Greenwood Family’s Big Trip – 27th – 30th October – Barcelona When we get back to the van Mark is talking to an English guy who is going round Europe the opposite way in a VW camper with his partner. He gives us some great tips for places to stay in Italy and we swap […]

We had planned to drive like nutters from the Amalfi Coast to a known-good (i.e. clean) camp site so that we could freshen-up and do our great lump of pent-up clothes washing. Oh, and do some food-shopping too, as we’ve only got Cup of Soups left. The next day, we would get the nineteen hour […]

At three o’clock the next day, the ferry was doing an impressive reverse park into its slot and SQ & I were both feeling a little bit overwhelmed: “How did we get here?” Yesterday morning, we were on the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy. Today we’re in Spain, with a near-empty fuel tank, a impressively […]

From our planned route map, you’ll know that we were planning to drive to the foot of Italy and then ferry-across to Sicily, then Sardinia, before landing on the French mainland in Marseilles to begin our long drive to south-east Spain. We’ve got to get to Spain by mid-November as we’ve already paid for flights […]

We stopped on the Amalfi coast for a spot of lunch. The setting was so nice that we decided to push-the-boat-out and go for a main course at a restaurant (a real treat for us, nowadays). Two fair pastas, two waters, two coffees and–infuriatingly–two cover charges later; the bill came to a hefty €30 (the […]

We talked to three people about seeing the Amalfi Coast and they all said the same thing: “Don’t drive it yourself!” Seriously, it’s not as bad as the Internet/SQ’s Mum/My Mum makes out. True, the road is really bendy and, true, it does get too narrow for two vehicles to pass each other in many […]

Here’s a potted history of Pompeii: The city was partly destroyed by an earthquake in 62 AD. Rebuilding started immediately. Seventeen years later, nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted and covered the city in really, really hot ash, taking its residents with it. The city remained buried until the 16th century, excavation began in the 19th and […]

Rome is mostly magnificent, but in-line with the rest of the Italy that we’ve seen, this place is expensive. I’ll surely write another post on the cost of travelling this country, but in the meantime here’s an example for you: We climbed the national monument to get the best views over the city. About two-thirds […]

People queue for half their day to get into the Vatican museum; we didn’t. People queue for the other half of their day to get into the Sistine Chapel; we didn’t. We did go into the Vatican City piazza. We did queue-up and walk through the corridors of the tombs of the Popes of the […]

Today I got chatting to a market-stall merchant*. He was one of two, working a particular stall. They work together from 7am until 9pm, seven days a week. Oh, the boss does give them each one day-off a month. I thought I used to work long hours. (* Being a salesman, maybe you don’t believe […]