Week 32: Drive, eat, sleep, repeat!
- Apr 10, 2022
- 10 min read
Our stops this week:
1 night at the Camping Aire in Le Val (in France)
1 night at the Camping Aire in Ovada (in Italy)
1 night at the Camping Aire in Padova (in Italy)
4 nights at the Camping Aminess Sirena (in Croatia)
The last week has been a busy one (and this is the longest blog post I've written yet)... after dropping Pat off at Alicante airport, we’ve driven just over 2,000km through France, Italy and Slovenia to reach the Isteria coast in Croatia.
We’ve probably mentioned this before… but the reason we have decided to visit Croatia, aside from having heard lots of good things about the country, is that it is outside of the Schengen zone. Following Brexit we are only allowed to spend 90 days inside the Schengen zone in every 180 days… and as the Schengen zone covers almost all of Europe we had to either head back to the UK, leave Europe (Morocco and Turkey were driveable options but not places we fancied visiting in the van), or find one of the few places inside the EU but not inside the Schengen zone, such as Croatia.
We know how lucky we are to be travelling for so long but why anyone ever wanted to give up the chance to live, work and travel across all of Europe without limits or restrictions is totally beyond me… I just hope the Brexiteers are appreciating their reclaimed sovereignty (sorry rant officially now over)!!
This last week has had two distinct parts for us, the first was driving, driving and more driving and the second was stopping, relaxing and enjoying some rest! We decided before we left Spain to try and limit our time on the road to around four hours each day, mainly for Bear’s benefit as he has to travel in a crate and it’s not his idea of a good time, he’d much rather be out walking or snoozing in the van, without all the noise and shaking on the road.
As soon as we entered France we immediately noticed how busy and narrow the roads felt after two months in Spain, but after a couple of hours it started to feel normal again. The route for the first day in France was pretty straight forwards and a little boring as we stuck to the main toll roads along the coast towards Toulon, although we got the occasional glimpse of the mountains in the distance. We stopped in a very typical small French town called Le Val, with some lovely old buildings, narrow streets and the mandatory boulangerie, tabac, and bar. The temperature overnight really dropped and it was a bit of a shock to the system, we even had frost in the morning but luckily no ice inside the van this time!
The next morning we decided to have an early-ish start, the alarm was set for 7am but by the time we’d got up, had breakfast, sorted out the van- filling up the fresh water tank and emptying the waste tanks, walking Bear and filling up with diesel it was around 9 o’clock before we hit the road.
The journey was off to a good start, we were back on the main toll road along the coast with bright blue clear skies and the occasional glimpse of the sparkling Mediterranean Sea. About an hour after setting off the satnav told us to take the next exit… without really thinking, I followed satnav’s instructions and a few minutes later wished I hadn’t! We found ourselves in a busy suburb just outside of Nice with traffic coming at us from all directions! We decided to stop at the next safe place and check the satnav route, yep… all on its own and without warning satnav had decided that instead of sticking to the nice, easy, free flowing motorway we should take a scenic route via the centre of Nice to save two whole minutes on a four hour journey!! I was a little annoyed to say the least and I think Bear may have learnt a few new words… although he has promised not to repeat any of them.
We’ve got a Garmin satnav which is specifically designed for motorhomes, you enter the dimensions of your vehicle and it avoids things like low bridges and narrow roads. We’ve had it for four years and used it for over 20,000 miles and until now it’s been brilliant, but for some reason the satnav decided that now was the time to start getting more creative with our routes! We decided to go belt and braces for the rest of the trip and used google maps on our phone in addition to the satnav and this definitely helped to avoid any random turns, as well as my mood!
The route along the French riviera is really spectacular but as we had decided to push on for Croatia it was a bit like doing a sight-seeing trip of the Lake District without ever leaving the M6! Still, it was great to see road signs for exciting places like San Tropez, Cannes and Monaco as we sped by in the glorious sunshine.
We stopped again just before the Italian border to stretch our legs, get some fresh air and check we had our passports and covid passes to hand… not that we needed them, the only thing that was required was a credit card to pay the eye-watering toll charges before we were allowed to leave France.
We had both been feeling a little bit of trepidation about driving in Italy, we’ve travelled quite extensively in Italy before but always by train and bus… the only time we’ve travelled in a car in Italy was on holiday with some friends and it was such a long time ago that neither of us were allowed to drive the hire car, as you had to be over 25… Jon if you’re reading this thanks for doing all the driving back then… oh and thanks also to Donna, for successfully negotiating (bribing?) the guy at the toll booth when we lost our toll ticket!
I expected to be surrounded by crazy Italian drivers in Fiats, Alfa Romeos and the odd Ferrari honking their horns and making random manoeuvres, in fact the traffic was calm and steady… we only got honked at twice and I admit that one of these was probably justified… I was being a little optimistic about the size and acceleration of the van as two sections of motorway merged, still no harm no foul!
The main thing we noticed about the roads in this part of Italy is that they are either nearly all on bridges or in tunnels and they have very narrow lanes, so it takes a lot of concentration, especially with a constant flow of overtaking cars and lorries, who don’t seem to take any interest in the speed limits.
The other thing we noticed was that the Italians really really like road works, without exaggeration we must have passed through 20 (maybe even 30) separate sets of road works in about 200 kilometres. Most of the time it was just to drive past a few miles of traffic cones, we didn’t see any actual ‘work’ taking place, despite the occasional sign in English informing us of the “Men at work”… surely that’s not very inclusive anyway? Yvette particularly enjoyed the mountainous roads and impossible looking bridges spanning the valleys!
A small selection of Italian roadworks... hard to choose a favourite!
In lots of ways travelling through multiple countries and switching between languages from one day to the next is all part of the fun, but it’s also quite challenging and confusing. We got a particularly strange look from the French policeman as he handed back our passports and Yvette said “Gracias”!
When planning the route through Italy I had deliberately chosen overnight stops that were close to our route and not far off the main roads, sometimes the nicest campsites are the hardest to find and often the hardest to get to, down small, remote, twisty roads and knowing that we would be looking for them at the end of a long days driving we just wanted something easy to find and functional for a quick overnight stop.
We arrived at the first aire in Italy feeling totally exhausted. We’ve driven long distances in the van lots of times before and whilst it’s not as comfy, or as quiet as travelling in a car we've always found it very comfortable and relaxing, but this was the first time we felt physically tired from driving… we both felt tight across our necks and shoulders from all the concentration and never letting go of the steering wheel in case the next overtaking lorry caused a gust of wind that might push us out of our lane!
We were also felt mentally drained... we parked up at the aire and spent the next hour sat in the back of the van in virtual silence, starring out of the window! I felt like I had just sat a five hour driving test! Yvette eventually decided she needed some retail therapy and went off in search of the local supermarket, whilst I took Bear out for a walk by the river. Yvette returned later with a big smile on her face and with plenty of 'essentials' to re-stock our food supplies, including some Haribo fizzy cola bottles!
I guess every country has their own national driving habits, and if the Spanish trait is to never use the inside lane of a roundabout (or indicators)… the Italian trait seems to be slip-road blindness. The general approach when joining a main road from a slip road in Italy seems to be to stare straight ahead, accelerate and hope for the best! Some Italian drivers vary the approach a little and prefer to look at their mobile or light a cigarette, instead of staring straight ahead, I think pretty much anything goes, providing you don’t look in your mirrors or contemplate turning your head to check for cars. This is pretty disconcerting when you’re travelling down the inside lane of a dual carriageway with constant stream of cars overtaking at much faster speeds and a lorry decides to join from the slip-road… still we soon got used to it and managed to avoid any actual contact. I'm not suggesting British drivers are any better, I'm just not sure what our national driving trait is... maybe it's impatience and a universal lack of respect for cyclists??
The second day driving through Italy was much easier going, the landscape was less mountainous with hardly any tunnels or bridges and the lanes seemed to be a little wider. Occasionally the two lane dual carriage way, turned into a three lane dual carriage way, although the actual road wasn’t any wider, they just seem to paint each lane a little narrower to fit the extra one in! We should try this at home, it would save all that messing about with smart motorways!
The next day was the big one… we had about two hours left to drive in Italy, before we crossed the border into Slovenia, then a short distance across Slovenia to the border with Croatia and out of the Schengen zone. We'd spent quite a lot of time checking out what we needed to do for each crossing… did Slovenia or Croatia have any covid travel restrictions? Did we need covid passes, or proof of negative test? Did Bear need anything other than his passport? Did we have to buy a vignette (toll pass) before entering Slovenia or Croatia? Could we cross at any border point (some are reserved for EU nationals)? Did we need some Croatian cash, as they don’t use the Euro (but will very soon)? … in short, it all went fine, we registered our details on the Croatian Covid website, purchased an online vignette for Slovenia and set off. The border between Italy and Slovenia was virtually non-existent, there were a few empty booths with a sign that said “Don’t stop!” so we didn’t.
The next border crossing between Slovenia and Croatia was manned (well woman’ed??)… the first lady looked entirely disinterested, took our passports and flicked through the pages. Yvette explained, using google translate, that we need a Schengen exit stamp in our passports to prove that we haven’t overstayed the 90 days… another lady then appeared and said “so you are leaving the UK?” we kind of knew what she meant so we nodded and smiled, she then disappeared with our passports into another booth to do something, not quite sure what, before handing them back to the first lady to stamp… all sorted! We offered them Bear’s passport, as we wanted to check that the Spanish passport we picked up recently is ok but they didn’t even want to look at it, so that was it… we had made it to Croatia!
We only had a short drive of about 20km into Croatia before we arrived at the campsite, as we pulled up, we both instantly felt a sense of calm and relaxation. We received a warm welcome at reception, everything looked perfect… it is a large campsite, with just a handful of other vans here, the pitches are in a Pine forest with a view of the sea! Even better the beach is rocky not sandy… Yvette hates the sand, although I can’t say the same for Bear!
Arriving at our first stop in Croatia...
The campsite is one of the best equipped we have ever stayed at, it is part of a resort with a hotel and shares large grounds with tennis courts, swimming pools, bars and restaurants, plus it’s just a ten minute walk along the beach to the stunning town of Novigrad.
We spent the next few days relaxing and unwinding after a long week on the road, the weather has been good so far, mainly sunny and warm, although we had a thunder storm on Saturday evening... although there are more sunny days in the forecast. Bear thoroughly enjoyed not having to get in his travel crate each day and having plenty of long walks through the woods and along the beach.
Exploring the old town of Novigrad and the local area
Yvette and I have been out for a few bike rides along the coast road, to explore the area, unfortunately Bear still isn't really enjoying his trailer/chariot but we're not quite ready to give up with it yet.
On Friday we treated ourselves to lunch in town to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. Yvette had pizza - the vegetarian go to choice all over the world and I had schnitzel… it was really good, although clearly not as good as my Austrian grandmothers’ recipe. Bear didn’t have anything to compare it to, but he seemed to enjoy the schnitzel that I smuggled back to the van for him.
Although we’ve only seen one campsite and one town in Croatia so far, we’ve had a great start to this stage of our trip and we’re thoroughly looking forward to exploring and seeing more of the country.
Some strange creatures we found at the campsite...
Bear exploring the rock pools
More walks... and some more of Bear!
Enjoy Croatia and the lovely sunshine happy memories