Hills, Vineyards and Olive Trees - We are in Tuscany

Left Rome and headed north - the roads are a nightmare - potholes and dodgy Italian drivers that are either REALLY slow or REALLY fast!!

 

Whilst driving through Tuscany we saw a lovely house with rows of pointy trees up the drive and thought we'd pull over and take a photo – we wonder who lives here?!

Some other cars stopped but then drove away - a minute later 2 guys in black suits, one with a gun, came down and told us to move on shouting, we think - "fuck off paparazzi" - we think D might have scared them when he got his binoculars out!! So jumped back in Vannie and went off super quick! We have had a Mafia Godfather moment on the tour!!!

The Tuscany countryside is lovely – rolling hills, vineyards, olive trees and lots of the pointy trees!

Vannie coped with the roads and mad drivers and we arrived at a site south of Siena with fab views over the Tuscan hills and an awesome pool and jacuzzi.

 

And what a bonus - it has free Wifi!!!! Never been found before so we are hammering it! 

 Gadget Van

How many gadgets can we have? We are forever charging things as soon as we have leccy and Wifi.

2 iphones – new Ipad – Ipad keyboard - laptop – Kindle – D’s tablet - Mogs running watch – Mogs running ipod shuffle - D’s new toy is the Sat dish to try and pick up some TV channels on Vannie’s computer – he hovers outside the van with bits of wire, spinning the dish and looking very geeky! He loves pottering BUT we have 100 channels….of shit

M: It’s Sat night – can you find BGT?!!  D: Nah got some German porn though?!!

We even found use for another plug in Vannie's boot at this site as we can log on the laptop, phone and Ipad at the same time so needed extra leads - the Dutch were very impressed!!

A one night stop at this site turned into 4 probably due to the free wifi as we have really struggled with wifi till now - plus it was a really chilled place and the little village was very 'Italian' and rural - but they had everything there even a barber shop - D headed there in need of a haircut with his new golden brown look and came back with a very chic Italian hair do - gel, smells and all sorts!!! By the time M went to take a pic he'd messed it all up!

Beer stop at a local bar in the village

 

The Barbers!

 

 

Siena

A beautiful medieval town with a wall round it and lots of windy streets.  Twice a year there’s a bare back riding horse race round the square which sounded really wild but it was in a week’s time and we weren’t staying in the area that long.

 

We've tried to upload a video of Siena square but not happening!!

 

The Square in Siena

 

 

The Cathedral

 

 

Vineyard Stopover

 

A vineyard stopover had to be done in the Chianti wine region so Mogs found one that let campervans stay in a ‘camping area’

www.casalewines.com

Only trouble was the Sat nav co-ordinations weren’t right for it and we found ourselves in some old run down farmhouse with a strange old Italian lady who glared at us as she fed her cat – made a quick exit and eventually found a very small sign for a vineyard – followed it down even smaller lanes

D: Where we going Mogs?!!

M: We’re nearly there – I think! (not having a clue!)

Found it in the middle of nowhere but a lovely spot and a real authentic Italian vineyard that exports wine all over the world. Giovanni the owner was a real character (reminded Dave of Ziggy in Halwill) - we tasted a few of the wines – well nice wine proper job – 2 bottles bought and a wine box packed that day straight from the cellar – essential provisions for the next part of the trip (says Mogs)

The ‘camping area’ here turned out to be down a tiny lane and under a big oak tree in the woods – dark as a badger and we were the only ones there apart from millions of bugs – scary stuff but the wine chilled us out!!

Mogs and Giovanni tasting the wine – as you do!

 

 Mountanes

 

Vineyard done, we made our way towards Lake Garda and Mogs found another stopover site that she thought looked cool – way up in the Tuscany mountains - it turned out to be very cool in fact bloody cold as it was so high up so we headed down after one night!  If it’s cold or wet, we move on but lovely view from the top.

 

 Lake Garda

We found Lake Garda beautiful but BUSY- we were by a lovely beach looking onto the lakes and mountains behind with snow tops – we had been looking forward to Lake Garda but were a bit disappointed as it was so busy and every site was full - with signs all round the area that campervans weren’t allowed to park – but it was a stunning lake.

 

 

 

 

 

The only campsite we could get in (and that was only available for one night) was very Hi di Hi – 1500 people on one site – and hundreds of sites round the lake. Least we didn’t get bitten here as there was enough ‘go lightly’ meat for the mozzies – D recognised a few people from his favourite Jeremy Kyle show!!  We would have stayed longer as the lake was lovely, and Mogs had a fab morning run round some of the lake, but we couldn’t stand the crowds and couldn’t park anywhere!

Time to move on to Venice…..