We managed to get to Les Arolles around 1345 and poached this last spot! Phew! There are other motorhome sites but they are a bus or train ride way up and down the valley.

Oh, and the fridge is refusing to work on gas again! No idea why but last trip out up to Northumbria, we had the same problem. It will work on 12v when driving and on electric hook up – but not on the gas itself! Which does make off gridding rather complicated where food shopping is concerned!

And, for some inexplicable reason, the plastic frame on my driver door seems to be coming away from the metal door itself.

Hey ho! I’ll add it to the list! On the bright side, there don’t seem to be many mossies up here! We’ll take that! 

Tuesday 3rd September

Oh, my what a day we have had. Up at 0645, out by 0745 and ten minutes later standing in front of the Aiguille du Midi station watching all the climbers assemble. Forty-one years ago to the day, I was one of them and we were doing something similar. The cable cars and equipment has changed since then. Ice Axes are far lighter and look to be made of carbon fibre handles. Rucksacks are lighter material and with better features. Footwear has changed significantly. I climbed in big leather boots. Today, a myriad of design, textiles and colour. Trendy clothing too. I quite fancy myself some lime green climbing trousers with black patches. Maggie just laughs when I mention this quest for sartorial elegance. She tells me to stick with my Rohan gear!

Cabin 19 whisks us to the first stop and we immediately transfer to the next cabin. Fifteen minutes after admiring climbers down at the base station in sunshine and morning temperatures of 20C, we walk out of the tunnel into snow and 0C. The final aiguille spire is shrouded in thick cloud.

The ascent was dramatic. A marvel of alpine engineering. Almost near vertical, one minute skimming the tops of pine trees, the next – touching the vast, vast voids of nothingness. We crawl up the final ascent about 10’ off the vertical granite spires, thousands of feet of nothing below us.

I have a slight headache at the top – we are at 12, 800 feet. Maggie seems fine. I drink plenty and the headache disappears rapidly. The effect of altitude. We make for the metal staircase up to the panoramic platform. It is several staircases built on supporting ribs and disconcertingly the treads are metal and there are no risers between steps – that nothingness void again!  We are caught by surprise on the stairs. We have twenty steps up to our house and so are well trained in stair ascent. However, today, we forgot about altitude on the second flight we have slowed considerably; on the third we are pausing to catch our breath!

The restorative powers of a Café avec lait, eh? The sun above burns off the thick cloud and thirty minutes later we get views of the valley, the needle spire and the Bosson glacier.  Out on the panoramic deck I watch with some envy, the antlike rows of climbers starting their descent across the Mont Blanc du Tacal snowfields. Most of those descending are tourists, such is the climbing industry here. Lots of multilingual guides shepherding their flocks, altering gear, checking footwear and adjusting harnesses. 

 I am proud to say that way back in the early eighties I ascended the route rather than descended it.  I can’t quite remember the details other than I started on the Mer De Glace and walked round the corner and then up ladders and guide rails on near vertical slabs of rock before trudging across snow fields.  My ascent of Mt Blanc was via Les Houches – Tete Rousse, Dome de Goutier and beyond.  I did some balcony walks between the first station of the Aiguille du Midi and the Mer de Glace. I got caught in a huge thunderstorm descending the Mer de glace, missed the last train down and spent an truly miserable night, wet, cold, and deafened on a bench on the open railway platform. I now look back on those micro-adventures wistfully, I must admit.

Some shots from the early eighties when cameras had REAL film in them!! 

That isn’t to say I haven’t had adventures since. I have been truly blessed. I married a woman who loves to travel and has an innate sense of adventure. We have travelled to many countries, Thailand in the mid eighties – that was an epic adventure. Self-driving Costa Rica with the kids; criss-crossing Namibia in a truck – another great family adventure. I climbed Kilimanjaro – twice and crossed the Serengeti in a VW camper van, off road – twice!

Anyway, I’m digressing. After admiring the views, we stop down at the halfway station of the Aiguille du Mid where we have another coffee break and meet a very nice American gentleman who described himself as a very senior citizen. We spent an hour chatting away with him and learned heaps about America.

By 11.30 we were on the Montenvers rack railway up to the Mer de Glace. I’m pretty sure last time I went up it was pushed by a steam engine. At the top we admired the views; I pointed out which rock spires I’d physically rope climbed, trying to gain oows and ahs of admiration from my wife – none came by the way – just a question “why would you want to do something so stupid?” To be fair it’s a reasonable question and forty years later I still have no rationale answer.  Ice work and mountain trekking, I loved both. Rock climbing? I really have no idea why – I hate heights!

The afternoon was spent lazying on the top of the Brevent range opposite the Mt Blanc Range. We admired the views, caught a few sun rays and watched the Parascending instructors coach their fearful ‘tourist’ customers into their harnesses.  Brave souls – it takes courage to quickly run down a slope and through yourself into thin air.  Why would one feel compelled to jump off a perfectly solid good mountain? And pay upwards of 140 Euros for fifteen minutes of gliding down to a field in the valley? I know exactly why – the same urge and compulsion to abseil down granite spires after you have climbed them!  We stroll down the tunnel below our café to admire the photos attached to the wall which show the history of the building of the various cable cars from the early nineteen hundreds.  The construction photos from 2000 onwards are very impressive but those huge pylons – the bolts at the base set in concrete – they really don’t look that big or strong enough to be holding such huge pillars, gantries and weights!

Back at the motorhome, we chilled. We’d walked several miles today – all pleasant rambles. I tried to get the fridge to work on gas but it stubbornly refused. Electric yes. 12V engine running yes! Gas? Nope – code 3 – no gas getting through – gas tank is empty. Only it isn’t; we filled it up before we left the UK and I have all eight green lights on the gas tank indicator. We are definitely going to have to change our self-catering plans if we wish to do off gridding down through Tuscany!

We purchased a Mt Blanc 2-day pass if you are wondering. 100 euros each and it gives us free access to all the ski lifts in the valley along with the Aiguille du Midi (booking a time slot for that one is essential), the Montenvers railway and the Sky tramway further down the valley. Discounts at the cinema, free entry to various attractions around the town. It paid for itself in one day!

Now, as I sit here posting this blog, it is lightly raining. 8pm. Dusk is falling, campsite lights are on. Pots and pans are being clanged at the washing up station. Murmured voices emanate from the various tents around us. Laughter from the seating area outside the office where there is free WIFI. This is an alpine sport community. We are ‘has been’ interlopers but still welcomed. Some are laying out their kit, organising it for an early departure tomorrow. They seem to be coiling their climbing ropes in a newfangled way – its flaked out neatly and equally and then tied at the middle so that it drapes over the top of a rucksack hood and down each side. A far better approach to how I did it in my day – coiling it around my neck and then tying it like sailors do now adays. The jangle of a climbing belt with its hexagonal jams and belay points. A tent zip.

Ah it takes me back. It’s all wasted on Mag. Her nose is buried in her latest book! 

Wednesday 4th September

Start mileage: 21340

End mileage: 21707

Total distance driven: 367 miles

I recognised the camper van that passed us on the other side of the road. Like us it was ‘locked’ into the ‘circuit of oblivion’. Things had been going so well up to that point!

We departed Les Arolles campsite at 0815 and proceeded up the Chamonix Valley to Martigny. We just activated our Swiss App in time, having forgotten completely that being over 3.5T meant we had to pay the heavy goods toll! 

Up the switch backs we went, over the col and down into Switzerland. I kept Bryony in third gear for a lot of the way having heard horror stories about overheated brakes on motorhomes on some of the passes. The Swiss customs just waved us through.

The Grand St Bernard tunnel was longish but we’ve driven longer tunnels in Iceland, so it was no problem.

It was no problem until we hit the A4/A5 autostrada. Roadworks! They had narrowed the road to 2.40m – all vehicles wider than that were sent on a detour. Lots of signs in English threatening suspension of driving licence etc if you tried to squeeze the gap. The signage was useless and before we knew it, we were heading back to the autostrada. Google maps just threw a hissy fit. Detour signs? Nowt! Nada, nothing! 

Ivrea. I never want to hear that place mentioned again.  By the time we had extracted ourselves out of the town we were heading the wrong way. Then we missed the turning back onto the autostrada and found ourselves heading to Milan.

Basically, we lost two hours and drove an extra 130 miles or so! 

We’ve washed up at a vast designer shopping outlet complex – high end stuff – Gucci, Prada etc etc. It has an aire to one side of a vast car park. No services but it’s a space for the night and will do. Serravalle Scrivea is the place, just off the A7/E62. Lots of wealthy shoppers of all nationalities weighed down with designer shopping bags, which many of them then cram into newly purchased suitcases! Mag and I have never understood the designer logo shopping desire!

Tomorrow, we head for Lucca. Let’s hope the journey down is better than todays.

So, things I can remember about the journey – lovely alpine scenery, chocolate box cover Swiss alpine chalets, the flat plains of northern Italy full of rice fields.  Long tunnels; longer semi tunnels – open on one side if you can call that a tunnel – a sort of covered roadway affair. Oh and a general low level brown-grey cloud which we deduce to be smog. Afterall we are at the heart of the Italian industrial Triangle – Milan, Turin, Genoa.

Its 25C at 2100; the air is humid and muggy. There is no wind whatsoever. Its going to be a long night!

 

Thursday 5th September

Woken by the mother of all thunderstorms directly above us. Question – will a motorhome act like a faraday cage if struck by lightning? Just asking for a friend!

The vast car park we were overnighting in became a lake within minutes. Deluge does not do justice to what fell from the heavens over the hour. The Piedmonte local authority put out rain warnings and suggested no one travel unless absolutely necessary.

I have spent much of today pondering a few things.

Firstly, how inaccurate are the timings on google maps for journey times? Seriously – we have calculated over the last week that for a three-hour journey time – add at least another hour. Roadworks, diversions, road conditions etc.

Secondly, how long should one drive for in a day if trying to get a long distance from A to B? My calculations are just way out. This has left my ego somewhat bruised, after all I am a retired geography teacher and experienced traveller. Again, I blame Google maps – sorry but since I’ve relied on that more, my timings have gone to pot! So, I’m now thinking that four hours max google journey time. In reality, with breaks and roadworks and traffic, it will equate in real time to around 6 hours.

To put these musings in context. Yesterday should have been spent in Chamonix but having done all we wanted to do, we decided to drive down towards Lucca instead. Good job we did given yesterday’s shenanigans with the detours! (See yesterday’s post for the horrific details). Today’s journey time according to Google would be 2.5 hrs. we left the car park at 0815. We arrived in Lucca at 1415. A journey time with stops and detours to supermarkets of 6 hrs.

Which raises a third question – should we do the long journeys, the ‘mad dashes’ south as we call them, in smaller stages – drive in the morning, stop off and wander around somewhere in the afternoon? It would mean taking a longer time to get to our destination.  Perhaps, this point ties in with how we travel. Mag and I like to go explore a region in depth. So, this time it’s Tuscany and possibly the Italian lakes. We will really get under the skin of a place, spending several days perhaps in just one area if we like it. We aren’t the ‘do a long meandering journey through as many regions and countries as we can’ types. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that approach, we have done this in the UK on occasions but it just isn’t our ‘normal’ way. Not for us. So, five weeks in Iceland. Five weeks in Costa Rica. Three weeks in Namibia; five again in New Zealand South Island; four in Sicily, five in Andalusia, six in central France – you get the picture.  We hit the autostradas, pay the tolls and get to our destination quickly.

After the last few days though, I suspect we have both been reflecting on this approach. We have agreed to do a different way back to Caen in four weeks’ time. We will keep off all toll roads and see what happens! An adventure within an adventure. Quite like that idea.

Finally a fourth question. Have we got our shopping habits buttoned down properly? Several times on this trip down, we have tried to visit large supermarkets just off the autostradas or motorways and each time we have had to abandon. The first one due to height barriers that don’t show up on google street view. We lose time!  So, when should we aim to do our shop? Just before we arrive at a destination? Just before leaving a destination? Whilst staying at a destination? We have tended to stock up for a few days at a time.

All these questions, four years in, still like newbies!

 

Today was an easy drive down to Lucca. Except for the first supermarket stop! Height barriers everywhere so that threw us. We are learning that Maggie has ‘an exit strategy’ set up on google maps on her smartphone ready for such occasions. Mine is used for the main journey navigation.

Driving the autostrada is relatively easy. Everything is high speed, sudden breaking and close up and personal driving. You get used to it. Get off the autostrada onto some of the urban roads and oh my! Today we had five near misses; as in contact was avoided by about a foot or so! They zip up your inside, pull out in front of you with less than a car length to go; up against your rear bumper. It’s insane at times. I have developed nerves of steel. Correction I have honed my existing nerves of steel to new levels. After all, thirty-five years of working with teenagers had given me well equipped nerves already! Maggie’s, meanwhile are being fully tested but she is made of strong stuff! Fortunately.

Our site for the next three nights is on the outskirts of the old city walls of Lucca. It is not the most beautiful of settings; essentially a small car park at the back of a covered parking lot. We are crammed in. That health and safety rule about 2 metres between motorhomes or is it 6m in the UK? Try around 2’ here in Italy. Hemmed in like sardines. But, it is only a ten-minute walk right into the heart of the city. A thirty-minute walk gets you to the train station and then thirty minutes later you are in Pisa. The car park has water and grey and black waste facilities. It is very, very secure during the day and night. You have a key to enter and exit a gate at the rear at any time. There is one shower and two toilets. The place is Il Parcheggio Del Borgo. Guido and his team gave us a great welcome and were good humoured. A British motorhome confused them when they placed us against a wall and then discovered we couldn’t get out. Much discussion and gesticulating, a few ‘Mamma Mia’s’ thrown in, and a minute later we were moved to a better position! Don’t come here for the views. There really are none except whitewashed concrete walls! Do come here for the extraordinary warm welcome, the complete security and peace of mind and the sheer convenience of location. 

Friday 6th September

Up an away at 0700. On the train to Pisa at 0815. Walking by the leaning tower of Pisa at 0900. Simples! As the meerkat used to say. We booked our train tickets on Trainline – the app a couple of weeks ago. It was easy. A return ticket for two – 14 euros.  We had booked our tickets for the various attractions around the tower about three weeks ago. We didn’t want to go up the tower and so booked a ticket for all the other attractions – 11 euros each.   The walk through Lucca to the railway station takes around 30 – 35 minutes. The trains run punctually!

We have had the most wonderful chilled out, highly cultured morning. We didn’t have to queue for entry to anything. By 1300 we had done all the sites in that part of the city. We didn’t rush, we took our time. Perfecto! 

The Three museums were well worth visiting, especially the Sinopie one which showed the original drawings of the frescos rescued from the Composanto. And that latter building? Stunning. The frescos are in our top five of best things we’ve ever seen thus far. At the top is the roman mosaics at Piazza Amerciana in Sicily.  But these frescos come pretty close.   By the way, one of the museums has a secret coffee shop and part of the entry includes a ticket to this café. Prices are steep but the views? Sublime! Worth every penny! Or euro!

The afternoon we strolled the streets of Pisa, did some window shopping and had pizza slices in a little piazza. They were cheaper than the coffees at the museum café and we had a coke zero as well! Delicious!  Then we went in search of the statute of Galileo – a hero of mine and every other amateur astronomer. He was first to use a refracting telescope no less. The father of modern astronomy.  He worked out that the sun lay at the heart of the known universe at that time, not the Earth. He discovered that the moon’s craters were rough, that there were mountains on its surface. He even had a hypothesis that inertial mass (resistance to acceleration) equalled gravitational mass (weight). Enough about the man – I could go on for ages such were his accomplishments.

The afternoon train whisked us back to Lucca. We strolled back through the streets, stopping off for another gelato. It’s becoming a daily habit and not a healthy one.

The internal motorhome temperature of 38C came as a deep shock. That was despite leaving roof vents open. The silver window screens worked but the heat trapped between them and the acrylic windows must have been tremendous for the black catches were almost too hot to handle. We have to come up with a better way of keeping the motorhome cool whilst we are out and about. Our medicines we keep in a cool bag with ice blocks wrapped in newspaper and that works well.

Been a great day. Lucca is stunning. Pisa less so except that area around the tower. Beginning to feel the Italian vibe once more.

Costs: train tickets – 14 euros      Entry to all tractions bar the tower – 11 euros each

 

Saturday 7th September

We left Plymouth a week ago on our way to Portsmouth for the ferry. Today we wandered around Lucca. It is a beautiful city. Narrow slate paved and cobbled streets running between large four or five story buildings dating from the 1400’s. If we were lucky, we would find one with a breeze channelled down it, for temperatures today peaked at 31C.

We started the day with a 10.00 am climb of 250 steps up the Guingi Tower. A tall tower with large stone steps around its outer perimeter, the last 50 or so steps are up a steel staircase affair which switch backs its way up to the roof top where you will find the little garden of oak trees. The views are stupendous all the way to the distant hills. The pattern of the walled city is there in its entirety. An abundance of terracotta tile roofs, little balcony terraces, hidden walled gardens. And a breeze along with shade from the glaring sun. the views are worth the climb; one which we did far quicker and with far less huffing and puffing than we were expecting. We are in better shape than we thought we were! We’ll take it.

Back down, we stopped off in the circular piazza for a breakfast – fresh iced croissant, freshly squeezed and frankly, insanely delicious orange juice and a nice cappuccino. 10 euros each – stupid prices but worth it!

Refortified after all that energy expenditure, we called in at a couple of the churches, did some more window shopping and then fell upon the free to enter museum of immigration. What a stunning little building and courtyard and some really fascinating displays about Italian emigration across the last 200 years or so. A thoroughly informative and fascinating little interlude in our day.

We visited the Puccini Museum soon after. A fascinating visit of the Puccini family home along with letters, musical scores, costumes and other things from his life and his operas. La Boheme music in the background along with other scores he penned. Perfecto!

A stop off for a snack and drink and a wander along the walls under the shade of the large London lime trees. Back at the parking base we topped up the water tank, emptied the waste tank and had a clean up. We will be off tomorrow. One of Guido’s thoughtful little extras by the way – a fiamma waste tank on wheels so that you don’t have to move your motorhome; and a forty-foot hose on a proper reel so you can fill your tank easily.

No idea where we will be heading tomorrow. That is tonight’s little research task after poor Bryony has cooled down from her internal 38C temperature again (and that was with leaving all roof vents wide open during the day).

Meanwhile we are really packed in tonight – there are 11 vans of various sizes packed into a very small rear parking lot. Cozying up to the neighbours – but we are all quite quiet and respectful of each other’s privacy.

Costs for the Tower and Puccini Museum: 34 Euros in total for two adults booked on line.  Cost for three nights at Parcheggio del Borga 60 Euros. 

So then, the end of our first week.......

Our Bryony! 

A week in and we are reminded why we love her so much. We’ve said it before and we will say it again. We love ‘our Bryony’!  If you haven’t caught up with this fact yet you just haven’t been fully immersed enough in this blog! Shame on you! 😂

Bryony is an autosleeper EB. Coach built. Peugeot cab and chassis. Based on a Boxer van!

We have adapted her. A towbar and bike rack. Semi air suspension and wider tyres. Extra solar panels and two leisure batteries not one. A B2B charger. A new MPPT controller. 

She is surprising spacious for a 6.4m length! Her lounge is positively luxurious, very comfortable and a serene haven at the end of the day.  The end bathroom is big and the shower roomy enough. It acts as a dumping ground for bike panniers, spare bike tyre, waterproofs, front screen cover and boots bag! A luxury! A shower and general storage area in one! Great for our long trips abroad.

The living space is comfortable and spacious but also cozy. Seating is plush, curtains a nice feature. Interior design and colouring tasteful; made even better by Maggie’s home made quilts that cover the seats. Lighting is great, so many options. Plenty of plug sockets; not enough 12v usb sockets for when off grid though.

Lots of overhead locker storage; one big wardrobe in bathroom where we store duvet etc. One big under seat locker, accessible from outside into which goes everything else!

The build quality is variable! We had lots of snags that needed sorting under warranty and they still pop up occasionally like the habitation door hinge that just sheered without warning!

Bryony’s kitchen is well equipped. Great cooker, adequate sized fridge. Next to useless microwave which kept cutting out until Autosleeper's agreed to fund the fitting of an extra fan and vent!

Bryony has a basic cab with basic radio but its functional and fine for our purposes. She’s easy to live in; comfortable and with good heating and boiler system. The blown air works effectively! 

Overall, now that we have up graded her, Bryony is proving to be versatile, rugged, adaptable and a joy to drive and live in. We can off grid for several days with no problem, the only limitation being the charging of the ebike batteries as we don’t have an inverter.

We chose well. Bryony is perfect for our needs and we adore her! By the way she has a friend. A crotchet cat called Schrodinger! A travelling companion and mascot!