We took a train from Asti to Turin, stopping right in the centre of the city. This is an unusually romantic place, lots of tall baroque buildings with ornate iron arcades that looks like they are still in the 1920s and where everyone wanders, there is no hurrying, very few tourists, lots of local Italians, dressed up to the nines, supping Martinis in swag covered bars. There are so many cafes here, full of silver service waiters serving Madames and their handbag dogs a smidgeon of amaretto biscuit with their tiny espresso.
In the “old quarter” buildings rise up in tight blocks forming dark narrow walkways, all similar in design to the next but with a splendour that comes with age. One part of the town was demolished 100 years ago to do away with the slums, and rebuilt in the same style so it’s very hard to tell what age these buildings are. So many historic buildings dating back to the Savoy Family (equivalent to the Royal family) are now museums, 26 that we could count, as well as 10 churches and basilicas, and 16 theatres!
The Royal Palace is now a large museum, originally built in the 16th century and modernised in the 17th century and includes a chapel which was built to hold the Turin Shroud. It has a huge armoury but we didn’t have time to do the guided tour, supposedly 2.5 hours.
We did view a private Egyptian exhibition, the dig in the
Nile area started in the early 1900 by an Italian archaeologist and continued
by his team and his legacy until the late 1990s. We saw interesting items found
in whole burial areas, complete mummies and the items they were buried with,
the mummies dated back by 4000 years.
We also found one of the roads that The Italian Job was
filmed on, Galleria San Federico, but was sadly disappointed to learn that although
the Fiat factory rooftop race track does still exist, the old factory is now a
large modern shopping centre with the track on the rooftop and is accessible at
a price. There is no reference to this
iconic film in the city, not even in the National Museum of Cinema, based in
Turin’s Mole Antonelliana, a building originally built as a mosque but now home
to yet another museum.
Turin is a slow moving, beautiful, romantic city on the banks of the River Po, and we can highly recommend it as a relaxing and informative city break location. Just don’t take your wallet (beware of the endless designer shops) and make sure you love coffee, and eating!
SWe had a few days in a site just between Figueres and Capmany about 10 miles from the border with France. The site was spacious with lots of large pitches and very quiet, surrounded by vineyards and oak forests, at night the site was very dark, plenty of bats and owls about. We had a few windy days here, even though we were protected by the tall trees…..we were rocking, so to speak!
Capmany is a tiny village but well known in this area for being home to not one, not two, but three winemakers and distributors! A small castle type building houses accommodation, a pub and a shop are all that are here, the area is surrounded by oak and cork trees, as well as the odd vine and olive tree. We also found almond trees in flower, such a beautiful scent.
Almond trees.Capmany castle.Leaving Capmany.Snow capped roads crossing the border into France.
The site was also a few miles away from the motorway and the town of La Jonquera, which cannot really be described as a town. There is a small traditional village a mile away with the same name but the main attraction here was the massive supermarkets and tobacconists, perfect for motorhomers and lorry drivers stocking up on bulk alcohol, tobacco, clothes, electronic goods and traditional Spanish products. We could not get over the size of the bottles available in the supermarkets, 1, 1.5, 2 and 3 litre bottles of every possible alcoholic drink you could think of and several you may never have heard of!
A 3 litre bottle of Jack Daniels for €79 !!! That’s one hell of a hangover bottle!!!
People, mainly French speaking, had trollies full of huge sacks of meat, vegetables and everyday household products, the staff on the tills spoke French first then Spanish then English so obviously a popular day trip destination from France.
Port Bou, a village on the French/Spanish border, view from the Church at the top of town.Out and about…..
The journey from Spain into France was an easy one but Narbonne to Lake Garda was 1,655kms, broken up into jumps of 360, 300 and 280kms, always stopping halfway for a refreshment break. We find it quite funny looking at the lorry driver’s expressions as we pull up alongside their 18 wheelers!! Along the way, we also passed several snow capped mountains, experienced sun and rain, saw blue skies and grey clouds, green fields, grey industrial areas and brown rocky hillsides.
Tee Pee stop en route in a lorry park!
FRANCE
FIn France we returned to a site we have been before just off the motorway at Narbonne called La Nautique where we had a few surprise visitors from Bonterra – our lovely Dutch friends Kees and Reik stopped overnight on their way back to the Netherlands, and our even lovelier Dutch/Hungarian friends Chris and Mary stopped en-route to their overnight stay, stopping long enough for a bite and a drink and a quick walk around the site before continuing their journey.
Afternoon sun, with friends.From left, David, Kees, Reik, Mary, Chris and me xx
We moved onto Frejus for just one night, despite emailing the site weeks in advance, when we arrived on Sunday morning there were no staff on reception at all! Apparently they do not man the reception desk at weekends until the end of April! A kindly German man let us in and in the morning we paid and moved on.
We tried a new site in Antibes, called La Vieille Ferme (The Old Farm) which turned out to be lovely, housing several RVs and permanent home to a Welsh couple from Tredegar, we felt at home!!
A traditional hill top village alongside the road.Antibes Village.
We explored Antibes marina the first day and was star struck when we saw the world’s largest Superyacht, called Dilbar. It dominated the skyline due to its huge size and gold colour. We established it is owned by a Russian billionaire, is only 3 years old, 156 metres long, houses 40 passengers and 80 crew and has not one but TWO helipads and an indoor swimming pool on its top deck! It only cost a cool $600 million US Dollars!!!! We spotted a people carrier on the 4th deck, gold in colour of course, to perfectly match the yacht!!
Spotted in the Marina car park.
Antibes Fort.
Antibes is an attractive place, comprising the old seafront
village and a more modern smart area behind the old town on the Cote
D’Azure. Here the sea is soooo blue, blue
is not a good enough description, try azure, turquoise, deep aquamarine,
cobalt, navy or indigo and all shades in between. The old town has lots of medieval stone
walls, a fort and beautiful tall buildings looking out to sea. We had several lovely hours wandering around
admiring the beauty, sadly we did not spot any celebrities….
ITALY
The drive from Antibes in France to Asti in Italy took just over 4 hours, boy do the Italians know how to charge on the tolls! We paid €85.90 from Narbonne to Frejus and another €136 from the French/Italian border to just outside Asti. And all because we have 8 wheels on our vehicle and are over 2.3m high!!
An Italian tunnel, with traditional village overhead!
We returned to a site in Asti that we stayed at last year, again the owners welcomed us back before they were officially open. It was so cold at night, a real shock to the system after a warm Spain and hot France, we had to put our heating back on!!! One day we did sit outside in the sun until about 6.30pm!
Our view in Asti.This was our temperature most evenings, 2C!!!!
We did venture into Asti one evening and found a wonderful Indian restaurant, recently opened, where we had such a lovely meal. David tried a new beer, it did not have any additional effect on his prowess that night!!
We ventured into Turin from Asti, another day, another blog!!!
Before leaving Spain, we stopped at a small site in a village called Capmany, between Figueres and La Jonquera, just below the Spanish border with France and just had to visit the Dali Museum whilst we were here. We arrived early and had a fabulous lunch first and then spent the next 3 hours wandering around the museum.
Salvador Dali was born in Figueres in 1904 and in the 1980s purchased a burned out theatre which he renovated and modernised to home his collection of art, figurines, drawings and jewellery as well as the sketches that he drew before creating every masterpiece. He died in his home town in 1989 and is known as a surreralist as well as for some of his quotes:
I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.
Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
He really was an odd man, extremely weird and imaginative and obviously had a fantastically bizarre imagination. Hope you enjoy some of his creations.
The exterior of the Dali MuseumDelicious lunch of grilled meats, caprese salad, olives and bread.Outside the museum, some of his artwork is on display.This image is called “Three Pairs”.One of his drawings, look at it long enough to see the different layers.Inside the old arena, the walls have been decorated with mannequins, creatures and sinks!The immaculate Cadillac has a mannequin inside, all overgrown with ivy and leaves….but has a naked statue of a burly woman on it’s bonnet!Another of his drawings.One of his well known images, called Swans Reflecting Elephants.Some of the jewellery collection that he created.This brooch is about 2 inches long, but has a working clock in it.This crucifix is about 3 inches tall.Rubies, diamonds and pearls in a brooch.This jewelled item is 2 feet tall and has the most amazing green gem in the middle. I believe it is called “Elephant Spider”.
View of the French Alps during the flight to the UK.
After spending a winter in Benicassim (Spain) because Italy, Croatia and Greece were cold and closed up, we have, sadly, had to break away from the Bonterra community and have recommenced our travels. We have had a fabulous four months, in a relaxing situation, made good friends, almost won the quiz (OK, I lied there, wishful thinking) had wonderful social afternoons and evenings but time to move on and up……
In February, we returned to the UK to help Caity move into her own flat in Hampton, Peterborough. After 14 days of cleaning, painting and decorating, shifting furniture and making sure things were up and running, we left happy with the knowledge that the flat was clean and warm, in full working order and Caity had a full fridge of food! A mother’s final job is to make sure her child had food!! Boy, did my hands (and bank balance) ache when I left!!!
My Dad Decorating!Trying to put together a sofa with lots of missing parts – it was returned!! Caity became a washing machine engineer, learned how to replace a door/ drum rubber! Only took us an hour! I also had the chance to catch up with my lovely niece Carol, and had cuddles with Jack and Libby, as well as tea and cake 🙂
We moved up to Vilanova just outside Barcelona, our sending off was lovely, all our neighbours came out to see us off on Sunday morning, mid March.
We decided to experiment with an alternative site called Vilanova Playa, down by the beach instead of Vilanova Village, outside the town. As usual, we emailed the site, told them the dimensions of the trailer and how much space we needed and was assured that we would fit…..we had 4 members of staff assuring us they would help us onto a pitch, and so the fun began…….after about half an hour of to-ing and fro-ing, became stuck because the road was narrow, there were too many trees either side of the pitches and he didnt have enough space to swing the cab around fully in front….so he eventually reversed onto a pitch but could go no further. The staff had a bright idea!! Let’s chop some trees down, so you can reverse back onto the pitch behind, turn a little and pull forward onto an exit road, (this was just as David was muttering under his breath “Get me out of here”). Bright idea. Removed the trees, reversed, pulled out, got going and headed up to Vilanova Park where we were allocated a huge pitch on a wide road, no major trees either side and total peace to chill out!! A few glasses of wine were sunk that night!!
Once the overhead cover is removed, we reversed.
Memories of Bonterra Park
Proof that Mary & Chris do dance!
And they win Mulkky tournaments!
Jenny frazzling her brains at the quiz.
Carajillo, a drink Mary introduced us to!
Local dance exhibition
Andrea, queen of Flamenco.
Drummer Chris has several groupies including me and Mary!
The lovely Chris & Mary x
Welsh Dylys and Bob, lovely boy.
Our local tapas bar.Our quiz history buff, Gavin.Mulkky on the beach, one cloudy Sunday morning.Keith & Jean showing off the Dancing on Ice skills.Temporary children; Beau and May, our neighbour Paul & Julia’s children.
We are now heading on up to France, to Narbonne and Frejus, before heading over to Asti again, where we will visit Turin before returning to Lake Garda.
In February we had a few days out visiting our friends Mike & Brenda in Benidorm. Benidorm was quiet and quite beautiful in the warm sunshine, we had a lovely walkaround the old town, introduced Mike to tapas for lunch and downed a few beers, as expected!
Two blokes and Two birds in Benidorm!!!
We experienced a night out on “the strip”, a road famous for it’s bars, british cafes and takeaways and cabaret style night clubs, starting the night with pie and chips for dinner, following up with watching three “artistes” singing Rat Pack songs, and topped off by an hour watching a hilarious comedian from Bradford. He was so funny, we had stitches by the end of the evening; however the highlight had to be the drunk woman serenading the “artistes” on stage afterwards singing Take That songs!
Mike confirming that he had organised a “surprise” for David…..
after David had lied and bragged that it was his “birthday”. Yeah, right!!
Benidorm at night
Benidorm sky line
Freddy, in one of the Benidorm bars 🙂
A view of Benidorm from the other side
The next day we took a drive up the mountains behind Benidorm to a small village called Guadalest, hiked up to the castle ruins, had lunch in the square, and gawped at the amazing azure coloured reservoir behind the village. Even the water coming from a natural spring, into a trough in the village, was blue, it tasted so fresh and was freezing cold!
As we headed out of the village on the opposite side, we came across a small motor museum, a private collection of motor bikes, some cars, scooters, bikes and other memorabilia. Such an amazing place, fascinating and full of historical items.
And to top it all off, the Museum had a shop selling local produce, fresh oranges, honey, cream, olive oils and lavendar products.
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