It has been the annual holiday season for us: since the kids left school, we can plan our holiday in whatever month de desire. This year the trip went to Italy, via Germany and Switzerland – it turned out to be far cheaper than using the French Autoroute du Soleil. And May normally is a nicer month to go there – for the temperatures are still bearable, and most weeds are in flowers.
Our first target was Tuscany, to visit Florence and Siena, and enjoy the countryside. We stayed on a camping site North of Florence, and that meant passing this town to get South – a real problem if you’re not aquainted to the Italian way of signposting, and the wheeled wasps that overtake left and right. We got through once to visit Volterra and San Gimignano, but we decided not to try it a second time.
So, we didn’t do Sienna.
Second stop was in the North of Umbria at the Lago di Trasimeno, where we visisted Assisi – San Francicsus’ town. An easy environment, though quite touristic but since the town is larger than the two others we visited, the masses kind of disappear. We made a walk in the mountains, and visisted some little Etruscan towns in the area.
The third stop was near Venice, but here we could use public traffic (boat, bus, ferry, bus + boat) to get to the town within an hour. We did twice, and the third day we hired bikes to make a cycle tour on the main land.
All these days, temperatures raised from 25 C to 35 C within just over two weeks, and when we left for Luzern to have a few days of mountain-walking in Switzerland (we missed the mountains…), it was even hotter, but on the road, it dropped to a more comfortable value of 27. The next day, after a nice walk to a high point, we were lucky to get a lift back to the camping site: when we got out of the car, all hell broke lose. Second luck: our tent survived the heavy winds, a few ropes of the tarp loosened and all that was under it got wet. But no real damage has been done.
My camera has been damaged beyond repair during the hodiday, but Rita has one as well, so there are many pictures (about 650) and tracking datam availabe here