The Italian Blog
This story happened on: 04/03/2012
Gallery
In early May 2009 we set off on an exploration of the Italian Lakes with Venice thrown in for good measure. When we travel to Italy we tend to travel down through Germany and Austria but this time we decided to go via the Tunnel de Frejus so most of the initial journey was through France. Now I am not overly keen on long tunnels and 13kms is long! There was an alternative and that was to use the Mont du Cenis Pass but Margaret is not keen on mountain passes. The decision was for us because on the day we were due to cross into Italy the Cenis Pass was not yet open. It was dull and damp as we made our way to the tunnel and paid our €44 which was a shock in itself! Fortunately the tunnel was fine and we came out on the Italian side in sunshine. I should have said the reason for using the Frejus Tunnel was that our initial stop in Italy was to be on Lake Maggiore.
Maggiore and Como seem to be not as frenetic as Lake Garda and they are all have different characters. From Lake Garda we made our way to Venice a particular favourite of ours. This was our third visit but this time we stayed at Ca Savio rather than Punta Sabbioni which meant we had to take the car or the bus to catch the ferry. There is always something magical about arriving at San Marco or St Marks by water. A special treat for us was a visit La Felice the Opera House that had recently been completely restored after a devastating fire a few years earlier.
Time to start the journey home. Rather than take the motorway we cut across country to Levico Terme where we stayed a few days. From here we made our way to Austria and a campsite almost next door to the famous Monastery at Stams. From here we made our way into Germany via the Fern Pass stopping for a few more days at Trippstadt near Kaiserslautern. Two more short stops and we were back near Calais ready for the journey home.
The full blog can be seen here with lots of photographs.
http://www.davidklyne.co.uk/The_%20Italian_%20Blog_%202009.htm
Zori TarinOK