Day 78: Wednesday 4 June – Rome to Naples And Beyond, by Ken

I programmed the satnav first thing to take us to the port in Naples where we were booked on 20:15 sailing to Palermo in Sicily. Having worked perfectly yesterday(eventually) in getting us to Rome, it was now denying any knowledge of an autostrada between Rome and Naples. We knew better, we had driven it two years ago.

The only wi-fi in the camping ground was in the bar/restaurant area. I went down there having decided to connect to the TomTom website take the Europe Camper map off the satnav and reload it thinking that might fix our problem. I had no difficulty in removing the map, but it didn’t reappear in my map library. Thinking there was a bug in the map and not wanting to reload the non-camper map that was in the library, I decided the best way forward to purchase another copy of the camper map. AU$125 later the map began to download, but painfully slowly. I went back to Jane and got her to mind the laptop and satnav while I got Mabel ready for the road.

Waiting For The New Map To Download

Jane sat patiently outside Camping Tiber’s bar watching the percentage download creep upwards painfully slowly, 1% at a time. I returned with Mabel and parked her in the bus park nearby watched nervously by two Hungarian drivers who had just finished cleaning their bus. I never got within metres of them.

Nearly Lunchtime and Still Waiting

Jane started a log of the download speed, it fluctuated but 1% was taking 3 – 4 minutes. At that rate it could take 5 or 6 hours. I bought us breakfast of coffee and croissants from the bar and we watched and watched and watched the percentages tick by painfully slowly. By noon, four hours after the download started, my laptop had acquired 71%. It could easily take another two hours to complete and we would run the risk of missing the ferry. Mabel has a satnav and while it doesn’t take account of her size when planning routes, I thought there was little chance of her taking us down a blind alley when there were autostrada that would take us virtually all the way to the port in Naples. Jane agreed to my suggestion that we use Mabel to navigate and I purchase some data for my iPhone and continue the download on the move. I thought NZ$50 would cover it easily.

We hadn’t got very far at all when my phone beeped and informed me all the data had been consumed. I wasn’t prepared to keep feeding it $50 of data a time to continue the download, it would have cost an absolute fortune. Jane wasn’t at all happy!

We stopped at a service area near Tivoli to fill Smarty and at another to eat lunch. We were on the autostrada we took from the Amalfi Coast to Rome, via Naples two years ago. In the distance we could see the monastery on Monte Casino which was destroyed in World War II by allied bombing. We had visited the site two years ago, I was keen to see the place where my dad had been during the war.

Monte Casino

We were ahead of time and took a break 20km north of Naples. We set off again aiming to arrive at the port 2 ½ hours before our ferry was scheduled to depart at 20:15. The traffic became a lot heavier as the massive cone of Mount Vesuvius came into view. We saw the hairiest piece of driving yet when a car travelling very fast overtook everything in sight taking a weaving path using all three lanes.

Mable’s satnav wasn’t as easy to use as the TomTom. The screen is built in to the dash and it was difficult to look at it without taking our eyes off the road for what seemed a dangerous length of time. We overcame this by the non-driver reading the map, calling out turn directions and counting down  distances to turns. All of the above are clearly displayed on the Tom Tom which we had mounted at eye level where the rear view mirror would normally be. Her satnav did also speak directions but we preferred more notice in order to be in the correct lane for a turn. Mabel’s satnav’s vocabulary was also different, one announcement in particular confused Jane. Did “prepare to turn left in 300 metres” mean that in 300 metres you started getting ready for a turn some way ahead, or start preparing now and turn in 300 metres? Jane’s habit of overanalysing things at times  can be quite entertaining.

Mable's Satnav on the Autostrada to Naples (79km to our exit, take another motorway after 670m, 0:57 GMT, 85km/hour, Heading 120 degrees approx.)

Mable’s satnav did a good job and leaving the autostrada it was easy enough to follow all the trucks bound for the port. Our previous experience of catching a ferry had been at Dover which was simplicity itself, well organised, clear directions from staff and good signage. Naples wasn’t like that! The port is ancient, I’m sure my dad would have recognised it from the wartime days when his truck ferried supplies from the port up to the front line. Decrepit sprung to mind, and it seemed that everywhere were half hearted abandoned attempts to improve the awful road network. We were stopped by a guy in uniform who gave us a very friendly buenosera.. We asked him the way to the Tirrenia terminal and we think he told us to follow the road straight ahead and turn right at the third roundabout. The place was a shambles with signs pointing in all directions, mainly for bars and trattoria. It was far from clear what constituted a roundabout, at the second crossroads we came to there was a sign that read ‘Tirrenia Parking’. We ignored it, we wanted to board our ferry. There was a roundabout at the third intersection where we were stopped by a security guard who wanted to see our tickets. I opened up my laptop and showed him the Direct Ferries booking confirmation. I’m not sure what he said but the look on his face and raising of voice would have been something to the effect that I was a f***ing idiot and should have gone to the booking office to get boarding passes. Clearly arrangements in Italy differ from the slick computerised number plate recognition based system in Dover that has all the paperwork ready for you when you pull up at the check-in window. As she does at times like this Jane began to fret that we could miss our ferry, in spite of there being nearly two hours before it was due to sail.

The security man pointed down a road and indicated we should follow it for 300 metres. 400 metres later there was nothing resembling a booking office to be seen. I parked Mabel at the roadside and set off on foot to see what I could find. I took a side street on the left and at the end of that there was a large canopied parking area with an adjacent building with people leaving clutching pieces of paper. I walked back to Mabel and drove her round the block passing the ‘Tirrenia Parking’ sign on the way. I found somewhere to park under the canopy and walked over to the building. It was chaos, full of people milling around lots of different booking offices for trains, buses and ferries, but I couldn’t see a ‘Tirrenia’ sign anywhere. I eventually found their office in a quiet wing off the main concourse. I showed a man behind the window the booking confirmation on my laptop, he nodded and motioned me to close it. A few minutes later I had my passes.

We headed out under the canopy, ahead I could see the roundabout with the security man that had doubts about my sanity and headed for it. That generated yells from men just ahead, I was heading for a one way street. Fortunately my security friend didn’t see us. I just managed to make a tight right turn and drove around a block to reach the roundabout via the correct route. Our passes were examined and we were directed towards the stern of the MV Vincenzo Florio. It was still very early and I was expecting a longish wait on the quayside. Much to our surprise we were directed onto the loading ramp and onto the vehicle deck. There deck hands ushered us to a parking spot with Mabel facing forwards hard up against a large truck facing aft. The ferry was a stern loader and we were either going t have to reverse off, or do a U-turn, space permitting.

Boarding

Escalators took us up from the vehicle deck to a reception desk. The staff there and elsewhere were very smartly dressed. We were given two key cards for a cabin which was along a long corridor with a heavy carpet towards the ship’s bows. The private cabin for our use was great, spacious with four bunks and its own small bathroom. Our only concern was the high likelihood of banging our heads on the upper bunks during the night.

Our Cabin With Not a Lot of Headroom Beneath The Top Bunks

We dumped our backpacks in our cabin and headed to the stern and watched the loading process for a while. Large articulated trucks were reversing into the ship with the precision of a Swiss watch. It’s all down to practice I guess.

Trucks Reversing Aboard

We walked forward and found the cafeteria that wasn’t open yet. Heading back we passed the windows of a restaurant with tables laid with starched white cloths, cutlery that glinted in the early evening sun and gleaming glasses. It looked expensive. We came to the bar, a very large space with tables, armchairs and sofas, it looked luxurious. I ordered a Negroni and a Diet Coke at the bar, the barman didn’t understand Negroni, I explained the ingredients, he said I could have gin, martini or campari, nut not all three. I settled for a G and T and was directed to a cashier sitting separately from the bar to pay. Sitting with our drinks it appeared I had got it all wrong, the locals were ordering and paying the cashier for their drinks and taking a docket over to the barmen to obtain the drinks.

Bar

We walked back to the caffeteria which was open and quite busy. Jane chose veal and fries, I had a vegetable lasagna with salad. By the time we had finished eating it was almost departure time. We walked back to the stern of the ship, as we did so it started to move – it was 20:18, just 3 minutes later than scheduled.

Farewell Naples

As we moved away from our berth a Grandi Navi Veloci ferry that should have left for Palermo 15 minutes before us was casting off and it followed us out of the harbour, much slower than us presumably to give some headway. We stayed on deck for a while watching Naples recede while a flock of seagulls followed, diving into our wake. On the starboard side we could see Mount Vesuvius silhouetted against the evening sky and ahead was the Isle of Capri.

Fast Ferry to Capri

Competing Ferry (the fare was a lot more expensive than ours)

Mount Vesuvius at Sunset

We returned to the bar for more drinks, this time I knew the ropes and placed our orders with the cashier. In front of us a crowd formed arranging seats in front of a television screen to watch football. Italy was playing Luxembourg, presumably it was a World Cup warm up match.

Football Crowd

It was time for bed. Jane had taken her seasick pills a while back and was hoping for a good crossing.

Today's Trip (234km)

Day 77: Tuesday 3 June - A Cock-Up On The Satnav Front, by Ken

We had another long drive planned for today to get us within striking distance of Naples where we were booked on a ferry to Sicily on Wednesday. As it turned out, the drive was more than 100km longer than planned!

The dawn chorus has been a familiar sound when we wake up. This morning the chirping of birds and cooing of pigeons was supplemented by a cock crowing and there was a strong and very pleasant fragrance of flowers in the air.

Harry phoned. The internet had crapped out at home as it has done from time to time in the past. I offered the unplug the modem and then reboot it fix I had used successfully in the past. Harry had already tried that without any luck. I suggested he should call Vodafone who have been very helpful in resolving problems.

Our economy non-autostrada route saw us following often narrow local roads eastwards through towns and villages to Ravenna. From there we turned south on the E45 retracing part of the route we took south from Venice two years ago. The road was appalling, very rough with potholes as far as the eye could see. The potholes had been badly patched with asphalt that stood proud of the original road surface. And the potholes had potholes in them that had been equally badly patched. And I’m pretty sure the potholes in the potholes were also potholed. The result was the roughest road we have ever been on that shook Mabel for hour after hour after hour. Smarty must have been really suffering at the rear but we had no way of seeing her as we drove. Signs showed a bumpy road for the next three kilometres at the end of which was an identical sign. This went on for ever although occasionally it was only two kilometres between signs. We began to wonder whether avoiding the tolls on the autostrada was a false economy and we could end up paying a lot more to get Mabel’s and Smarty’s suspensions fixed.

It's A Tough Life For Some - Old Woman Almost Bent Double Pushing Her Laden Bike 

Potholed Potholes

Bumpy Road For Next 3km, and the next and the next and...

We found an area to pull off the road in the hills of Italy’s spine and stopped for lunch. Mabel’s outside temperature gauge reached 29.5° during the morning, but it was cooler in the hills. While we ate a truck driver climbed out of his cab and stood in full view having a pee. Then his lead was followed by a man and woman who emerged from their Dutch registered caravan that was already parked when we arrived.

Poppies By The Roadside

Dutch Relief - I'm Pretty Sure That's The Man's Belt By The Way

We continued south on the E45, it didn’t get any better. At Todi we left the E45 and took an equally poor road to Baschi where we planned to spend the night. We found the camping ground after ignoring a satnav direction to turn onto a very narrow unsealed road. The camping ground gates were closed and there was no sign of life. It seemed it hadn’t opened for the season yet.

Jane began looking in her guide books for an alternate camping ground. While the satnav gave accurate verbal directions, the map had been freezing making it difficult to negotiate roundabouts and interchanges. While Jane was sorting out another resting place for the night, I thought I would sort out the satnav by using the ‘Rest Factory Settings’ function. We decided we should head for the camping ground just outside Rome where we stayed with Harry and Ella two years ago. While that was more than 100 km away, it wouldn’t take very long if we faced up to paying autostrada tolls. That would also avoid the bone jarring ride we had for most of the day and I was sure some of my fillings had been shaken loose. Jane entered the coordinates of another camping ground only to find the overview of our route didn’t include any autostrada. That was strange because we were near the E35 which would take us all the way to Rome. I could see that the road we were on had an intersection with the E35 at Orvieto and I was pretty sure I could find the camping ground without a satnav. Jane was absolutely furious with me saying I should have left the satnav alone.

We set off. Billy Connolly who had been doing a reasonably good job of getting us around France  and into Italy had been replaced by a female who gave a lot more information, including the names of roads where turns were required. She didn't know anything about the E35 however. I found the E35 without difficulty and headed south. Jane was still furious with me.

I pulled into a service area and reset the satnav again. Jane packed a real sad suggesting I hadn’t learnt anything from messing with the satnav the first time. She retreated to the bed saying that was it for the day, she wasn’t going any further. My second reset had done the trick, our new female guide now recognised autostrada and the map overview seemed to be correct. I gave Jane the good news, but she insisted she wasn’t leaving the bed. There was no way it would be safe for her if I drove with her in bed and I was also worried about how Mabel would handle with additional mass well behind her rear axle.

After a lot of coaxing Jane emerged from her bed and sat in frosty silence in the forward facing seats behind me. It took more coaxing to get her to put on her seat belt.

The journey to Prima Porta just outside Rome went smoothly, but without a sound from Jane. The satnav was spot on and I thought I had done the right thing.

Camping Tiber was exactly as I remembered it, but a lot busier than when we were last there. A flotilla of Dutch campervans were parked all over the place and some were blocking access to vacant pitches. We eventually found something suitable for our one night's stay.

Jane agreed with my suggestion that we should visit the bar for a drink, have a meal in the restaurant and review what had happened today. Over drinks (a negroni for me, a diet coke for Jane) I agreed resetting the satnav wasn’t the smartest thing I have ever done, but I was trying to do the right thing. Jane felt she could have handled the situation better.

Dinner was a calzone for me and steak and chips for Jane. We were friends again.

Today's Trip (441km)

Day 76: Monday 2 June - Buongiorno Italy, by Ken

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:

http://youtu.be/eDgzVr100j8

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.

No delays in the Tunnel

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.

Mabel and Smarty Reunited In Italy - South Portal of Tunnel in Background

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!

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°.

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?

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.

Set Up For The Night in Bologna

Today's Trip (473km)