April 12th to April 15th

Everything seemed to happen right up until our departure. There was no time to plan (apart from the ferry passage), work was crazy, the kids’ Easter camp was happening, and about a thousand other things. In the end, I packed most of our things alone with Flo using his 10min breaks to carry them downstairs and store them in the car. He worked till 3.20pm which was exactly the time we had to leave to pick up the kids from Easter camp. Which means, we were in time and ready to go…it was just waaaaaay more stress than I had hoped for.

We picked up the kids who’ve had a blast and even managed to talk us into having ice cream with two other kids who’d also attended Easter camp. Afterwards…off we went. South, mostly south for a long while. Flo wanted to see if we managed to cover a lot of mileage that we needed to go while driving at night. Last years holiday and especially the traffic jams right before the Alps made us dread going into the same direction again. Thus, night-time driving might solve this problem for us. After a classic on-the-road burger dinner, the kids even brushed their teeth before we said “good night”. It went okay.

Flo drove till nearly 1 o’clock in the morning when we stopped just south of the Gotthardt tunnel for some sleep in the car. It was a rather uncomfortable night, especially the kids started to complain after a bit of sleep in their seats. Anyhow, we got though it and everybody slept at least a bit. At 5.45am, four little zombies entered the rest stop for coffee and breakfast before heading off bright (*cough*) and early through Switzerland and into Italy.

It was a long day on the road. The ferry would leave tomorrow from Ancona which was still quite a bit further south. But now we were in Italy and the holiday feeling was starting to set in. For a good charge and an even better lunch we stopped in Reggio Emilia. As soon as we walked around, we realized we’d already been in town two years ago on our trip through Northern Italy. Anyhow, lunch was great! Starters of ham, asparagus and eggs, and fried pecorino with honey were followed by good pasta…at which time none of us could eat anymore. Such good food was also a good way of getting over our fright this morning. We hadn’t entered Italy for long when another car cut us off. While nothing grave happened, it threw up stones from the dirty embankment. One of them hit our windscreen and left a little ditch.

After lunch, we tried to get as close to the ferry as we could so that, no matter what life decided to throw at us, we would make it to the ferry. So we ended the day in Riccione, shortly after we passed Rimini.

It was late. We’d been driving for a loooong while, and now the footwell on the passenger’s side, my side, was soaking wet. *sigh* Instead of a quiet evening, Flo started his repair-works, while the kids and I went to the beach for a brief stint. Flo joined us shortly to get his head off things. During dinner, I even managed to ask the right person the right question so with help by a fellow traveller and his compressor, Flo cleared out the blockage in the air conditioning drain hose, the conjestion of which turned out to be the reason for all condensate to have been dumped into the interior instead.

Tomorrow, all we had to do was catch a ferry at 4pm.

This gave us a lot of time for the last 100km of distance to cover. Looking at a map, Flo and I decided to turn back a little and give the city state of San Marino a visit. We got to see the three towers on the cliffside and headed into a great little ice cream place for some pre-lunch ice cream.