Category Archives: Italy

Day 14 – Parma where the ham comes from

We were in a good spot to start early for Parma. Camping Arizona was still muddy from last night’s rain and the mud bogged us down a little, physically as well as mentally. It was 10am before we left, having had to pack the awning still wet.

the streets are narrowing, we are getting closer to our goal

In good time, we arrived in Parma, only to be mind-boggled again…this time by the old inner city, which as a surprise for us had limited access for cars. Google maps led us around in circles, through houses and into places we were not supposed to go. We didn’t quite understand it at the time but the inner city has zones that you’re not supposed to enter with a car. Electric cars would have been allowed in, though only with a permit that we would have needed to organize days ahead.

We just desperately tried to get to a charging point all of which were in the inner city with no good way to get there. It took us quite a while and little bit of driving through zones we weren’t supposed to be in to find a free charger and start exploring the city on foot. We will find out in a few months if that will cost us a bit extra.

Our first point of interest was a prosciutteria where Flo bought ham to take home and some salami and cheese to consume on the road. I would have loved to buy fresh pasta but we have no way of cooling it (and carry way too much food already) so it would probably spoil. Having secured these before lunch we went to “Officina Alimentare Dedicata Parma” where I’d booked a table to break our dry spell around lunch time. Parma, we had decided, was going to be all about food for us.

I feel that with both Flo’s love for savory treat and Nina’s sweet tooth, we have to focus hard on portion control for Number 3 …

We dug in. Starters included both a local cheese and a cold meats platter. Both kids dug into Flo’s salami, Number 3 also liked my parmigiano reggiano. The Agent just sat there, slowly letting her piece of sausage dissolve in her mouth. We were quite impressed.

For mains, I had gnocchi with pesto, Number 3 went for tortellini, the Agent of Entropy got a torta fritta and Flo had buffalo tartar. Finally, the dessert I ordered was a lemon pie dipped in white chocolate with pistachios and cream on top. It turned out not to be entirely “my” dessert as I had to share it with Number 3.

Full to the brim, we got up and walked around a little more. We checked out the Baptistery and the Duomo, but soon after headed to the car to get to the next campground. Before settling in for the night, we had a short stop at a gigantic coop to stock up on things the Agent can eat as well as fresh milk. It took Flo and Number 3 45 minutes to come out of the grocery store again, getting lost twice in the huge complex.

Our campground for the night turned out to be quite…basic. It had the feeling of a rest stop near the Autobahn. It was the only option close to Bologna and we’d only stay one night – so okay. The mosquitoes were a different thing though. I got bitten so often that I retreated to the tent. After a mosquito sat on the Agent of Entropy’s temple, she came into the tent with me. Still full from our indulgence at lunch time, we had a light muesli dinner and went to bed soon after.

ok, bare with me: This is the Agent grabbing my phone, activating the camera and taking a non-garbage picture. We were impressed when we saw this

Day 13 – Thunderstruck

I like to socialize with strangers, a lot more than Nina at least. So, I struck up a few brief conversations with other guests – and connected a little with another couple over having a one year old on the road, but also through COVID. Most hilariously they were called Florian and Janina and their son’s name had been on our short list as well 😀 Seeing that as a bit of a sign, we used the opportunity to give our one year old the chance to interact with another kid their age. The Agent, at least blessed with having Number 3 for company, has met kids her age maybe a hand full of times. Number 3 at this age had some group activity on thrice a week.

The blanket with toys was held in high esteem by the little ones

The two were soon joined by a third baby on parental leave and there was all of a sudden a bit of a party. I think all of us really enjoyed seeing the little ones play with other kids for once. Number 3 joined in for a bit and then attached himself to Florian, inspecting every nook and cranny of their considerably larger RV.

In short, we took our good time packing up, mixed with a bunch of socializing and a bit of praising some of our gear. After all, we had only one thing roughly planned – to stop for lunch in Cremona and then check in at the camp near Parma for tomorrow’s city exploration day. In the end, a last round of excellent coffees was had and we said our goodbyes to everyone.

Number 3 said goodbye with a bit of a meltdown. There was a ping pong ball lying around after the kids had been playing with it in the morning. A car which left the campground drove straight over it and it explode quite spectacularly. Number 3 had started to run towards it to save it but was held back by Nina…when it was broken, he screamed for about ten minutes on the top of his lungs. It hadn’t even been his in the first place but Florian felt bad enough to give him one of their remaining oing pong ball as a farewell gift. He treasures it.
Nina

We made good time on the toll “Autostrade” and decided to combine shopping with a brief top up of Puru Hiko. Once again – if you offer a charger at your supermarket, you have gained a customer (LIDL, this time) and we got 40km of range for free out of it.

Unfortunately, that’s where the smooth sailing ended a bit. The first restaurant we tried was closed. The one Lonely Planet recommendation turned out to be a bit too posh and pricy for a pit stop and after that we struggled for a bit too long. I chickened out of a self-service place. So, in the end, we waited until 1:30pm at a mediocre café with views of the Duomo before we could tuck in. And the veggie options were … limited. Nina took it like a real hero without complaint.

Campgrounds seem to be few and far between down in the Emilia-Romagna, so we went purely for convenience for the next two spots. Tonight’s offering was, by that margin, a pleasant surprise. It had loads of “permanent campers”, sure. And the “four star” rating advertised reminded me a lot of former eastern block holiday locations in the 1990s. Loads of dilapidated charm. It was also the first campground where we could not charge Puru Hiko. 3A fuses on 16A plugs. Ah well, we are pretty topped up and there will be charging in Parma for sure.

On the plus side, they had a big play area and swimming pool and were mostly deserted of other guests. We first had some fun with the crass clown-vomit-coloured playground and then even went for a swim in the huge pool (which was actually doubling as the local public swimming pool). But we were wise enough to leave the pool and prepare to hide when we saw the thick black clouds coming over the next hill.

Sure enough, by the time I’ve had my shower, Nina had already emergency-packed the camp and evacuated all to the tent. The mightiest summer storm we had so far passed right above. Thunder cracked so loud right overhead, for once even the Agent of Entropy lost her bravery for a minute. I huddled into the tiny remaining dry patch in the center of our awning and whipped up emergency dinner with caprese and some antipasti. I even managed to get the cooker going for a cuppa tea and coffee for Nina and myself respectively.

We got the kids to bed a bit later than usual, but as the storm had passed and only left the constant patter of rain on the roof, they fell asleep within minutes. We followed soon after …

Everybody’s eating something…or chewing on a spoon, I guess XD

Day 12 – Go with the flow

Since we left home with only a couple of days notice, we keep on deciding on our route while we go. We’d probably do the same if we’d had more time, to be honest, but it still feels a little more ad hoc this time.

Our morning was lovely. We had fresh bread rolls from the campground. Number 3 finished a whole one with yummy cherry jam we had bought in Piuro on our first day in Italy. Our intial plan said to only say here at Punta D’Oro for one night, but we really wanted to spend a day here so it was nonchalantly abandoned. Looking at maps and places to go we realized we weren’t actually that keen to camp at Lake Garda next. Maybe we might be a little lake-d out after another day here at lago d’Iseo. So, we decided to stay here and enjoy what we have, head a little south tomorrow to be close to Parma which we want to see on Wednesday, do a little tour of the cities we still want to see and then loop back to Lake Garda on our way out of Italy. We’ll see how much of this plan survives in the future but for now this looks good.

Clouds gathered in different formations all day

And it gave us a whole day at Punta D’Oro to relax. Number 3 wanted to go swimming but when we tried in the late morning, the water was too cold for him and the Agent of Entropy. We had a lovely midday nap after our warm shower, took advantage of the coffee place on the campground and (mostly Flo) chatted up our neighbours on the campsite. Lots of people were interested in the EV or our roof tent plus our immediate neighbours were Germans on parental leave as well.

The day ended for Flo and me when the kids were in bed and we had a last espresso and some cookies sitting on the retaining wall looking out over the lake.

I tried to make some tea … the Agent was scheming

Day 11 – Upward trend

For a camp of convenience, this site turned out fairly ok. Even the doom-and-gloom stories about the sanitary block from the google reviews turned out to be way overblown, or at least outdated. Number 3 had huge fun with the one squatting toilet they kept even through a recent renovation. He insisted on choosing this over the option of a throne, even though they would even have seats (very much not a given for public toilets in Italy).

Since we decidedly set up for a quick getaway, ditching the awning for the first time, we got back on the road in record time. I mean, there are still a million things to do, breakfast packing and so on, but we were quite proud of a 9:30am start (we get up at 6:30am).

The bit to Bergamo was relaxed if mostly slow going via the main roads. We had one pit stop at a supermarket to resupply nappies for the Agent. It took a bit longer than we thought – we did not expect everyone else to do a Sunday shop as well at the same time. But that gave Number 3 the chance to keep with our Sunday tradition of watching an episode of the Show with the Mouse (a German kids TV institution).

I though I had planned ahead this time, trying to register with the provider of the convenient charge point up in the old town – but had failed miserably. They have the worst app design I have ever seen. Provided in Italian only, it is just impossible to sign up (a single field for billing address that straight up refuses to accept anything I throw at it). So we opted for a parking garage downtown. They unexpectantly had charging facilities as well, but once again, I could not get it to work. New provider, long signup procedure … Europe needs to get better at this real quick.

Litteraly the funicular of the upper city

The lower city parking added one attraction to our day in Bergamo: A ride to the oldtown in one of the funiculars sparing everyone a rather steep hike 150m up a hill. When Number 3 realized what was going on, he positively jumped for excitement. We had to wait a little bit due to COVID related passenger restrictions, but it was worth it.

This time, we decided to make a concerted effort to lock in lunch early enough – but it turned out our preferred eatery was right here at the funicular terminal. PolentOne (yes, with that pun) is a hole-in-the-wall takeaway shop for reginal polenta dishes. The choice is between with or without cheese and your pick of sauce (is that really a choice, though?). I could not resist the wild boar “ragu”, while Nina got herself a good-looking veggie stew. It was delicious and both the Agent of Entropy and Number 3 tucked in harder than expected. I even had to briefly consider if we need to get a third helping to get both me and Number 3 full.

Bergamo was definitively the right town at the right time for us from here on out. We felt reminded of that beautiful day in Carcassonne. The tightly packed old town up on the hill was utterly charming, with just the right amount of infrastructure for tourism without going past the “Rüdesheim point” (medieval timber frame town near our home that became a Disneyland caricature for Oversees tourists).

Still managable crowds on the main street

I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, but for a few remarks. The high town was one of those rare places where going off the “main” drag enhanced the experience for us. Some of the back alleys were as picturesque as the main drag, but we had it all to ourselves. Oh, and I am very proud of myself that I had talked Nina into going up on the Campanile and into the adjacent museum. The lift up was Number 3’s highlight of the day and the museum was hands down brilliant. Just 7 rooms, and hyper-modern in its concept for the exhibition with interactive exhibits in every room. I got to dork out without the kids getting bored out of their minds.

On our way back, we even stopped in a café to taste the local dolce of choice: polenta cake. We spend almost 5 hours in town, but it felt like time flew by.

For the last leg, we went on the toll motorway for the first time, without checking anything about prices first. Luckily, it was well worth it for 1.60 €.

The day ended with another spur of the moment decisions: We intended to stay only for the one night at this camp – Punta d’Oro. But after seeing past the first impression of the wall of white wales (RVs) it turned out this was a beautiful site. Great facilities, view of the lake and a shaded spot. We switched last minute from storm cover to tarp again, also to have a dry place to sit out the afternoon thunderstorms.

When we finished off the day with another exceptional coffee at the campground’s own bar, we were almost decided on staying an extra night, maybe even skipping Lago di Garda completely instead …

good morning, briefly visited Lago di Garlate

Day 10 – Along Lake Como

Getting up, there was still a bit of a consideration if we’re really going to leave today. After yesterday’s digger disaster, it would be hard to actually enforce a ban for the whole day. So in the end, we decided to leave ;). But we took our time and Number 3 got his good-bye round at the lake. It wasn’t warm enough to actually go swimming as he’d hope but he walked around a bit and observed the little fish along the shoreline.

They are starting to actually enjoy playing together

With packing, this time fully dried laundry, all our swim gear, two kids who’d rather run around and another diaper accident, we were finally on the road by 11am. Goodbye Camping Ranocchio! You’ve been wonderful!

We only drove a little while back over the pass to the next town on Lake Como where we took the ferry across to Bellagio. This is something the Lonely Planet for Northern Italy suggested as the drive from Bellagio to Como (or the other way around) is supposed to give wonderful views of the lake and towns. The thought of taking Purū Hiko and the kids on the ferry appealed to us…so we did it. Lucky for us, the ferry was only 5 minutes away when we arrived at the terminal. The Agent of Entropy was fast asleep by this point but Number 3 was excited. So, when all cars were in parking position, Number 3 and I went to the railing and looked out. It was much fun but a bit loud and cold for our eldest child. Shortly after, we returned to the car.

We took the narrow and windy road to Como which had great views indeed. The Agent of Entropy fell asleep again, followed shortly thereafter by Number 3. It was a peaceful ride until about 10 minutes out of Como when the Agent woke up and demanded a pit stop with an extra feed. It was getting later and later…

Different Lunch choices…to be fair, we swapped about a quarter…

At 12.45pm we finally parked the car. Somehow, our heads were not in it though, as it took 30 minutes to sort ourselves and the charging for Puru Hiko (which didn’t work in the end). It also included Flo heading back to the car twice because we forgot such essential items as our sunhats, for example. Finally, at 13.15pm we started looking for a place to eat.

The Lonely Planet was not helpful in this instance as the first tiny eatery was already completely booked with customers and the second one was permanently closed by now. Getting hungrier und hungrier, we decided on the next eatery as a quick fix regardless of price. This is how we ended up at Aida right across from the Duomo. The food was good and we were glad to have navigated the hunger crisis before either the kids or I got too annoying.

The city of Como was a bit of a shell-shock for us as it drew crowds even during the pandemic. Yes, people wore masks but still, it was too busy too soon for me. Also, the city is very posh. Probably not quite our turf, to be honest.

We took another stroll to the waterfront, looking for a particular gelateria (Lonely Planet recommendation). Again, it was not our cup of tea so we decided against it and looked for another place down the road. The ice cream we had at last was delicious but by now we were ready to leave Como behind.

Back in the car to drive another hour to our next campground. We chose this one for tonight to be in striking range to Bergamo, our next destination.

Day 9 – That summer feeling

We call every day where we don’t move camp a rest day on our trips. Most of them end up being everything but. So if you imagine a quiet afternoon with a good book on the beach … not quite us. We move at a brisk pace, especially for a family of four. So we always have 5 more things to do on a rest day, because you know: We got time, right? That is on top of everything that made us stay in the first place.

Both kids enjoyed having the place to themselves

I tried to be smart though and venture a bit into multitasking. So after our breakfast, we packed a few essentials and moved to the lakeshore. I was able to finish up the two blog posts in our back-log while Number 3 (and, to the extent that we let her, the Agent, too) enjoyed the lake. We were the first ones out and had the lake all to ourselves. Small mistakes were made, but overall this was a great success. In hindsight, we just should have told Number 3 to take off his clothes all at once rather than waiting for him to get first his pants and then the undies wet. He had a blast, though, and even made new friends with the 5 and 8 year olds kids of the campers two lots down from us.

This is why we went on this trip. We get to spend so much time with our little ones – who are ever so slowly turning into remarkable little characters. Many times a day, I get this flush of emotion when realising just how much I love them and how blessed we are to get to knowing them.

We somehow managed to squeeze another load of washing into our lunchtime window, although naptime was a bit of a challenge, probably because of the heat. Oh, and Number 3’s digger addictions. There was a sit-on toy digger on the camp’s playground and he found it. Getting him off that playground took a serious bit of convincing.

So naptime dragged on a bit, organically transitioned into coffee time – all the while, promises about things we can do started piling up for Number 3. For the first time on this trip, we decided to split up. I am not much of a water nut, so Nina and the big brother decided to go for another (real) swim, while I took the Agent of Entropy out for a shopping run. I had added “cooking risotto from scratch” to get rid of our remaining fresh zucchini to the long list of to-dos for the day. Oh, and it was finally time for ice in our icebox – the butter demanded so, or at least that was my excuse.

A brief stroll along the lake later, it was now 4.50 pm, we all joined up again. Number 3 had turned slightly blue from an hour in the water while I was a bit hot from my walk in the sun. We equalized things by a minute or two of cuddle time 😀

I got to work on the risotto – and it was around that time that things turned south a bit. Our hero up to this point lied to his Mum about me having approved it and walked away from his sous-chef duties to play with the damn digger again, all on his own. When dinner was ready, tantrum ensued and he outright refused to join in the meal. Slightly soured by that turn of events, I maybe were not the most patient dad at bed time – and it had maybe 35°C in the tent – so that took almost exactly until it was time for us to hop in the car, start up discord and play our regular Friday night game.

Rest day, eh?

Side note:

– to avoid another disappointing take off, I religiously forced the car into “drive” mode every few hours to force it to charge the 12v battery. That works fine while it is charging the main or when the charger is disconnected, but leads to weird behaviour when the main is at 100% but the charger not disconnected. It seems like some software optimisation is still required. We’ll find out if all that at least had the desired effect, tomorrow –

A good morning starts with an encounter with a garbage truck 🙂

Day 8 – Lake time

Got up, made breakfast, started packing. The usual things we do when we move to a new campground. As Flo hinted at in yesterday’s post, it was hard to find a campground for tonight as everything right next to lake Como was fully booked already. In the end, we decided on a site next to a small lake called Lago di Piano where we could at least stay right next to the water. It is only 58km away anyway and still on our way to our next stop Como.

Once we’d packed everything including our not fully dried washing, we were ready to go. Just…Puru Hiko wasn’t. The battery was flat … again. Somehow, we still need to nail that part. -.-

By now, we knew the drill though. Flo got someone to jumpstart the 12V battery, the fully charged big battery started to charge the empty little one and we were on our way with only a 15min delay.

Driving through Chiavenna on our way to the lake, we realized that this is the biggest town we’ll come through today and we still need to stock up on supplies. Thus, we stopped again after 5min on the road for a shopping break. The Agent of Entropy had fallen asleep already, so I stayed in the car while Flo and Number 3 got the supplies. It took way longer than I had expected but when they returned with a full shopping cart rather than with the 5 things that where on my list, I had my explanation. Oh, and there was even a watermelon to be stored in the car somehow. XD

We continued our way and soon hit the lake front of Lago di Como. Most of the lake front is privately owned so we couldn’t find a nice lunch stop for a while until we stopped at a car park next to where a river flows into the lake. With our new supplies, we had an extended lunch, including dessert.

All in (and a good first field test of No3 waterproof camera)

From here, it took us another half an hour to get to the campsite. Which turned out to be a good thing as the campground is lovely! First, Number 3 and I had ice cream. Then, we went to check out the lake and decided to go swimming straight away (Sunny and temps in the high 20s). Number 3 needed only a short time to remember that he looooooooves swimming and was happily splashing and swooshing in the water. The Agent of Entropy has never been swimming before (thanks Covid) but was intrigued. She hung on to me for dear life but when I went out of the water, she immediately pointed back to the water and make certain that we’d go back in. Where she continued to cling to me. Oh well.

After the swim and a hot shower, the kids and I were almost asleep. Flo whipped up an awesome dinner including our fresh zucchini and capsicum.

Getting the kids to bed was not a problem, however, it was still rather warm in the tent. We hoped for the best, kept the windows open and crossed our fingers for tonight’s gaming session. 😊

Day 7 – Post Bus to Gluttony

It is rather unusual that we stay in one place for three nights. But we had full supplies, no deadlines and plenty of choice for things to do. We did want to take a break from any serious walking, though – the memory of the tower incident might still be too fresh. So, we decided on what we love to do and what this kind of travel affords us the spare funds to do so: Explore the next best town!

It rained during the night and stayed overcast for almost the entire day – which was kind of perfect for this kind of excursion. Not having had many distractions in the morning allowed us to meet a rather ambitious 9.38 am bus ride to town. It is only 4 km and we could have walked there, but for only 2 € the convenience of a bus was too hard to resist.

As a sign that we are -that- close to the Swiss border, the bus was operated by the Swiss postal service (a High Alps thing). We got almost a bit confused when all the signs and ads in the bus were in German instead of Italian 😊. Six stops later and we decided we were “in town” enough to hop out. Time to explore Chiavenna.

We got our first glimpse of things to come looking into the old town from the new bridge over the rushing river Mera. And we saw a lot of ongoing construction on the banks, covering up some but not all significant damage done by severe floods in northern Italy in the last years.

Before we would hit the old town, we couldn’t help but stop at a brand new Pasticceria (plus café) on the far side of the bridge called Soul Cake. I mean … we had to, right? I myself was quite delighted by the realisation that we are in Italy now – for I had the best coffee in weeks served to me. Nina was completely enchanted by the huge selection of petit-four, filled croissants and cakes on offer. We settled on a variety of three croissants and a bit of relaxation. After all, we had two hours to fill before the chosen restaurant would open at 12.00 noon.

Well prepared, all of us performed admirably at the 1 ½ hours stroll through the narrow alleys of the old town. The most impressive feature had to be the steep 8m drop in between the 4-6 story buildings down to the rushing river Mera. The shift to “Italian” feel and architecture is pretty severe – only 10 km up the valley you can find the wood-clad romantic idyll of the Swiss Alps, whereas here the Romanesque window openings and slightly crumbling yellow washed facades evoke a clear Mediterranean feel.

We finished our walk with a mere 20 minutes to bridge and we were able to distract the Agent with a feed and Number 3 with a magical little footpath cut into the rockface – all mossy green and gloomy. The place where you would expect to meet nymphs and fairies.

We got lucky by being there right on opening time and still got a table even without reservation. It turned out, as is kind of our luck, it was Republic Day today! No wonder we had trouble finding a free campsite for Thursday and Friday.

Anyway, we went to a “Crotto”, a local form of small menu restaurant that evolved of cellars for curing meats and cheeses. They had few enough items on the menu that we could basically order “one of each”. Once more, we got a bit emotional – because the food was excellent, home made gnoccetini (with cheese), cold cuts from their own cellar, polenta (with cheese :D) and biscotti for dessert – but more so because eating out has become part of our identity, and we were not able to do so for almost a year by now. We missed it so much! Even the house wine was great.

The bus was on time (Swiss precision and so on …). Unfortunately for us, we were not able to convince Number 3 to take a nap or at least a bit of rest. So, the rest of the day was a bit of a drag with him getting up to worse and worse plots cooked up by his sleep deprived brain. At least when it was time to go to bed, he fell asleep mid-sentence.

— sorry for the amount of pictures. We had to nights of gaming and I want to get is out, no willpower to be tough on the selection anymore 😀 —

Day 6 – Recuperating

After yesterday’s long drive to get to Italy, it was officially our rest day today. Unfortunately, the kids don’t understand the concept of “sleeping in” and thus, we were awake way too early again.

It was a bit chilly when we got up but breakfast is a good way to cheer everybody up. Afterwards we just went to explore our immediate surroundings: The waterfall of Acquafraggia first of all. It is a five minute walk from our campground and we can see it from here through the trees. On the way there, we found a cool place with access to the river where Number 3 put his feet in already. He was generally amazed by the rapid flowing water.

The waterfall itself was loud and there was a lot of spray so Number 3 stayed back a little, while both Flo and I got ourselves a little refreshment when we got close. 🙂 The Agent of Entropy had no choice but to go with Flo but since she didn’t complain it couldn’t have been too bad.

With our spirits high and the temperature rising to a lovely 21 degrees, we started to walk to the next village over to see if we could find a little restaurant for lunch and a shop to buy some groceries. Though the walk was basically along the main road but on a pedestrian footpath, we saw lots of animals. The lizards especially fascinated Number 3. There was also a little chicken hut where we spent about 15 minutes trying to convince Number 3 to keep on moving.

The village of Prosto di Piuro is rather small. We still found the artisan bakery/cookie shop for me to buy some fruit bread, cookies, jam and a bottle of red wine in.

To be honest, Flo and I didn’t know how travelling would be during the pandemic and if we’d feel unsafe. We are really impressed with Italy at the moment as everybody seems to be “no nonsense” about the rules. EVERYBODY wears a mask. And correctly, too! Not just covering mouths or such silly business as I often see in Frankfurt. Everybody keeps their distance if possible and they just get on with it!

Shopping was a pleasure even if I had to stretch my almost non-existing Italian. We didn’t find a restaurant in our price range that was open but we found the little supermarket to buy some groceries.

We hurried a little on the way back as it was time for lunch and everybody was hungry. That turned out to be a bit of a drag for Number 3. Even so, he refused to have a midday nap after lunch. Chilling on the campground in the afternoon was an exercise for our patience. Only when Number 3 observed the guy on the lawnmower and started role playing it did things improve again.

By dinner time the Agent of Entropy was causing havoc while Number 3 redeemed himself by being a superb sous-chef.

Day 5 – Like clockwork

My plan was, to say it mildly, not well liked. It better work like a charm, or I would have gone to the dog house for a very long time. I suggested to add about 50km to the trip to our campground to go back to Germany for our mandatory rapid covid test (needed for entry to Italy). The main reason: 140€ less for the two of us. Germans get their tests for free in Germany. Secondly, it was way less hassle to get an appointment in Konstanz compared to Wil – it is a major border town and has about 10 full-time testing sites to choose from.

The kids were a bit over eager and were up an hour ahead of schedule, but overall the morning went according to plan. Nothing was left, that we could tell, and the heartfelt goodbyes were made easier by knowing that we will see each other again fairly soon. I did forget my car key fob in my other pants, but we only lost 15 minutes.

And so, in time for our 10.27am test appointment we rolled into the car park in Konstanz. It was all pretty orderly, so within 15 minutes we were out again with an electronic results form to be delivered within 20 minutes. I was even able to add a bonus stop to remedy a previous fail on my part: MediaMarkt had both a generic charger for Nina’s laptop to replace the one I forgot in Germany for just 27€ and a cheap usb hard drive replacement since ours died the previous night after 10 years of hard travel.

Next up DM (a kind of drug store, minus the real pharmaceuticals) – I also forgot to take any charger for our three identical electric toothbrushes. Good thing Phoebe still needed one, since they come with a charger. Better still, DM also offers printing on demand, so we could commit our fresh (negative) rapid tests down to paper – just in case. I must admit, time has crept up on us a bit, so at 11.20 am already, we also stocked up on some sandwiches for lunch in the car.

[Nina: It was here that I made the colossal mistake of letting Number 3 ride on a coin-operated train for ONE SINGLE COIN while waiting on Flo to finish all his tasks. Such a huge mistake. Though, at the time I thought Number 3 was really good as he got off the toy train without any complaints.]

The eating part was fine, but 10 minutes into the actual 229km drive to our campsite we realised we forgot to check on the Agent of Entropy. The diaper was, of course, full. Alright, another brief pit stop in some sort of quiet office park. Diaper changed, consolatory feed given … just in time for Number 3 to announce he would definitively and 100% certainly need another potty break. In the car, to the supermarket and the kid rushed inside … and it turned out it was a lie, since he was expecting another coin-operated toy train thingy ride after the business was done. Nina was not amused … 30 minutes for 3 km.

But that was our last hiccup … almost. Next stop was a rest stop with a few fast chargers for Puru Hiko. She was doing excellent, anyways. But then, 9 km before the exit, Number 3 decided it was time to play around and pull the emergency eject (i.e. the door lever going 110km/h on the motorway). Car started a panic inducing beep, wind rushed, Nina half jumped and pulled the door mostly shut again. I know, I could have set the child lock on the door – but this way, he has learned his lesson for life, I am quite sure of it …

Fast charging was uneventful – I mean, this is Switzerland after all. The toilets were clean enough I almost wouldn’t hesitate dining off them. Complete with coin-operated Heidi animatronics … that kind of thing. I restrained myself from buying a 10€ plant based whopper (try it though, really good … just not in Switzerland).

This left us well prepared for the last leg of the trip – 2 hours for 113 km. We did have to come up to 2114m to go over the Splügen Pass, after all. This was SO MUCH FUN! At least for me – the other three got rather motionsick, with the Agent of Entropy actually giving in on our way down from the saddle. Nina and I realised that we had done this exact same pass on the motorcycle before, roughly 10 years ago and coming from the other direction. That was then our second long-distance trip on the bike – or in other words, 70.000 km ago. Something to chew on 😀

Driving an EV on this road is second only to our bike, I would say. Blue George was fun because it was so nimble, and I think the electric version with only 2 passengers would be even cooler than our fully loaded 3 ton family car, just for that go-cart feel. But the sheer amount of torque without any interruptions for gear changes makes going uphill in an EV just a smile-fest. And going down, recuperation takes a huge amount of load off the breaks, so that you can be quite aggressive without risking break damage.

The others disagreed a bit – so with three white-faced passengers, we turned into a great and friendly campsite in a stunning location deep down in the Mera valley. The place is called after the adjacent waterfall: Acquafraggio. And even though we had our fill of waterfalls, this one is a real stunner, visible from the campground. We had absolutely no hesitation locking in a 3 night stay – quite unusual for us in most places.

Time to let it sink in – we are here. We are travelling. On the road again, at last!