Goodbye Italy, hello Austria – our journey today. Of course, the weather was beautiful just when we had to sit in the car for a day (28°C was the highest we saw) but it made for nice views. We travelled north up the side of Lake Garda and into the Dolomites, crossing into Austria via the Brenner Pass autobahn.

The whole route was studded with ancient castles and fortifications and virtually every non-vertical piece of land was covered with vines, sometime halfway up a mountain surrounded by rocks. It was very busy with lorries but I entertained myself by spotting their reg plates: 15 different ones in the space of about 20 mins, so obviously a very international route. When we turned off the autobahn, I giggled when I saw the signpost: 2 adjacent places called Natters and Mutters :)

We finally arrived at Camping Natterersee, our site for the night (although it was a good job we followed the signs & not the satnav, as Helga was taking us to Mutters then on a track down the side of the hill! Its on the shores of the NattererSee just outside Innsbruck, and what a lovely site it is – terraced pitches all round a lake, with flowers & trees everywhere.







The facilities were wonderful - fabulous boutique-style spotlessly clean washblock with huge shower cubicles, sofas to sit & chill on and display cases with miniature cars & caravans in. There were fully serviced pitches (each one with electrics & water/waste outlet to plumb in, for non-caravanners), and quieter areas high up above the lake. There are more GB outfits here than we’ve seen for the rest of the holiday put together, but its very multi-national. 







The lake itself is lovely, very well-kept with flowers & trees, and we had a very nice meal in the restaurant overlooking it. Great beer too! We will only be here for one night as we’re heading for Lake Constance on the German side to spend a few days near Friedrichshafen before moving on into the Black Forest.