Southern Germany to Northern Italy, 28th – 30th
April 2015
Hello readers, Jo here.
The Wallet Incident
After our overnight stay in Ottobeuren, we were fairly close
to the border into Austria, and so we could have quite easily crossed through
Austria and been somewhere in Italy, our intended destination, before the end
of the day. So we got the pots washed,
secured all the drawers and cabinets, closed all windows, and were almost good
to go. Shoes on, phones hooked up in the cab ready to charge,
wallets ready if we need them—ah, wallets.
I checked the cupboard where I had been sure I left my
wallet; it was nowhere to be seen. I
checked again, in case I missed it, but found nothing. Okay, I tell myself, it's fine. I must have confused myself about where
I placed it. I checked all of my usual
spots, but they drew up a blank too.
It’s okay, I’m not worried, everyone places their belongings in stupid
places from time to time. The cupboards
were emptied, the furniture moved, the cab checked. The area around the outside of the van
checked, in case it fell out of my pocket whilst parking the van up. No cigar.
So, we start asking ourselves, when do we definitely know I last had
it? Well, that would be a hundred miles
or so away, in Lidl car park.
This is the point where, as the kind of person who is
usually double checking her pockets before leaving anywhere to make sure she’s
not forgotten anything, I start to panic.
The Lidl shop was getting on for 24 hours ago. We check with the reception at the sports
park in case it was handed in; nothing.
We check the Lidl receipt to see if there is a contact telephone
number. Nothing. I do another round of the van, checking all
of the cupboards again, just to be sure.
I call my bank and cancel my cards, trying hard not to think about the
missing driver’s license or the fact that I’d only just topped up the number of euros I was carrying around the day before. We call the police near
the Lidl to report the wallet missing; we are asked to call back later when
someone with better English can speak to us.
With nothing further we could do right then, we set off
along our way into Austria. At some
point, we stopped for a late lunch and called the police again; this time, we
got hold of a policeman who spoke good English, and he asked us to send him an
email with full details about the missing wallet and where we think it was lost
or stolen, so after getting off the phone with him, we sent him an email with every detail
we could think of.
Camping in Biberwier, Austria
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| Motorhome parking at Alpencamp Marienberg |
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| The ski slopes were just behind us |
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By the time we were in Austria, I stopped sulking as we had
more immediate concerns, such as where we were going to sleep for the
night. In the region of Austria we were
staying in, there was only one permitted spot for free overnight parking, which
was in a parking area near a railway track, overlooked by one of the main roads
going through Austria. It probably would
have been fine for the night, but I wasn’t convinced. We didn’t really like the idea of paying for
a campsite when we knew we were arriving at night and leaving in the morning,
but with a lack of alternatives, we came away from our route at the town of
Biberwier and parked up at Alpencamp Marienberg (GPS N47.374297, E10.891375), at
€15 a night (€10 plus €2.50 pp).
Alpencamp Marienberg is set right next to a ski slope; the
snow had begun its summer meltdown a few weeks before we arrived, but
had we been visited during the winter, it would be a fantastic place to stop
for skiing. We parked up and went into
the reception, and I had to hide my delight upon hearing the man behind the
counter yodel to get the attention of his wife to come and serve us; it served
as a fantastic reminder as to exactly which region of Europe we were currently
in. Whilst he was chatting to us, he
mentioned that from tomorrow onwards the weather was supposed to clear up, making way for
lots of bright sun and clear skies. The motorhome
parking is a section just in front of the main campsite, but with access to
the campsite facilities. I didn’t use
the facilities during our short stay there, but Matt did and found the
toilet/shower blocks to be very smart and clean.
After a night in which we chased the cold weather away with
the ever-so-British Bangers and Mash and utilised the van heating, we went for
a walk around the village of Biberwier in the morning. All was quiet during our visit, probably due
to the time of year, but the village itself was pleasant enough.
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| Church in the town of Biberwier |
The Reschen Pass and Supermarket Hunting in Northern Italy
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| Snow-capped mountain views in Austria |
We didn’t have a vignette for Austria and didn't want to buy one, and so we were restricted to travelling by non-motorway roads only.
We decided to go in the direction of the Reschen Pass, which travels
through the country to the southwest, narrowly avoiding Switzerland before it
cuts down into Italy. The sun was out
and shining like the man at the campsite had said it would, and we had a very
scenic route down through the country on our way, with lots of snow-capped
mountains and lakes. The route was
twisting and there were quite a few points where we pulled over to let faster
vehicles pass us by, but the roads were very good and we had no worries about travelling
them in a larger vehicle.
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| Lake Resia, Italy |
We had a brief lunch stop after crossing the border into
Italy at Lake Resia, before carrying on through northern Italy. Northern Italy was still very mountainous,
but the main change we found in the roads was that rather than winding around
most of them, Italy loves tunnels.
Coming from the UK where tunnels are few and far between—I can only
think of Dartford off the top of my head—it seemed somewhat strange to be
spending so much time underground. But
then again, why waste time travelling around the obstacle when you can drill
into the depths of the earth?
We stopped at Bolzano briefly to fill up our water and empty
our waste tanks (GPS N46.47417, E11.32617), before making a decision about which
part of Italy we wanted to tackle first.
Venice prevailed, and so we planned to look out for somewhere to stock
up on food before heading in a general vague Venice direction. We drove around Bolzano until we found a shop
that looked vaguely like a supermarket, called Metro. Upon entering, we realised that we were, in
fact, in a cash and carry, and given that there isn’t room in a motrohome to buy and store your
cheese by the wheel, we decided we were probably not in the most appropriate place. There was a Lidl in Bolzano, but this was on
a busy road with a very busy parking area, and so a no-go for a big van. We carried on our journey, setting Crazy
Daisy to navigate to another Lidl en-route; this proved to be even more
problematic in a van, as the main parking area was underground, and we didn’t
really fancy the idea of having the top of the vehicle bisected.
It occurred to us that perhaps we should learn the names of
some other Italian supermarkets and maybe—maybe—we should depend less on
Lidls. These thoughts disappeared from
our heads when we made a food stop at Trento, where luckily there was a Lidl
with three parking bays next to each other where we could squeeze the vehicle
in and stock up, continuing our supermarket love affair.
Feltre and Venice Preparations
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| The Aire at Feltre, Italy |
Priority number one was dealt with; now all that remained
was finding somewhere to spend the night.
In our Camperstop book there was a place called Lago di Caldonazzo,
where there was a parking area that was indicated as being free overnight
parking at this time of year. Upon our
arrival, we found this to actually be a €10 fee, and given that the ticket
machine was change only and we had less than €10 in coins, we had no way of
paying. It was gone 8pm by this time and
getting dark, but there was a free Aire about an hour away in the town of
Feltre (GPS N46.02013, E14.90792), fairly close to the way we wanted to be
driving for Venice. We travelled there instead, and pulled in for the
night for a fairly late dinner before bed.
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| View from the walls at Feltre, Italy |
We discovered, upon getting ready to turn on our mobile
internet in the morning, that there was free WiFi at the spot we were staying
at. We figured that this would then make
a good spot to rest for a day, and spend some time on the internet planning the
logistics of Venice: where we would stay, how we would get there, and what we
wanted to see. We also, during the
course of the afternoon, went for a walk around Feltre, where we wandered into
the old parts of the hill town and walked along some of the old town walls.
The Wallet Incident Concludes
Whilst we were getting ready for the day in Feltre, I opened my
cupboard to pull out a clean t-shirt, and what do you know? Something drops out onto the bed. Something small, and red, and remarkably
wallet shaped, wedged between two pieces of clothing. Suddenly, I simultaneously felt very relieved
about the fact that the missing euros and driver’s license were accounted for,
and annoyed with myself for having already cancelled my cards. With the conclusion of the wallet incident,
perhaps the two takeaway parts of the story are this: do not carry more cash
than you would be upset to lose, and keeping a backup debit card somewhere
secure within the van (which I thankfully did) is always a fantastic idea.
Next stop, Venice.
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