Back to France

The gear box is working well and we hit the road again this time more relaxed and with great tans, taking no chances we stop every 40 minutes and check the vehicle over trying to reestablish some confidence.
So far so good and we are pacified by the motorhomes performance. Debbie and Daniel are taking notes on the length of the tunnels we zip through. At last count we had gone through 74 tunnels before the French border measuring a total of around 30 kilometers underground. Daniel was very disappointed that they did not join the tunnels together to make just a few really long ones; this disappointment was certainly not shared with his mother who preferred it when they were less than 1 kilometer long. 2800 metres was the longest we passed through and she was glad we were not traveling the northern roads which have some much longer tunnels.
As we reached the French border, I think we were expecting a sense of familiarity having been here recently and survived the language difficulties, how wrong was I.
With all my French lessons and practice I was surprised that spending 2 and a half months in Italy greeting people in Italian, Dutch and German had confused my linguistic comprehension. Bon Journo, Gooten Morgen, bonjour, merci danke, gracie Now I don’t know if I am Arthur, Martha, Aldo Maria, Helga or Fritz. Back to square 1 on the language and hopefully my English wont suffer as well. The biggest problem with coming to France hoping to improve your French, is that most of the people you meet want to practice their English. I may have to pretend I am Chinese in future and dupe them into speaking French so I can improve my language skills.
We pull into a roadhouse over the French border and as I try to reverse out of the parking bay I can not find reverse gear, a bit of mumbling under my breath and jiggling the van forwards and it slips in and I am thinking this can’t be good. My mind races back to the roads and places where we have found ourselves in difficulty and have had to back our way out. I start imagining us wedged down in a tiny street in a village where we need to reverse but can’t causing a gridlock. Well we are safe while we are on the motorway so I push the van towards Cannes and plan a stop near a larger town to find the tools or a mechanic to make the necessary adjustment. We pull into a roadhouse just near Frejus and I find a place where I won’t need reverse, but wouldn’t you know it reverse is working again we decide to camp the night anyway, as I am about to shutdown the engine the battery light comes on, I’ve had a big day we will sort it out in the morning.
Deb brings me a coffee while my head is under the bonnet and asks do you think we will make it to Avignon before lunch, I reach into the engine bay and pull out the main pulley off the cam and say Maybe not quite lunch, poor Deb looked devastated, as we had not much food with us I unhooked the trusty bicycle and started on a new adventure.
1: Food
2: Mechanic
3: Cash from the bank.
Fortunately it was a good roadhouse with clean toilets a restaurant, park and playground for the kids.
The GPS put me 3 kilometers from a supermarket, but as we were on a toll road I had to find a way to a road first as it is highly illegal to ride bicycles on motorways, I found the special gate that the roadhouse employees use and set off, I managed the fist 2 hills fine and was traveling well I reached a village that had 2 supermarkets, auto wreckers lots of auto services, 3 motor home sales yards and 2 cheap motels, well you may think this is great unfortunately we have stumbled into another public holiday and everything is closed. I start at the motel and check there availability as I really don’t wish to leave my family stranded at a roadhouse good.
I push back towards the roadhouse, I need to go 3 kilometers in the opposite direction to the way I have travelled, about 2 kilometers past the roadhouse turn off I see a camping sign and decide that I will enquire about a bungalow When you are in a car and see a sign that says camping 300 meters and you turn then see another sign that says 400 meters you don’t mind so much but let me tell you this can be very inconvenient for a cyclist.
Now the signs just disappear and 2 kilometers later I am stopping and asking locals who have no idea where the campground is, so I back track and start heading for the supermarket that may be or may not be open, by this stage I have travelled 10 kilometers already and have marked nothing off my list. As I approach Puget Sur Argens I see another camping sign but I decide to ignore it and get back to my task, I ride through the industrial area and am heartened to find every manner of car dealership and spare parts dealer available, only they are closed for the public holiday, I reach the main road and turn towards Frejus, as I have not had breakfast yet I am drawn to (as much as I hate to say it) the big yellow M that is about a mile down the road as I know they would not close for a public holiday. I was right and as luck would have it there was a giant shopping centre beside it which was also open so Maccas was bypassed and I wandered in to discover that every one else in the district had found that this was the only place to buy groceries today.
If I had wanted to buy clothing or an evening dress this would not have been a problem as it seems that fashion stores allowed to open on Sundays and public holidays, but I feel had I returned to the van with no food in new evening dress Deb might not have been very impressed.
I gather enough food to see us through the day and stand in the huge line at the checkout, when finally I push my fruit and the girl asks me where the fruit barcode is. This is a problem in Europe that at a lot of supermarkets you have to weigh your own fruit and print stickers for it, so back I go and weigh my fruit then back to stand in a huge line again, I won’t fall for that trick again, not until next time anyway.
Loaded up with about 12 kilograms of groceries I set off up the hill back towards the roadhouse which is about 4 kilometers away now, I reach a fork in the road where again I find a camping sign which seems to be much clearer, 300 meters it reads and is towards the route I am taking, I follow the signs and they lead me down a hill which I am hoping will bring me on a route to the van otherwise I will have to climb it again. After another 1200 meters the road begins to rise again and I am starting to doubt my wisdom now that I am carrying all this extra weight. Finally reaching the campground I wonder how far I am going to have to back track to get back on the route to the van.
The girl on reception was able to give me some good advice but looked very blank when I tried to extract a shortcut out of her for my return journey. I rode back to the front gate and viewed the GPS, the major decision now is do I gamble and go cross country to reach my destination about 500 meters away or do I backtrack about 5 kilometers away.
I settle for cross country and ride down a road not marked on the GPS and 300 meters later I am back at the van and my legs give a great sigh of relief.
Packing up the family and enough provisions to last the night we wander like gypsies through the car park of the roadhouse with bags and cases and stroll to the campground, where a hot shower is waiting and we settle in beside the pool to enjoy the public holiday with the rest of France.

Sunset at Camping La Quercia Lake Garda Northern Italy




Our motor home being a Fiat which is an Italian car was the motive for us to have the van serviced in Italy, our major problem now is translation or to find a service agent that can converse with us.
We appear at the gate of Camping La Quercia in Lazise on the shores of Lake Garda in northern Italy and are immediately greeted by a fervent attendant named Dennis who comprehends sufficient English and ushers me into the office and introduces me to Claudia who has a great command of English.
Claudia assures me that in the morning we will find a service agent and so begins our holiday from our holiday.

What have we stumbled into were our thoughts when we arrived at Camping La Quercia, the staff were so friendly talking to us as if we were locals and accommodating our needs and requests for translation with the motor mechanic. Tina who speaks better English than me was so obliging and kind and organised a bungalow for us while the van has a bit of work done to it.

www.laquercia.it

Village of Lazise Lake Garda

Unfortunately the gear box problem has turned out to be a bit trickier than anticipated as the gearboxes in the English vans are about face to the European version as they are right hand drive so the part is not readily available so poor us will have to spend a week or two sitting by the pool overlooking the lake with the stunning mountains in the background, canoeing, archery, tennis, swimming, walking I only hope we get time for some rest, then Claudia comes out and tells me if we go to Movie land ( like Movie World on the Gold Coast )on Saturday they have free entry for their birthday.
Camping La Quercia are also celebrating their 50th birthday so on the Saturday they had a free Luna park with lots of give aways for the kids followed by a wonderful fireworks display. Daniel made friends with a young Italian boy named Daniele, who spoke no English so it was interesting to see them playing and talking as if they understood each other.
Our first week at La Quercia saw us sharing the facilities with a lot of German people and we were inundated with Italians on the weekend, on the Sunday the Italians disappeared and we were swamped with Dutch families taking advantage of some public holidays in The Netherlands.
Skin cancer it would seem is no threat to the fair skinned Northern Europeans as the swimming pools were aglow with sunburnt faces and bodies as far as the eye could see. Don’t get me wrong we did see the odd hat on a head but not a single rashie.

After such a hectic schedule it has been good to take stock and relax by the pool while catching up with ourselves, it has given us time to reflect back on our trip so far and to discover how much of it the children have absorbed.
We have also had time to build up some friendships with other tourists and the staff, during this time, we have had some long discussions on their lifestyles while trying to enlighten the Europeans into the Australian ethos. Some are very surprised that our lives are not so different. I have again found that supermarkets are one of the most fascinating places to visit when looking for some insight into the local society, although a lot of the bigger supermarkets are now very similar to ours the way food is purchased can be very different.
The Europeans seem to be more conscious when it comes to the environment and recycling of our rubbish is requested everywhere we stay and the bins are always separated into glass, paper and organic, I have even seen bins for bread only.
But then on the other hand they can be quite wasteful as a lot of products are individually wrapped, even though a lot of these products like cakes, bread and croissants have long use by dates, I have a loaf of Pane Intergrale Bauletto (brown grain bread) at the moment that does not expire until 9th July 2008, I don’t know how long it has been at the supermarket but with 2 months to go I can savour it until we reach England again. It is not the way we would normally buy bread, but we have found the only fresh bread in Italy is the big hard crusty white loaves which taste wonderful but you don’t feel that it’s doing your body any favours. I think the European trick is to consume lot’s of red wine to wash the bread through so I am going to consume more wine from hear on, for medicinal purposes only of course.

Thanks to some well timed public holidays our car part has been held up in the mail, The wonderful staff at La Quercia are now treating us like locals and are starting to say g,day to us aswell as other guests instead of Bon Journo, The Animation staff have made us regulars calling us on stage at will and sometimes putting us into embarrassing positions.
I am trying to convince Deb that some of this video needs to be put onto the blog so bear with us until I convince her and keep an eye out.
We even had 1 night where they were a few actors down and we had to rehearse and perform for them, doing a few skits.

Family Walkeden taking an encore with Animation Maestro Max (Massimiliano)

We had a wonderful Dutch family move in next door, Hans, Bep, Daniek and Myron, Hans took pity on me when he saw me arrive home with a huge bag of groceries (about 15 kilograms) which I had carted about 9kms up and down hills.
He kindly offered to drive me to the supermarket next time, to my amazement the supermarket was only 2kms away, compared to the one I was riding to and was much better and cheaper, especially as I would need to eat half the groceries after the 18km round trip. The best thing about this was that I was now able to purchase more fruit veg and beer, as I was very minimal with such heavy products for some unknown reason.

The Mechanics have worked all day Saturday to fix the van and we will be able to leave Sunday, but I will be sad to leave as we really have loved this place.

Venice
It was really nice to catch up with Curl and Maddy and share some of the sights and places we enjoyed when we visited Florence, the frustration you normally feel when viewing beautiful sights and thinking, wow dad would love this or wouldn’t mum love to be here was diminished and a sense of fulfillment was achieved. Having other friends around added a different dimension to the trip that I had not envisaged.

Florence to Venice did not look as though it would be a long trip but let me tell you the mountain range between us and the East coast made for more fantastic scenery, it is possible to use the motorways but as we have no time frame or schedule to keep we are able to explore the off roads at our leisure and pleasure. That’s if you consider skinny windy roads a pleasure as I do.
Unfortunately the old Fiat is struggling a bit and I fear before long she may need some attention to the gearbox, the question is do I attempt to have some work done in a country with language difficulties or chance it till we get back to the UK. Well I think with so many mountain ranges to cross I will have it looked at before we hit another one.
Once over the ranges the roads widen and the down hill trek is much easier. We find a campground in the middle of nowhere and bed down to see out the rain which has been threatening across the mountains.
The next 250 kms to Venice are quite flat and it is very obvious that we are entering into the wealthier North of Italy.
Cointha and Daniel become excited as we reach Fusina which is where we will be based while visiting Venice.
We set up camp as close to the water as possible and have a splendid view of Venice about 3 kms away over the water, we are now in for a treat as Deb and I stayed here in1995 and remember fondly huge cargo ships which pass the campsite about 20 meters from our motor home. It is an awesome sight for us country bumpkins and we are constantly dazzled by the sight over the next few days.
We are treated to a magnificent thunder storm that night followed by a deluge of rain, it rains all night and we see no sign of it letting up next morning so we catch up with some writing and washing while watching the people who are leaving slip and slide all over the campsite trying to retrieve there huge motorhomes from the quagmire.
After a hearty lunch we decide to brave our way across the Laguna Veneta and down the Grand Canal into Venice onboard the water taxi, as luck would have it the weather cleared and we spent a wonderful afternoon and the next few days in sunshine exploring the narrow streets and canals, stopping on the little bridges and marveling in the attractive and unique construction of this marvelous city.
No trip to Venice is complete without a gondola trip so after negotiating a reasonable fare with the Gondolier we set off along the canals. (Travel advice when negotiating with a Gondolier finds one that speaks your language as most of them have been trained to also be guides so check first as a good gondolier are only too happy to answer all manner of questions). We found a wonderful Gondolier, who’s name escapes me as we christened him Casanova and that name stuck. Well he was a second generation gondolier and had a sound knowledge of Venice, Venetian life and who was who, he even introduced us to his father as our gondolas passed on a narrow bend amidst a traffic jam of gondolas, speed boats and water taxis with lots of shouting and banter as you can only expect in Italy.
Saint Marks Square is a magnificent setting for a restaurant and there are quite a few lining the square, most notably Floriana, the oldest, its interior very elaborate in a classic ornate Italian style. The thought had crossed our minds that it would be nice to enjoy a coffee at Floriana while listening the orchestra complete with grand piano playing for their guests but at 8 euro($13.00) per coffee and $26.00 for a sandwich we decided to buy a bag of corn at $1.00 and allow the kids to feed the pigeons while Deb sat at one of their tables when the waiter was not looking in order to be a patron long enough to take a photo without the luxury of a bill. Venturing into the back streets of Venice we stumbled across a small shop where a glass blower was making tiny Gondolas with gondolier, so a souvenir gondola was purchased, I am starting to wonder now after 3 months and the amount of books and souvenirs we have purchased and 5 months to go, just how we will manage to board the plane home. Cointha would have loved about 300 of the beautiful masks in all shapes, sizes and colors that are able to be purchased all around the town, but I fear they would not last the journey so we opted for some tiny replicas that could be easily stowed.
The sun has disappeared now and as happened on our arrival the rain has returned
on the day we are leaving challenging us to negotiate our way between the trees and the Laguna slipping and sliding our way back to the bitumen successfully I might add.
This mornings adventure begins with a search for a place to refill our gas bottle, not that it is empty but after the exploits of Paris, we thought not to gamble with the gas.
Success was achieved and we now head for Lake Garda where we plan to relax in a resort and maybe find someone who can service the van.

Venetian masks