Tuesday, 21 April 2015

From the Lake to the Sea

Tuesday 21st April. Ancona 43.59982 13.48567.

Regrettably there will be no discussion of Critical Theory today but be warned, I may return to it later! Instead I'll just tell you where we've been for the last few days.

We left Montevarchi and our friends Allende and Gramsci behind and set of for a campsite at Castiglione del Lago on Lake Trasimeno (43.13458 12.04382), a pretty campsite right next to the lake and when we arrived the lake was like a millpond. Without the mill, obviously. By the evening the wind had got up and by morning one could have surfed across the lake. We arrived on the Saturday and after setting up we had a bite to eat and then I set off on the bike to explore. I discovered a local football match and sat in the stands with fifty or so partisan supporters and enjoyed 40 minutes including four goals. Back to the campsite for the big match; FA Cup semi-final, Arsenal vs Reading. We made hard work of it but we're through to the final where we can defend our cup against Aston Villa, I'll need to find a taverna with a telly or some decent WiFi on the 30th May.

Sunday found us in Gubbio (43.35095 12.56502), a medieval town on a hillside in Umbria. Coincidentally there was a football match at the stadium next door but Phil put her foot down and it was the next day before we discovered that the local side had drawn 1-1 with their rivals and attracted a crowd of over 1,000. At the same time there was a dirt bike rally around the town and we arrived in the main square in time to see the final section which entailed the riders driving over a heap of sandstone rocks. Very big sandstone rocks. A bit like showjumping but without the refusals. Very impressive.

With Gubbio being built on a hillside it was inevitable that the best bits would be at the top of the hill. We scorned the lift and climbed up to the Duomo (Cathedral) and then to the Ducal palace which was worth the entrance fee for the wood panelled room alone. Although the room had been recreated as the original is in a museum in the USA somewhere it has been panelled in a trompe l'oeil effect which was truly amazing. Different woods being used and inlaid to create the effect.

Monday was Phil's birthday and we set off again to explore more of Gubbio. The Palace of the Consuls is a museum housing Roman archeological remains, examples of pottery and ceramic work and the Eugubine tablets which comprise seven bronze tablets dating from the 3rd - 1st centuries BC. These are described as the most remarkable epigraphic heirlooms of pre-Roman Italy. To be fair Gubbio has a fascinating history and it's interesting to walk through the alleyways between the tall limestone buildings. The city is also famous for the annual race from the Piazza Grande to the Basilica of Saint Ubaldo. The Corsa dei Ceri is held annually on the 15th May and entails three teams devoted to three saints running up the mountain carrying a statue of their Saint mounted on a timber support and weighing just over a quarter of a ton! Crowds throng the narrow roads and pathways and occasionally the statue is dropped which looks pretty scary.

 

 

After a pleasant birthday lunch we took the cable car up to the Basilica which was great fun. The cages come around and don't stop. You stand on your mark and a helper kind of throws you in, slams the cage and off you go. The views get better and better as you ascend to 900metres and look over the Apennine Mountains.

We really enjoyed our couple of days in Gubbio and would recommend it to anyone passing this way.

Today we bade farewell to the city on the hill and headed off to Ancona where tomorrow we catch the ferry to Igoumenitsa. I've hit the cash machine and we have extra cash in the event of a Greek exit from the eurozone so we should have enough money to last should they shut down the cash machines and start printing Drachmas again. I was going to say that most people following this blog will know my thoughts on the Greek financial crisis so I wasn't going to repeat them but maybe there's someone here interested in my views so here we go. I think it's a given that Greece should never have been allowed into the eurozone but if they were guilty of fiddling the books to gain entry then the folks at the ECB, IMF and in Brussels were guilty also of not auditing those accounts professionally and adequately. Tax avoidance and corruption is endemic in Greek society and this was known but in the rush to enlarge the eurozone these facts were overlooked. Now we have proud Greek people scrambling through dustbins for food, unable to obtain medicines they need, homeless in many cases and living truly miserable lives. As is always the case the folk suffering now did not cause this crisis but they are having to pay the price for the corruption that they had little part in. I find it disgraceful that there is nothing less than a humanitarian crisis occurring now in Athens and other towns and cities in Greece. Hopes were high after the election of the Syriza party in January but they are now finding that the bankers and the EU are far more formidable and resolute in their efforts to ensure Greece "toes the line" than they ever could have imagined. Whilst the bankers were happy for Greece to join the eurozone with just a cursory glance at their accounts now every proposal the Greek government suggests to "comply" with EU demands is examined in detail and then rejected. This crisis is not just about Greece repaying its debt. It's also about the EU looking at a left wing government (and a Marxist finance minister) and looking over its shoulder at elections in Spain this year. To allow concessions now to Greece would make it impossible not to allow concessions in the future to Spain, Portugal and Italy. Would the voters in those countries vote for a left wing government if Greece won concessions. Hmmm. One could say that we are living in interesting times if those times weren't so desperate and tragic for the many people suffering.

I apologise if I sometimes get a bit carried away on what is supposed to be a travel blog but we don't travel in a bubble and the day we no longer think of other people or have a humanitarian outlook or see the injustices in this world is the day to worry about us. See you all in Greece.

Pat.

 

 

Friday, 17 April 2015

Football, Marxism and the black rooster.

Friday 17th April. Montevarchi 43.53115 11.56785.

We are parked up tonight outside the Gastone Brilli Peri Stadium, once home to Montevarchi Calcio Aquila 1902. Regretably this once proud football club, which never progressed beyond Serie D, was relegated in 2011 from group E and subsequently declared bankrupt. From the graffiti it seems like the supporters were a nice bunch of lads and it's a shame they can no longer battle with their main rivals Prato, Poggibonsi and Lucchese.

The stadium was obviously renamed at some point during the 1920's or 30's after the famous Italian racing driver Count Gastone Brilli-Peri whom it is claimed had a heart of gold and a face permanently scarred after an accident during the tour of Italy motorcycle race. Count Gastone is the only racing driver I can think of to have had a hat named after him. He wore a hat similar to a flabby basque (no helmets for these boys) and today these hats are known in Italy as a brilliperi. He died in a practice run for the Gran Premio di Tripoli in 1930. The race was won by Baconin Borzacchini (a name you don't hear every day) in a Maserati.

The streets near us here are named after the usual suspects; Verdi, Puccini,Michelangelo,Da Vinci, but we are parked in a special place between Piazzale Salvador Allende and Via Antonio Gramsci. Allende was the first communist to be elected president of a South American country, Chile. That was always going to end badly with tricky Dicky in the White House and, sure enough, in 1973 Allende was deposed in a coup d'état sponsored by the USA and led by Augusto Pinochet and was assassinated by the CIA in the presidential palace. The Chilean people then endured seventeen years of a brutal military junta under Ronnie and Maggie's new best friend. We often look nowadays at Cuba as a beacon of communism with its education and healthcare reforms in spite of US sanctions. But the improvements Allende brought to the lives of poor Chileans was remarkable. Amongst other reforms Allende introduced legislation to establish the Chilean NHS, the first program in the Americas to guarantee universal health care. He was also responsible for a raft of progressive social reforms, safety laws in factories, maternity care, a minimum wage and free lunches for schoolchildren. Culture and the arts were not forgotten during this period. State sponsored music festivals and tours of folklorists were accompanied by cheap editions of great literary works produced on a weekly basis and culture came into the reach of the masses for the first time.

Talk of culture brings us nicely to our second hero - Antonio Gramsci, one of, if not the most important Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century.

His theory of Cultural Hegemony is relevant today and suggests that Capitalism maintains control not just through political and economic coercion but by establishing a hegemonic culture whereby bourgeois norms and values become "common sense" values of all. Working class folk then identify their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie and help to maintain the status quo. A tragic analysis when you think about it. There is much more to Gramsci's analysis than that outline. He also critiqued economic determinism, the pessimistic, fatalistic interpretation of Marx. Of course, our fat friend Benito and his fascists were having none of this and in 1926 Antonio was sentenced to five years in confinement on the island of Ustica and a year later sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. During this time he wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3000 pages of history and analysis. He died in 1937 aged 46. He's one of Alexie Sayle's heros I believe which puts me in good company. We feel safe tonight with the spirits of these two men looking over us.

Our journey today in Tuscany took us through Chianti country and of course we had to stop and buy a bottle from a vineyard. When we stop at vineyards in France we usually buy more than a bottle but we made the mistake of stopping at a vineyard producing Chianti Classico, identified by the black rooster seal on the neck of the bottle, and at the outrageous price felt we could only splash out on the one bottle and that was the cheapest in the vineyard! Recommended with pasta we were advised and as we had bought some ravioli yesterday that's what we had it with. We weren't too sure what the ravioli filling was so we translated the packaging with the aid of the word lens app. I'm sure something was lost in the translation because I'm pretty sure we weren't really eating "sweet anus". I can report, however, that both the ravioli and the wine were delicious.

Pat

 

Noises in the night

14th April Santa Margherita Ligure 44.33629 9.19498.

We are parked up tonight between a football stadium and a busy, noisy railway line but we are glad to be here. Our plan this morning was to drive to Genova and stay the day, parking for the night at a Sosta shown in one of our guides. After battling through the traffic we arrived to discover the Sosta no longer exists. No problem, we had a plan B which was to stop just beyond Genoa at Bogliasco at either of the two Sostas there, but they didn't exist either. We are at plan C which apart from the van shaking every time a train goes by was a good choice because we are a twenty minute walk down to a delightful harbour town. We've followed the coast road since we arrived in Italy passing through small resort towns and the drive has been pretty enough but slow going. It took us four hours today to travel seventy miles; most of the roads have a 50kph speed limit and there are lots of traffic lights

16th April Lucca 43.85077 10.48623.

I mentioned above that our stop a couple of days ago was next to a railway line. We thought the trains would stop at some point but they didn't. Freight trains ran all night and woke us up every time one went past. But it wasn't just the trains that disturbed our sleep, we also had to contend with barking dogs, a clucking chicken (yes, at 11.30pm), a donkey an owl and two sets of church bells both ringing the hour and chiming the quarters. Of course a blackbird woke us up in the morning. Probably a place we won't stop at again. Last night we stopped at Levanto 44.17412 9.61785 (next to another railway line I kid you not) it's a sleepy little coastal town that looks like it could be busy in the summer months. We walked up to the medieval castle which the guide books said was extremely well preserved and well worth a visit. Unfortunately the castle is now a private house, well private castle to be accurate, with tall trees obscuring three sides and a high wall on the remaining side so not much to see at all really.

Today for the first time since leaving England we took a toll motorway because I was fed up of spending half the day up and down hills negotiating hairpin bends. I never thought I would type such a sentence as that but the reality is that whilst driving over mountains affords some of the best scenery it is tiring and after a couple of days I felt like a change and some easy driving. We chose Lucca as a stopping point for two reasons. Firstly, because if you look at it on the map it is shown as being completely surrounded by greenery and looked intriguing and secondly and rather more mundanely, we needed a campsite with a washing machine. I won't mention how much they charge here but the guy on reception really should be wearing a mask and a striped jumper. As it is he has the air of a man who learnt his customer service skills at a funeral director's. I suppose telling us the overnight rates in hushed tones whilst wringing his hands and contorting his face to an expression of such sorrow made a change from the usual smirk. Anyway, Lucca is surrounded by greenery because it still has it's original ramparts and gates and entrance archways and fields all around. Founded by the Etruscans and becoming a Roman colony in 180 BC the city has a long and intriguing history. Once in the town it's a maze of narrow streets and courtyards and mostly pedestrianised. The cathedral of St Michele dominates the main piazza and although many of the streets are full of designer shops and expensive restaurants the smaller piazzas were charming and if it wasn't for the telephone cables strung above and the glass fronts to the shops the place would look the same as it was built centuries ago. Tall buildings with louvred shutters, ancient archways and massive old wooden doors. The birthplace of Giacomo Pucini is suitably adorned with statues of the composer and there are plenty of colleges with music drifting out of the windows as we wandered past. It's certainly a place we would visit again if we passed this way.

The Cathedral at Lucca.

 

The folk commemorated on the facade.

This way to Puccini's head.

Lucca's doors.

 

 

Tomorrow we set off for Montevarchi where rumour has it we will have a free overnight stop which is as good a reason as any to visit.

Pat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, 13 April 2015

Italy

Monday 13th April. Finale Ligure 44.16529 8.33786.

We like Finale Ligure, we stopped here last year in early summer and the small seaside town was very busy. Today was the reverse, all the shops and most of the bars and restaurants were closed as it's Monday. We were looking forward to lunch in the local Osteria but it was closed too, as were all the bakers, so we wandered to the town square for a cold beer. The bowl of crisps was a nice touch, as was the complimentary plate of antipasto but we all know that there's no such thing a a free lunch. Two small beers - €6, ouch. But never mind, the square was pretty, the sun was shining and all was well with the world.

We came back to the Sosta where we had parked and were quickly relieved of €18 by the attendant which was another ouch moment. It's the most we've paid for an overnight stop since we left England and it's not even a campsite but it is located next to the sea so I took the opportunity for a bit of fishing this afternoon. No luck and so the seafood with pasta which I'll shortly be preparing is from the freezer. Phil took the opportunity for a bit of sunbathing but I'm sure she was secretly admiring her hunter/gatherer out of the corner of her eye.

Last night we stopped at San Remo in what is basically a large car park with the Motorhome services a quarter of a mile away (43.80329 7.74737) and as it was Sunday decided against walking in to town. But the town has a great cycle path that follows the coast line for miles so I gave my bike its first real outing. The path was busy with lots of families enjoying the warm sunshine and I managed twelve miles without knocking anyone over or falling off, scared a few folk, mind. Legs were a bit jellyish when I got back but I slept well last night. It's just as well there was a cycle track because I wouldn't dare ride my bike on the roads around these parts. When we left Nice yesterday it seemed that every cycling club in France had turned up for a spin, together with everybody in the area who owned a high powered motorcycle. Add to this the rubbish standard of French drivers (yes, I know I'm generalising but can only speak from experience) and I feared for their safety a few times but we didn't see any accidents. Here in Italy there are as many cyclists and also billions of scooters. My strategy in the Motorhome is to follow my line and trust in the skill of the boys and girls buzzing around me on their scooters. It's worked ok so far and although I'm fairly confident the thought of riding my bike round here scares the life out of me.

We've been blessed with some great weather since we reached Provence and now we are in Italy it's really warming up. Plenty of folk on the beach today in cossies and I'm back in shorts and flip flops, yay.

Here's where are.

 

Pat

 

Saturday, 11 April 2015

Provence and the Cote D'Azur

Saturday 11th April. Castellane 43.84613 6.51534 and St-Laurent-du-Var 43.68538 7.18530

We've spent the last day and a half in Castellane, rafting and hippy central. I've always thought that rafters, climbers and potholers were hippies with muscles and a work ethic. Anyway, they tolerate us old folk and we bought some nice salad ingredients yesterday at the bio vegetable shop and some out of date sheep's yoghurt which the nice lady didn't want to sell to us. I said we would take our chances as it was only a few days out of date and she reluctantly knocked a few cents of the price and slipped it into our bag. Before we could embark on this epic shopping trip however we had to tidy and clean the van. Well, that's 15minutes we'll never get back again. Five minutes to tidy and ten minutes to clean. Castellane also boasts a laundrette and we took the opportunity to catch up on the washing. It all sounds a bit mundane doesn't it, but the drive from Banon was anything but. First scouting around the Montagne De Lure through tiny ancient villages and then from just south of Digne-les-Bains climbing up over the Col des Leques at just over one thousand metres before dropping down into Castellane. Today was market day and before setting off we bought some asparagus, fresh ravioli and goats cheese so that's tonight's dinner sorted.

We had planned to stop in Antibes tonight after first stopping for a look around in Grasse, the perfume capital of France if not the world. The drive over the lower Alps was again spectacular, part of the Route de Napoleon, and I guess it wouldn't have been too hard for him, sat on a horse as he probably was, but it must have been gruelling for his foot soldiers. The highest point was nearly twelve hundred metres. The road is popular with motorcyclists too and they roared past us on the hairpins and had vanished before we could blink, exciting stuff. Unfortunately all the car parks we came across in Grasse had height barriers so we didn't stop but pushed on a bit further to Antibes where we knew there was an LPG station. Now, I don't have to fill up too often with LPG, I've got two 18kg tanks, but we were down to half a tank so we pulled in to the filling station. I've got all the adaptors for different filler nozzles for different countries but it's always a hassle at LPG pumps. Today was no exception and, once again, someone had to come out of the office to help me fill up. Is it just me? Do other folk have these problems? Anyway, all gassed up and off we went to the Aire de service at Antibes. The car park, and that's all it is, a car park, was outside Marine World which, presumably is why they wanted to charge me €24 for an overnight stay plus €3 for water!!! We politely declined their kind invitation and drove another five minutes to where we are now, another car park with water and it's free.

We didn't want to stay at too many of the places we'd stopped at before but Banon was a "must stop" because of the bistro, Castellane because of the laundrette and here at St Laurent-du-Var because we weren't going to pay €27 for the privilege of stopping in Antibes! Tomorrow we were going to visit Sospel on the old royal road between Nice and Turin but after a bit of research discovered that it was pretty much flattened by the Germans during WW2 and there's not too much left of interest now so tomorrow we'll cross the border into Italy heading for San Remo (we've been there before also). The Cote D'Azur between Cannes and the Italian border has all "those" places - Antibes, Nice, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Monaco, Monte Carlo beloved of novelists and playboys but the traffic is horrendous, there's never anywhere to park and the whole area is pretty Motorhome unfriendly. I guess we should have come here in the fifties but as we were just toddlers then I doubt we would have appreciated it but anyway I doubt that we'll come back this way again.

No pics today, poor 3G

Pat

Thursday, 9 April 2015

Heading South

Monday 6th April Tournon-sur-Rhone 45.07337 4.82163.

We left St Etienne this afternoon after a weekend of celebrations. My eldest grandson celebrated his 18th Birthday and my eldest granddaughter celebrated her 15th. All our family and an aunt and uncle came over from England and we stopped the weekend at a boarding school with access to the kitchens and dining room and once we had finished decorating the room we had a superb dining room/dance floor. My French son-in-law is a great guitar player and the birthday boy plays bass, together with the singer and drummer they play regularly with,we had a great band. There were over sixty guests from all over France and England and a great time was had by all. If you told me I would be going to bed at 3.30am after dancing for a couple of hours to a mix of heavy rock and Russian techno I wouldn't have believed you but the challenge was on to outdance my grandson's friends and we nearly did it. Nearly. But those kids had 50yrs on us so it was no disgrace to leave them to it in the wee small hours.

Today we travelled from St Etienne along the D8,D2,D82 and D86 which was a beautiful drive through some lovely countryside. Rising to 1000m where there was still some snow and then down to follow the Rhone to Tournon-sur-Rhone where we are parked up for the night. Our plan for the next few days is to head further south to Provence and then follow the Mediterranean coast around to Italy. We have a couple of weeks before we leave Ancona on the ferry bound for Igoumenitsa. Today has been a beautiful sunny day although the wind is chilly but the forecast is for sunshine for the next week or so and we should be hitting 20deg in a few days time.

No scenic photos today but here's one of the family.

 

Wednesday 8th April. Banon 44.03980 5.62969.

We stopped here in Banon in August last year and had a delicious meal at a Bistro, Les Vins au Vert and as we were heading this way decided to stop and sample the menu again. The establishment is also a Cave a vins and the proprietor, Pierre Edouard, knows his wines. The plat du jour is served on a large slate and today comprised of truffle flavoured ham, Lyon fennel flavoured saucisse, corn soup, a vegetable flan, sardine pate, two types of goats cheese, pannacota with raspberry coulis, chilled creme anglais flavoured with apricot and pineapple and a mini gingerbread cake, mmmmmm!! We let Pierre choose our wines and he didn't put a foot or a glass wrong. Pierre and his wife remembered us from our last visit and when we got chatting they told us they had sold the Bistro and were looking to buy a vineyard a little further south in Le Luberon. Lovely people and we wish them well in their next venture.

Last night we stopped at Saint-Paul-Tres-Chateaux, just on the edge of the medieval town (44.347512 4.770146) and overlooked by the Alps. We arrived just as the weekly market was packing up but managed to buy a rotisserie'd chicken and then wander around the old town and visited the Cathedrale Notre-Dame which was possibly the smallest Cathedral we've visited but all the more impressive as although it was built in the C12th and C13th it still had some mosaics and frescos from an earlier church and reused some Roman building materials. It was a simple but majestic cathedral with a human scale; a building in which you could pray and worship and, I think, all the better for the absence of the ornate decorations usually seen in the larger cathedrals which I think serve not as a tribute to God but as a reflection of the wealth, power and arrogance of those who commissioned those buildings.

Cathedral Notre Dame.

The plan today was to drive along through the vineyards of the Cote du Rhone and then up and over Mont Ventoux. The first half of the journey went according to plan and we enjoyed some fantastic scenery with the vineyards sloping up to small villages and buildings in a honey coloured stone but as we left Malaucene and started our ascent the signs informed us that the road was ferme. A quick five point turn and we retraced our route before skirting the mountain to the north along the D40. The vineyards gave way to lavender fields and the scenery screamed Provence!! This region is probably our favourite in France, the mountains, rivers and gorges together with the fields of vines and lavender are just so beautiful and the smaller towns and villages beg to be explored. Of course the weather helps and as we've travelled further south over the last few days we've enjoyed blue skies and sunshine. I think tomorrow it might be time to get the shorts out of the wardrobe.

Cote du Rhone vineyards with the Alps in the distance.

Maybe the white stuff on top is why we couldn't go over the mountain today?

 

Pat

 

 

Wednesday, 1 April 2015

Hospitals and Mustard

Tuesday 31st March. Cormot-Le-Grand 46.96191 4.64267.

First stop today was a visit to the Hotel-Dieu des Hospices Civils de Beaune. A hospital established in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to the Duke of Burgundy and his wife Guigone de Salis. The concept, founding charter and construction are equally impressive and although much of the original internal furnishings and tapestrys have been lost, a reconstruction in the 19th Century was carried out according to the original plans. The barrel vaulted Grande Salle with it's painted beams and 30 hospital beds is looked over by a chapel which could be screened off to avoid the patients observing the funerals of those beyond the help of the nurses and physicians. Rolin insisted the hospital be built over the river to provide fresh water and to carry away waste and this idea contributed to the escalating costs of construction as vaults were built to channel the river under the building. A fascinating couple of hours and well worth the entrance fee especially as the audio guides were included in the price.

The Hospital.

Plat de Jour at a local bistro, back to the van for dry clothes as it rained all day and then off to the Fallot mustard company's factory for our 3pm tour. Unfortunately the lass in the tourist office had marked the location in the wrong place on the map so it took us a while to find the factory and joined the tour ten minutes late. Never mind, we only missed the explanation of the life cycle of a mustard plant and enjoyed the rest of the tour, discovering that the name "Dijon mustard" cannot be protected and consequently the vast majority of the Dijon mustard we buy is in fact produced from Canadian mustard seeds and probably produced in Canada. The city of Dijon has three remaining mustard factories producing some 85,000 tons of the stuff but our little factory in Beaune, which still mills seeds using mustard seeds only from Bourgogne manufactures just a couple of tons per year. If you want the real stuff, which is delicious, look out for Moutard de Bourgogne which is a protected name and must contain only certain ingredients. And keep your mustard in the fridge! Keep it in a cupboard and it will soon lose it's flavour. We were given a few small complementary jars and also bought some more with interesting flavours as well. I must admit that the generic Dijon mustard we've been buying in supermarkets for years was pretty insipid and lack lustre compared to the mustard we tasted today.

Only 6,000 deliveries per year.

 

A short drive brought us back to a pretty parking spot next to a babbling brook in Cormot-Le-Grand, a vineyard which is part of the France Passion scheme. Unfortunately the owners of Domaine Boisson are nowhere to be found at present. I hope they turn up before we leave so I can make a purchase of their delicious Crement de Bourgogne.

Wednesday 1st April St Etienne.

Madame Boisson was found this morning and kindly sold us some wine and then it was off to St Etienne to stay with our daughter and her family for a few days. It's her eldest son's 18th birthday today and a party has been planned for this Saturday. It's the first time all our family will have been together for a few years and so we are all looking forward to getting together and celebrating the birthday.

The last time we came here in the Motorhome I managed to smash one of our windows whilst reversing into my daughter's courtyard. It was a very expensive and time consuming process finding another one so we decided against parking in the courtyard this time. There are a few fought over parking spaces outside the house and the plan was that we would arrive and our daughter and her husband would move their cars and I would have a parking space. Good plan. I arrived but as they were moving their cars I was blocking the road and had to pull over next to some bollards to allow a car to pass but unfortunately the bollards fought back and for the second time some expensive damage was done to the Motorhome.

 

If we ever come back here I'm catching the train!!! It looks like the Zampetas brothers in Greece will have some more business from me in a few weeks time.

Pat