We have been truly spoilt over the last week, falling upon the most beautiful locations to stop at and enjoy… so this blog is a little full of photos – for which I won’t apologise!

The last stop in France before crossing over into Italy was Bonneville (Camping Car Park 13.94 euro per night), a lovely little town in the Auvergne -Rhone-Alpes just south of Geneva. Bonneville is a typical French mountain town with a good local market, the Arve – a stunningly beautiful turqouise river which flowed through it, and a castle, all of which accompanied by the back drop of snow topped mountains made it jaw droppingly beautiful and incredibly relaxing.

We spent three days exploring the area – both up into the hills and also along the river – whilst catching up on our washing and shopping before crossing over into Italy – from previous experience, you just don’t know what you are going to find in Italy so we felt it worth being prepared….or as prepared as you can be at least!

Leaving France behind us – unfortunately being accompanied by the grey skies – we set off into the mountains to take the Mont Blanc Tunnel over into Italy. Although we knew this was going to be an expensive option, it cuts the time and distance we need to travel and obviously saves on the fuel consumption as there are less hill climbs…. it was just a shame that the cloud was so low and we couldn’t see anything as from what I understand there are some spectacular spots to stop along the route and take in the views.

10 miles of tunnel, a few hairpin bends and 195.60 euros later we were in Italy surrounded by clouds and it was raining heavily …. perhaps next time we pass this way we will be lucky enough to enjoy the views!

Our first stop was Montestrutto (Miglio 608 Camper Area 12.50 euro p/n)) a tiny village just north of Ivrea. We were the only motorhome on the aire and after setting up and having some lunch, we headed up into the hills for a walk. The rain subsided and we were left with a moody light and stunning scenary – it was a truly beautiful, tranquil area to be in with just the clanging bells from the goats ringing out across the valley.

The following day, waking to birdsong and sunshine and following a beautiful morning run along the Via Francigena, we set off into Ivrea – where my mum had spent six months on sebatical in 1969 as it was home to Olivetti. Ivrea is now a UNESCO site based on its relationship between industry and architecture based upon the Olivetti involvement in the area. Not your typical UNESCO site but interesting all the same, it is pretty enough and although most things were shut on a Monday, we had a good walk around and found a lovely place to eat gelato – so no complaints from us!

A beautiful location to stop off at with another incredible gelataria alongside the Area in Montestrutto – which naturally, we also had to try – somewhere to come back and explore further next time we are passing through.

We moved on again though as Bank Holiday was looming and following previous experiences with the Italians herding towards campsites for weekends in their masses, we had made provision for 1st May by booking ourselves into Mabellina Agricamping (62 euros p/n) just outside Desenzano del Garda.

The Campsite was nestled within the vineyards, roughly 1 mile from Lake Garda and just under 1km from a lovely little non-touristy Trattoria… so we thought it’d be rude not to try out some proper Italian cuisine whilst here.

‘Mama’ was on front of house and ‘Papa’, or I should probably say one of the ‘Papas’ was in the kitchen, and the other was on the bar. All three were welcoming but ‘Papa cook’ was incredibly animated and proud of his food – although what he was saying as he served up the seafood platter we have no idea, all we can say is that he seemed to be very happy!!

We went for simplicity and were not let down, tortellini with a meat based stuffing and pancetta for Keith and a Squash and Sage stuffing for me, both with a butter and sage sauce and a nice amount of parmasan to start, grilled seafood and a fresh salad to share for main and we both opted for Tiramasu to finish. The restaurant only had locals – young and old – I imagine something hard to find near Lake Garda.

The weather was incredibly varied over the five days we were on Lake Garda with the day we arrived being 29 degrees and almost unbearable, changing to torrential rain, then back to an agreable 23/24 degrees which was just about perfect.

My morning runs around the southern part of the lake were stunning – each day the views changed as the sky and clouds changed colours. We took the bikes out to explore Sirmione and Desenzano del Garda – the former being an incredible walled island which we weren’t expecting – lack of research on our part – although we were a little overwhelmed by the quantity of tourists as well as the number of gelatarias per sq foot! A really pretty place but slightly too full on for us, and that was on a Friday in May, not a weekend or holiday season.

Not thinking that we could surpass the beauty that we have seen over the last week – despite knowing our next destination – we finally moved further east to get to Venice (Camping Venezia Village 44 euro per night).

The campsite is located 10km outside the city and felt quite tranquil for the amount of time we actually spent there, most importantly though, Venice was easily accessible. We caught the bus in on Sunday afternoon after lunch to do a little reckie, having pre-registered online and paid our ‘tourist tax’ as you now need to do on certain dates, and set off to explore the non-central areas for fear of too many people enjoying the sunshine on a Sunday afternoon.

We were really pleasantly surprised as we managed to avoid the crowds right up until just before we left and came back towards the bus terminal. I took a huge amount of photos – of which I will only bore you with a few – most of which were completely free of people, we couldn’t have asked for more. We walked up and down the streets between canals, crossing bridges and finding little ‘Osterias’ and ‘Trattorias’ hidden away with people finishing their lazy Sunday lunch and soaking up a bit of afternoon sun.

Such a beautiful city with a wonderful shabby chic feel… it was lovely to be able to soak up the athmosphere as we walked and explored hidden corners of the city.

Whilst checking into the campsite on the Sunday we found that there was a bus and train strike between 8:30am and 16:30 the following day. Although we could get buses and trains outside these hours, it was obvious that they would be packed and as we had read that Venice is one of the most ‘unfriendly’ places for bikes that wasn’t our immediate option as it would normally have been.

You can’t take bikes further into Venice than the bus station and there weren’t any bikes chained up to railings, however whilst doing research previously we had seen that there was a secure bike storage place in one of the underground car parks so decided to try our luck.

Each box was 10 euros for 24 hours, so although not cheap for the short stay tourist like us – it was 25 euros for 30 days, which I guess would help encourage people to be ‘green’ – it meant that we could come into Venice and leave whenever we wanted to, having the confidence that the bikes were safe…. in our minds, 20 euros well spent.

Bikes parked securely, we set off to soak up more of the athmosphere and enjoy more of the beauty we had indulged the previous day.

Despite the mostly grey skies it was warm but not too hot, pleasant enough to explore the humid city without feeling overwhelmed. We walked towards St Marks Square, twisting and turning as we came to bridges and dead-ends, enjoying the architecture and noting the differences between the wealth close to it and further away.

Naturally it was busier as we got closer to St Marks Basilica and the main square, but to be honest, it really wasn’t too bad – we were lucky. We stopped for coffee and people watched which is always interesting, before continuing our walk through the market and out towards the university where once again the athmosphere changed.

Whilst people watching, and curious by the quantity of people drinking the ‘lucozade-like’ drink on the terraces- better known as Apero Spritz to most – I looked online to find that it was a drink developed in Venice in 1920’s, you learn something new every day, shame it took until 2019 to take off though!

A lovely couple of days exploring and enjoying the city along with its hustle and bustle, we are glad we finally made it after our first attempt nine years ago… apparently only about another 76 years until it will be under water and un-inhabitable.

And just to finish our short – but incredibly beautiful visit to Italy – a map of where we have been… we will try not to leave it nine years until we come back to visit this time!