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Summer rolled round again and I wanted to progress my "plan" to drive the coast of the Mediterranean.
In 1965 with Peter Eagles I'd driven from Gibraltar (all along the coast) to the Carmargue area of South western France and I now wanted to add Italy. so lots of inspections of tents and equipment (Lyn would be more demanding than Peter) and off we went... Ostend, Brussels and Liege and then into Germany at Aachen and onto Cologne.
This
down the Rhine valley around Cologne
And this is around Bonn...
Even
further down the valley - nearer Koblenz.
All Autobahn driving, and I can remember the poor beetle getting a vapour-lock at a fill-up near Frankfurt. Never had such a ting before - I thought they'd filled me up with Diesel by mistake!! But being a German car - I had lots of help and recommendations..... Basically we had been bombing on all day at around 70 mph, came in for a pit-stop, filled-up, paid and started off again, only to judder and shudder to a halt about 100 yards further on - still in the Services area. helpful people told me it was fairly common - that instead of liquid fuel flowing from the tank to the Carburetor, because of the hot engine, the fuel was vapourising. All I had to do was wait 20 minutes or so - and wait for the engine to cool down - and sure enough - we were on the road again!!
Nurenburg and Munich passed by - and we were in Austria and Saltzburg...
The
castle on the hill.
This
was our camp-site at the foot of the GrossGlockner Pass
Next day it was "up and over"....
Going
up... into the clouds...
And
at the top - cold, raining, miserable - but...
a
nice coffee place - think my beetle is furthest away.
and
then we were off - on our way down... The road down, a flash of sunlight
breaking through the clouds, and beyond, our valley destination.
Look
at it.... never missing a beat, just straining to get on with the trip. Not
below the snow-line yet...
But
soon enough we were into sun and part way down - and looking back where we'd
come over. Is that an Opel Rekord??
Still
going down - our route/road is just in the bottom left corner.
Still
a long way to go down - but had to take time out with the other travelers to
capture the views.
Yes -
that's where we're going.
and
into the small village of Helgenblut.
And
further along a dramatic waterfall. This has to be getting near the
Austria/Yugoslavia border. Because..
This
was our first camp-site in Yugoslavia, after passing through Kranj, Ljubljana,
Kalce this was Postojna. The caves and grottos are impressive -
http://www.postojnska-jama.si/ - if
you're interested, we snooped around the village then up to the castle inside
the cave...
Notice the horses towards bottom left, saw very few tractors etc.. everything
was horse-drawn.
This
is taken from inside that cave - behind the castle.
And
then it was off to the coast at Opatija, just west of Rijeka.
This
is early morning around Opatija, very serene and calm.. From here we headed
North towards Trieste (we were only in Yugoslavia for a day or two), through
there and on to - Venice!!
This
may be the Grand Canal. We'd left the car in a massive public car-park with all
our worldly goods inside, and spent a day exploring...
One
of the smaller canals with its local traffic.
We
got well lost and came across lots of little squares and backstreets just like
this.
And I
didn't want to take just the "picturesque" shots - this is taken through
wrought-ironwork (arty) and shows a very quiet small canal with all the muck
floating, and the local's cars parked outside.
From
the Rialto Bridge - the Grand Canal
Then
St Mark's Square for an expensive coffee
Couldn't get in the ?Cathedral?
Gondola tie-up point just round the back of St Mark's Sq.
And
the Bridge of Sighs. Then off to the River Bus, back to the car, round the
northern Adriatic Sea - Chioggia, Ravenna to Rimini - again!
The
Cafe next door to The Hotel King where I stayed with my mum a couple of years
earlier.
From now on it was a gentle cruise down the Adriatic coast passing through Pesaro, Ancona, Pescara, Termoli then turning of the E2 and going to Manfredonia.
This
is around San Severo - reminds me of UK "row houses"
And
this is the road out towards Manfredonia and Vieste - lots of hairpin bends!! It
was somewhere along this stretch that we had a slightly weird incident. We'd
stopped in some shady trees - pulled quite a way off the road, and were having a
bite to eat and/or a snooze, when a rough (unshaven) bloke came from the road
down towards us.. he came straight towards us and we soon saw that he was a
policeman (cabinieri) - we expected some sort of a telling off (for what we
didn't know), or maybe some sort of fine/extortion. As he got closer he was
saying "Inglese??" we replied "yes" (the car had a GB sticker and plates so
there was no point denying) and he came and sat down with us and over the next
20 minutes or so (he didn't speak English, and we had virtually no Italian) and
explained "war" - whoops we thought - Second World War stories coming up... "me
prisoner", "prisoner of war" - "of the English" - oh Bugger!! He's going to take
his revenge for some WW2 indiscretion upon us... but no... he explained he'd
been well treated and had a good (enough) time... very pleasant 20 minutes!!
Relating this reminds me of my wife's story of The Brits occupying northern
Germany just after WW2 - she lived near Hanover and the only memory she has of
the British army - is the smell of tea being brewed, wafting across the
countryside... what a great way to have an occupying army remembered!!
This
was more towards Barletta. The whole area from about Termoli onwards had weird
houses, often round but all with domed roofs.
Fishing boats near Bari.
And
this struck me as weird, in Bari, very rocky (whereas the coast all around was
sandy) and this is where people chose to sun-bathe (cook) and swim.
From
Bari it was Mola, Monopoli then turned inland across towards Taranto - this and
below, are "on the road to Taranto"
At
top middle/left you can see a group of the Manfredonia style houses - there are
about 5 or 6 domed houses there.
This
was near Scanzano
Bombing alongside the railway tracks, this caught our eye - did they just use up
left-over paint - or was it designed to look like this?? The sign says
Trebisacce after which we were going to turn West and North onto the E1 - alas
driving the coast road round the toe of Italy had to be abandoned because of
time.
Not
really sure what this is all about.... except that it captures the feel of that
time... all windows open, quarter-lights turned backwards to get more draught,
sun streaming in, rural landscape behind...
Sunset around Spezzano
we
were trying to get to a Hotel in Sapri (it didn't look far on the map) - but as
this dried up river bed testifies, it was a tough bit of country and the
mountains and small road down into Sapri made for a tough evening's drive. We
eventually rolled in about 22:00 to find the Hotel owner tucking into his
dinner. e went upstairs - got a bit cleaned up - came down asking what could we
eat - same as him - 2 massive plates of mussels, a lot of which he helped us
eat!
Next
morning.... there was Sapri, very peaceful, very pleasant.
No -
not a volcano - just a bush fire or farmers burning off, on the road to Salerno
then Amalfi and Sorrento. Next day we were off to the Isle of Capri... we took
the ferry and then jumped into this boat - for "the Blue Grotto"...
Except that, this boat only takes you "to" the Blue Grotto...
The
Blue Grotto is right at the centre of the picture (you can just see a boat going
in). You have to transfer from the bigger boat into a small one that can only
just squeeze into the Grotto/Cave. I cannot remember why or how its so blue, but
it was certainly a lovely colour. We were whooshed in, spun round, and whooshed
out again..
In
mid-turn. looking back towards the entrance with 2 other boats waiting to get
out.
looking straight down into the water, lovely colour.
And
after all that, a nice cool drink in a harbour-side cafe, waiting for the ferry
back to Sorrento.
Drove north past Pompeii and Vesuvius, through bits of Naples (saw quite a few prostitutes standing on corners waving motorists down) then the inland rout via Frosino to Rome. I think we were using "Europe on 5 $ per day" and picked a hotel out of it. The disaster was they had no car parking so we had to leave the car loaded with all our gear on the street a couple of blocks away (there were no parking meters in those days - hooray!!) - I remember being told that the punishment for stealing a car was quite severe, but for breaking in and stealing contents was not so dire - so I should expect to lose the radio and at least get broken into. We couldn't do much about it so we got on with the sightseeing!
The
Spanish Steps
Bridge over the Tiber with Mausoleum or castle - will have to check...
Walking towards St Peter's - must say I wasn't impressed with the inside of the
cathedral - felt like a railway station to me - and the Sistine Chapel was
closed - so maybe that coloured my judgement.
Now this was more like it - the
Coliseum - very impressive!!
Coliseum from the Roman ruins - possibly the Forum
Triumphal Arch next to the Coliseum. Now I bet you cannot do this today..... can
you see over on the Coliseum, there are (at road level) four archways, and just
in front of the fourth from the right is a blot of red....... that's the
magnificent beetle!!
View
from Roman Villa over the Roman ruins with Victor Emmanuel's mausoleum behind.
View
from Roman Villa over the Roman ruins
Roman
villa
Forum
from the Roman villa
Lyn
in amongst the ruins of the Forum - the Roman villa is on the hill at
back-right.
Next day we rescued the car and drove out of Rome towards the sea and visited Ostia...
Amphitheatre at Ostia
mosaic at Ostia. On the way back - I remember quite a lot of traffic going back
into Rome (single-lane in each direction road), and a little Alfa - hood-down, 2
older blokes in it, zipps around us and starts driving a little slower. I think
- what's he up to?? Driving fast one moment and slow the next?? So I overtake
him. Sure enough in a minute or two - he - re-overtakes us - lots of waving and
gesticulating and laughing. The same thing happens a couple more times - and
then we part company, but that incident just epitomises for me - the Italian
zest for life. The driver more or less certainly wanted a better look at Lyn -
and why not have a bit of fun with an obviously foreign car/occupants??
Brilliant!
A
last day of sightseeing in Rome - the Trevi fountain.
and
the Pantheon.
I thoroughly enjoyed Rome and I have always enjoyed Italy in general - it has a lot to do with the Italians themselves. Its weird, they are so chic and well dressed/presented, and yet as grubby, (somewhat) unwashed travelers, we were welcomed just for ourselves - not for our image. The Italians have such a great zest for life - admirable!!
And to top it all off - the car didn't get broken into!! There again we left pots and pans and sleeping bags visible so I'm sure it didn't represent a worthwhile target.
So, heading north out of Roma - not along the coast, but a very inland route through Orvieto towards Arezzo, but west of it to Florence.
The
Ponte Vecchio
My
notes say this is inside the Town Hall (cannot remember) - but I don't think its
inside the Uffizi Gallery as I don't think we went there on this trip.
The
cathedral of course...
And then we headed west again towards the coast and...
Pisa
and its leaning tower. Don't think we went up it (I did years later)
And it was time for a bit more beach-time...
This
is Marina di Carrara very close to marina di Massa (where we as a family were to
go on holiday many years later).
Along the coast through La Spezia and Genoa
This
is near Genoa (quite pleasant!)
Then we stopped for another day or so at Bordighera...
Our
route from the camp-site, down a river-bed, under the main road onto the beach -
that's Lyn just to the right of centre.
A
nice enough beach - but this is where everything turned bad..... We had been
sharing expenses and it was on the very morning that this piccie was taken that
Lyn (who was about to finance the next 4 or so days) realised that the 500,000
Lira note (or whatever denomination it was) - wasn't!! It turned out to be one
tenth of what she expected, and that wasn't enough!! We were suddenly faced with
the prospect of the next 4 or 5 days expenses ( all food, petrol and camp-site
fees) coming out of about 12 UK Pounds - disaster!! Anyway - we could see that
we had enough money to purchase petrol - we'd just have to go carefully on the
rest!!
So where does anyone with poor finances go.......??
Monte
Carlo!!
we
didn't stay
but
pushed on to cheaper cities....
like
Nice - I don't think that is Lyn - but it may be.
Then
we had to push on - the Corniche, Antibes, Cannes, St Tropez, Hyeres, Toulon,
Marseille, Avignon, Valence, St Etienne where...
this
was taken, just a woodland scene near our camp-site
Heading towards Paris via Roanne, Moulins, Nevers this amazing display of Pottery was right on the roadside - brilliant!
We
camped right in the centre of the Paris conurbation at Versailles, and in the
morning did a bit of Parisienne Sight-seeing...
Its me!! Unshaven, and decidedly
scruffy at Notre Dame. can you spot the beetle?? At far left, just about on a
level with my shoulder.
Brilliant time - saw a lot - and managed to get home well and truly - broke!!