It was 3° when Jane set
off first thing to do some more planning for the trip. The only place in the
camping ground with wi-fi is a chalet with no windows or door, so she was well
wrapped up in her puffer jacket. Even so, she was very cold when I joined her
half an hour later to check my email. Jane had already checked hers and Harry
had sent a link of a video he had made of Ziggy. It’s excellent and can be seen
at:
It was so good to see
Ziggy obviously happy and looking very good.
Coincidentally, Harry
‘phoned soon after we got back to Mabel. He was having problems with the internet connection at home. It was a good opportunity for Jane and I to catch up with
him. We thanked him for the video which we really appreciated, it took him less
than an hour to put together. All is good in Wellington except Harry isn’t feeling
100% and is going to see Chan. Also, Jenny has picked up a virus to add to her
woes of a broken arm.
It was time to farewell
the French Alps and move on to Italy. We packed up Mabel, de-cheesed, dumped
our grey waste and filled with fresh water, hooked up Smarty and were on the
road just after 09:00. We stopped on the outskirts of Chamonix so Jane could
walk into town to a pharmacy to buy pills to prevent sea sickness. She was
worried about the crossing from Naples to Sicily on Wednesday night. I stayed
with Mabel, while I was waiting a Frenchwoman came by with two dogs. She was
impressed by Smarty hooked on the back of Mabel, so much so she took a
photograph.
Jane returned 30 minutes
later with her pills. She now has the wrist bands and homeopathic pills
purchased on the channel ferry and the pills purchased today. Hopefully, one or
other of those will work, but to be on the safe side, we have booked an external
cabin for the night crossing and there should be a porthole available.
As Jane drove out of
Chamonix we caught our last glimpse of the snow covered alps set against a backdrop
of a cloudless blue sky – absolutely magnificent. The road out of Chamonix to
the Mont Blanc tunnel climbs through a series of hairpin bends and it didn’t
take long to reach the toll booth at the tunnel entrance. A very friendly woman
in the booth asked us to wait while she consulted a colleague. I asked whether
that was because of Smarty on the back, it was. Two colleagues arrived after a
while and the verdict was we couldn’t tow Smarty through the tunnel. I couldn’t
see the difference between Smarty and a caravan or trailer, but I guess it was
easier for them to say no and maybe they thought the combination didn’t meet
the requirement of vehicles being 150 metres apart in the tunnel. There seemed
little point in arguing so we unhitched Smarty at the booth and Jane climbed
in. Back in Mabel the woman in the booth was engrossed in something she was
watching on television and it was a few moments before she realised I was back.
I paid for both vehicles - €56.10 for Mabel and €42.40 for Smarty (the toll for
a car towing a caravan would have been €56.10). That’s a hell of a lot of money
to travel through a 11.6 km tunnel. I was handed a safety card covering aspects
such as what to do in an emergency (39 people died when a Belgian truck caught fire in the tunnel in 1999 - we passed a memorial on the approach to the tunnel), maximum and minimum speed limits and the
requirement to keep 150 metres from a vehicle in front. I set off, the
headlights of the vehicle some way behind me obviously weren’t Smarty’s – Jane
was held at the toll booth for a while before being allowed to proceed. There
was very little traffic in the tunnel, blue lights on the wall denoted the safe
travelling distance of 150 metres, that wasn’t a problem as the tail lights of
the vehicle ahead were a long way off. There was little traffic coming the
other way, two trucks were being escorted through by vans front and rear.
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| No delays in the Tunnel |
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| A Quiet Mont Blanc Tunnel |
On the Italian side of the border I pulled up in a lorry park to wait for Jane who arrived a few minutes later. We hitched up Smarty and set off again, There were no border controls and we were soon descending through the alps via at least half a dozen tunnels up to 6 km long through mountains and over viaducts spanning deep valleys. The autostrada took us eastwards across the industrialised flat plains of northern Italy to the outskirts of Milan. We stopped to refuel Mabel at a stazione sevizio near Ivrea. The Eftpos machine accepted a PIN number – in the UK and France we had to sign for all the transactions. The scenery was boring compared to the majesty of the alps although I was impressed by a newish high speed railway that ran close to the autostrada for a long while. I believe the line would be the link between Turin and Milan and every now and again maroon or red and silver trains would zip past us.
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| Mabel and Smarty Reunited In Italy - South Portal of Tunnel in Background |
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| Lots of Viaducts and Tunnels |
Billy Connolly who had a
bad day yesterday losing GPS signals and us as well as freezing the map was
behaving much better today. Perversely, the map kept moving through tunnels
when there couldn’t possibly be a GPS signal!
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| Hilltop Monastry |
Skirting round the south
side of Milan we stopped for lunch at a service area. We ate half the baguette
purchased at the camping ground with our usual selection of dips and cheeses.
We also finished the last of the pork pie bought in Dover as a reminder of the
UK. While parked a couple of people looked over Smarty’s towing arrangements.
When I got out to check Smarty over a Swiss guy parked next to us came over to
ask how it all worked. She certainly attracts a lot of attention and the usual
question is how does Smarty steer. Unusually, she doesn’t have a steering lock
so that isn’t a problem.
 |
| Lunchtime |
It was my turn to drive
the remaining 230 km, or so, to Bologna. We headed south east, still on the
industrialised plains and again with a newish railway line alongside the road,
this time the link between Milan and the south. The sky was hazy but the
temperature climbed steadily peaking at 28°.
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| Railway Station South of Milan |
The toll booth at the
final biglietto caused Jane some grief, refusing to accept the notes she was
trying to insert to pay the €30 toll. It also wouldn’t accept a credit card.
Male and female voices were giving instructions, We had been practicing our
Italian from our phrase book as we drove, Jane said she didn’t understand, in
English. I climbed out and walked round to the machine and managed to insert a
€50 note. The barrier rose and I got a friendly arrivederci from the machine.
Was that a recording, or was it the woman that was trying to help earlier?
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| Toll Pay Station - Top slots too high for Mabel, bottom too low) |
Reaching the complex of
autostrada around Bologna, Billy Connolly reverted to type and froze the map.
That made it particularly difficult to negotiate interchanges where we have
come to rely on the large scale diagrams displayed on the satnav to find the correct path through. While it was fraught at times we got to our camping ground –
the Citta de Bologna Camping Ground on the outskirts of Bologna at
16:30. The man on reception said there was room for us, but warned there was a pop
concert in the evening at a nearby park, the concert finished at midnight. We
opted to stay.
The camping ground was
very good, lots of pitches shaded by trees with a strong fragrance of flowers.
We found a good position, it was very warm so we set up the awning, table and
chairs. Jane went for a swim while I cooked a cowboy casserole for our dinner.
Then we walked to the bar and sat in the sun with a Negroni each to celebrate
our arrival in Italy. Jane’s leg muscles were still tight after Saturday’s walk
and her gait was a passable impression of Douglas Bader. Afterwards we sat
outside and ate dinner, it was so good and relaxing to be able to eat out in
the fresh air.
We had paid very nearly
€200 in tolls for the day's travels. Tomorrow’s trip is shorter, so we
programmed satnav to avoid autostrada and save us some money.
We could hear the pop
concert, it wasn’t particularly loud and we had no trouble sleeping, we were tired after a
long day’s driving.
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| Set Up For The Night in Bologna |
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| Today's Trip (473km) |
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