11 September '05, Sunday.
We didn't make it to Torino yesterday. Boy it was a tough day, one wroung turn after another. I'm afraid that I even let my temper show a little... I don't have any idea just how many kilometers we traveled all day, but it wasn't much. Finally we pulled into Biella in search of a campground. Now Biella is a town of fair size, so we hoped that we would find a campground there. Being a Saturday, the traffic wasn't too bad. Driving through the town wasn't too much trouble either. Once we saw our first sign for the Information Center we just kept looking for the second. After a while we found the largest congregation of people and cars and there in the middle was the TI. Seeing as about half of the cars were double parked, I didn't see any reason for us not to find a parking place in a bus stop. Running, no, walking to the TI and getting our information asked and answered didn't take too long, as we only had one question to ask and we only got one answer: "Can you tell us where we might find a campground?"..."The only campgrounds are about 30 kilometers back from where you've come"... They didn't have one...It just seemed to fit the pattern of our day. There was one redeeming grace...the cars and the people that were all around this area had come for "the best ice cream cones in the city", says our host at the TI...Well after trying a big double, we agreed, they were vvveerrryyy good... Back tracking we finally found our campsite for the night. We parked right on the bank of a beautiful lake. For dinner, we decided that we just couldn't cook for ourselves, so we went into the restaurant at the campground. Dining at waters edge took some of the "edge" off of us. We needed something like that to end this day. About 4:30am I woke to hear a lot of thunder in the distance, so I got myself out of bed and went out to cover our "storage tent" with tarps, just in case it started to rain as it had in Antibes. Boy, it was a good thing that I had. About 10 minutes later, all hell broke loose. Just like Antibes, it was one hell of a storm. About 11:30 it let up enough so we could pack up and move on. Our destination was Desenzada d Garda on the shores of Lake Garda After yesterday we weren't taking any chances of getting messed up on these roads that all of a sudden change road numbers on you. We were taking no chances, we headed straight for the "pay roads" and took them all the way...damn the cost !!! Just as we were hitting Milano, we caught up with the storm that apparently had hit us earlier. Boy, once some of the cars hit the heavy rain, they either stopped completely on the side of the road, or slowed down to a crawl. This is something I didn't think I would ever see an Italian driver do...they aren't normally timid on the road...then after 8 to 10 miles of heavy rain they all got back to the "heavy foot" and "making it" down the roadway. Our campground tonight is located right on the banks of Lake Garda. After doing the normal check-in, we followed this young lady to our pitch. After we wandered around several corners filled with permanent campers and bungalows we finally we guided through a very narrow arch. We finally found ourselves in the garden area of a very old "Palacio" with the water of the lake right at our sliding door. Most of the "Palacio" has been let go, especially the garden area where we are parked, but it is absolutely beautiful...we can only imagine what it must have been in it's day. Tomorrow we will explore a little around this area of the lake and then move onto Malcesine, which is about half way up the otherside. Lake Garda is a 60 mile long lake with lots of wonderful little villages all along the banks. It would be nice to have a whole summer just to explore this lake by its self. That would be another time for us...
We didn't make it to Torino yesterday. Boy it was a tough day, one wroung turn after another. I'm afraid that I even let my temper show a little... I don't have any idea just how many kilometers we traveled all day, but it wasn't much. Finally we pulled into Biella in search of a campground. Now Biella is a town of fair size, so we hoped that we would find a campground there. Being a Saturday, the traffic wasn't too bad. Driving through the town wasn't too much trouble either. Once we saw our first sign for the Information Center we just kept looking for the second. After a while we found the largest congregation of people and cars and there in the middle was the TI. Seeing as about half of the cars were double parked, I didn't see any reason for us not to find a parking place in a bus stop. Running, no, walking to the TI and getting our information asked and answered didn't take too long, as we only had one question to ask and we only got one answer: "Can you tell us where we might find a campground?"..."The only campgrounds are about 30 kilometers back from where you've come"... They didn't have one...It just seemed to fit the pattern of our day. There was one redeeming grace...the cars and the people that were all around this area had come for "the best ice cream cones in the city", says our host at the TI...Well after trying a big double, we agreed, they were vvveerrryyy good... Back tracking we finally found our campsite for the night. We parked right on the bank of a beautiful lake. For dinner, we decided that we just couldn't cook for ourselves, so we went into the restaurant at the campground. Dining at waters edge took some of the "edge" off of us. We needed something like that to end this day. About 4:30am I woke to hear a lot of thunder in the distance, so I got myself out of bed and went out to cover our "storage tent" with tarps, just in case it started to rain as it had in Antibes. Boy, it was a good thing that I had. About 10 minutes later, all hell broke loose. Just like Antibes, it was one hell of a storm. About 11:30 it let up enough so we could pack up and move on. Our destination was Desenzada d Garda on the shores of Lake Garda After yesterday we weren't taking any chances of getting messed up on these roads that all of a sudden change road numbers on you. We were taking no chances, we headed straight for the "pay roads" and took them all the way...damn the cost !!! Just as we were hitting Milano, we caught up with the storm that apparently had hit us earlier. Boy, once some of the cars hit the heavy rain, they either stopped completely on the side of the road, or slowed down to a crawl. This is something I didn't think I would ever see an Italian driver do...they aren't normally timid on the road...then after 8 to 10 miles of heavy rain they all got back to the "heavy foot" and "making it" down the roadway. Our campground tonight is located right on the banks of Lake Garda. After doing the normal check-in, we followed this young lady to our pitch. After we wandered around several corners filled with permanent campers and bungalows we finally we guided through a very narrow arch. We finally found ourselves in the garden area of a very old "Palacio" with the water of the lake right at our sliding door. Most of the "Palacio" has been let go, especially the garden area where we are parked, but it is absolutely beautiful...we can only imagine what it must have been in it's day. Tomorrow we will explore a little around this area of the lake and then move onto Malcesine, which is about half way up the otherside. Lake Garda is a 60 mile long lake with lots of wonderful little villages all along the banks. It would be nice to have a whole summer just to explore this lake by its self. That would be another time for us...