“Carry On Wayward Son”

We set the sextant, aligned the charts and set off on a north westerly bearing for the long drive home across Europe to England, with the plan to sell Ollie Bernard Vladimir McTavish Ludwig Camper Van Bake Oven on arrival.

Before we left the area we stopped in to visit Kate Cartwight, an old friend from Claygate and Esher College days, who now lives in the town of Meldola with her two boys Luis and Thom. We stayed close by in the beautiful town of Bertinoro at a warm and cozy agrotourismo owned by Kate’s friend Betta. http://www.lacanadolce.com/chisiamo.htm

Bettas farm - a lovely place to stay unless you have a campervan

Although Betta was away in Peru we were treated like family by her lovely parents, and we got some quality animal time with Mingo the dog and Pilou & Deena the cats. Betta’s mum Lorena offered us a crate of fresh persimmons from her orchard in exchange for adopting Jule….(it was tempting but after careful negotiation in broken Italian we were able to leave with a camper full of fruit AND both children)

Mingo - destroyer of footballs

We had a great time with Kate and the boys, proper cups of tea, giggles and chats were thoroughly enjoyed. We got to meet and dine with her British friends Thad and Chris (hope the tooth replacement went smoothly Thad), and we went to the cinema to see Tintin in Italian complete with a whispered running synopsis of the story by Kate.

Kate, Thad and Chris (top) Luis and Thom (bottom)

It has been a while since we reported on the thrilling misadventures of our camper van. He has been behaving well mechanically (touch wood) but the road to Betta’s farm was long and steep, and proved to be too much for an underpowered, overweight, rear wheel driven van . To cut a long story short we managed to get down the hill with no problem but we couldn’t get back up the hill without smoke and spinning tires, so the next day Bettas’ dad kindly called his neighbor with a tractor to help get us out.

Once the tow out started it was a slow but otherwise effortless extraction and we were amazed at how incredibly powerful a tractor can be. The best thing about it was that the tractor was made by Lamborgini AND driven by a bloke who looked like he should have been one of the Rolling Stones.

Towed out by Charle Watts in his Lamborghini

 

“When In Rome”

Rome was one of the places that was on Jules “bucket list”, and as we had made it this far into Italy it felt criminal not to go and experience all the history and magic of this city.

Parking and affordable accommodation inside Rome are an issue, however, so we decided to stay at a wonderful, bed bug free agriturismo farm in Monterotondo, which was about thirty minutes by train outside of Rome http://www.fontedipapa.com/agriturismo-roma-farm-stay.asp?l=eng. It was only a four day stay but due to Ollie’s size (and one small but VERY annoying bridge), it took us about four days to finally figure out the best route from the train station to the farm.  Travelers tip -Italian drivers on their way to work tend to get very upset when you cause a long line of traffic by trying to pull off a four point turn in a camper van on a tiny rural lane.

Tenuta Agricola - Agriturismo Fonte di Papa. Horses and builders (boo!) but no bed bugs (yay!)

Bridge problems aside, we all rather fell in love with Rome. The people were great, the winter chestnuts were roasting, and at night the streets were a buzz with action including little kids all dressed up for Halloween and tourists throwing coins into the Trevi Fountain.

Tourists throwing money into the Trevi Fountain

Due to the size of the city and the amount of places we planned to see, we decided to bite the bullet and arrange three days (yes THREE days) of guided tours. We hit all the major hotspots including Vatican City, the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Trevi Fountain, the Four Rivers Fountain, and the Spanish Steps…Lela even got to bless her “Jesus Rock” from Skye in St. Peter’s Basilica. We saw too many wonders to report here in detail so you’ll all just have to come and sit through the slide show when we get back.

The Basilica of St. Peter and the Swiss Guards -don't mess with the Swiss Guards (they have pointy sticks and stripey bloomers)

Had it not been for Inger and Marle our Amazonian tour guides, we would have missed out on many “thrilling” historical dates and “gripping” city stats as well as the hidden parts of Rome which included some superb local family restaurants.  Our only advice is “if you are going to do a seven hour sightseeing stint, wear comfortable shoes, take plenty of candy for moral support and give yourself at least two days to recover”.