It’s really hard to sum up (whilst still doing justice to)
the month we spent travelling through Italy.
We’ve found the Italian campers a little bit clicky – we haven’t had as many conversations with them as we have other nationalities. They tend to keep to and amongst themselves. In saying that they are the biggest motorhome users we have come across – we counted 300 on the road in one day (granted it was leading up to the New Year).
PHOTOS TO FOLLOW - our internet connection in Spain just isn't strong enough to cope with downloading them onto the blog.
As a family we sat down to collectively write down our
impressions of this fabulous country.
Our favourite foods – the best gelato was in Levanto
(especially the Cicolatto Nero & Mandarin), the best pizza was on the
boardwalk in Monterosso, the hot chocolate was like hot liquid chocolate
mousse, we discovered tiny little donuts pumped full of hazelnut chocolate, mandarins were in season and so yummy, we had
3 Pantone’s (Italian Christmas ‘bread’ cakes) and saw lots and lots and lots of
frozen pizza’s in the supermarkets (?).
Much to the girls horror we also came across horse meat for sale in a
supermarket in Pompeii.
Our favourite towns were Florence, Sienna and Venice. The Christmas lights in Sorrento and Rome
were standouts.
The girls were captivated by all the little dogs in their
designer winter coats being walked by their fur and sunglass wearing
owners. We chuckled at the designer
clothes they deck themselves out in to do a Saturday shop – very Posh according
to Tilly.We’ve found the Italian campers a little bit clicky – we haven’t had as many conversations with them as we have other nationalities. They tend to keep to and amongst themselves. In saying that they are the biggest motorhome users we have come across – we counted 300 on the road in one day (granted it was leading up to the New Year).
On appearance there seem to be a lot of moneyed Italians – the
cars they drive, the clothes they wear, they all smoke, drink and eat out a
lot. Glenn read somewhere that they tend
to live beyond their means. We have
found that overall accommodation, groceries and diesel has been really
expensive and made it impossible to stay within our budget – and we were here
in winter!
The autostradas are fantastic to drive on and guaranteed to
be winter proof and safe. Especially at
this time of the year with all the ice and snow on the roads we haven’t minded
paying the tolls. The other roads are a
mixed bag, often tiny, narrow and very
windy. The further south we drove the
bigger the potholes. One ‘major’ road we
drove down looked like a giant lava flow!
The Italian Ambulance/Fire/Police sirens are bonkers and
sound like a child’s melodic toy just before the batteries run flat. We heard a lot of sirens as we town and city
hopped our way across the country.
Finally Italian is one of our favourite languages. It just rolls off the tongue and is so
passionately spoken. Ciao, Bon Journo,
Preggo, Gratzi, Buon Natale . . .PHOTOS TO FOLLOW - our internet connection in Spain just isn't strong enough to cope with downloading them onto the blog.
