Off to Italy today, and the fulfilment of a long-held wish to visit the Italian lakes. We had decided to head for Lake Maggiore, slightly less commercialised than Como and a lot less than Garda, and to a site recommended by members of the CaravanTalk community.


 The journey was a fairly easy one, only 150 miles but unfortunately not by either of the shortest routes as the Grimsel Pass was still closed and the Susten is not recommended by the Caravan Club for long caravans.


 Consequently we were stuck with the autoroute and the St Gotthard Tunnel, the longest Alps crossing by far at 17km. It seemed like most of the journey was spent in tunnels yet again – a very efficient way to get around in such a mountainous country, but not at all scenic! Having said that, we did see Lake Lucerne and many high mountains with villages perched on their slopes and it was very easy travelling.


 The road down the side of Maggiore was another story: it followed the side of the lake with many, many twists and turns, overhanging rocks, narrow winding stretches and cobbles through a town, all accompanied by oncoming Italian drivers who think they own the road. Scenic? Yes. Easy driving? Not at all. 


 
 48km later (gold medal for Hubby and excellent driving) we arrived at our chosen site of Camping Conca D'Oro in Feriolo. It is a lovely site, right on the lake with its own sandy beach, part shaded with grassy pitches which are unusually large, especially by Italian campsite standards. We walked round and chose one with lake views from several of the windows and set up camp; the vast majority of the occupants are German or Dutch – in fact we only found 2 other Brits, and one leaves tomorrow.


 As this would be our home for several nights we put up the awning and had a chilled afternoon, me reading/doing Sudoku and Hubby playing with his satellite & TV so he could watch the Monaco Grand Prix later. After many expressions of anguish & cries of, "So near & yet so far," he finally abandoned trying to get a signal – it seems our dish is just that bit too small with the changing of the UK satellite footprint, much to his disgust.


 He was so crestfallen that we decided to eat at the camp restaurant to cheer him up – quite reasonable prices and VERY nice food. I had a salmon/tiny ribbon pasta which was delicious and he had a Pizza Calzone, but was rather disconcerted to be delivered what looked just like a huge Cornish pasty! It was very tasty though, and all washed down with a jug of house white.

 


On returning to the van, he put on the TV and managed to find a complete rerun of the Grand Prix – in Italian, but all the driver instructions over the radios were in English. He was very pleased to have found it, and so was I – imagine the fallout for the next few days if he hadn’t seen any of it....