Category Archives: Puru Hiko

Day 4 – Holidaying

With the longest of the pre-planned days and definitely the most stressful one (for me) behind us, we can now slow down a bit. It manifested by us lying in our sleeping bags a bit longer even with the kids awake; and Taking our time to make breakfast without starting to pack at the same time; with being happy that one of the other kids showed up with a card game (Dobble) that he wanted to play with Number 3 and actually taking the time to play two rounds; and also, having a bit of a forest exploration detour before leaving the campground.

primally natural – Flo enjoyed the cuddles

We found rabbit holes and empty snail houses and unripe hazelnuts, much to delight Number 3. The Agent of Entropy seemed to need cuddles more than anything as she simply refused to walk.

Luckily for (me) us, the sun was shining this morning and it got warm quickly. Flo had been grumbling about summer being over now that we started this holiday into a cold and wet country. And England had been true to the stereotype, greeting us with grey skies and drizzle. Today, even Flo enjoyed the weather (at least in the morning).

We hit the road for a short drive to a fast charger. With only 250km to go today, we could allow for more stops and a leisurely pace. Since we’d taken our time on the campground, it was close to lunch time by now and we had to feed the tigers. That was no problem with the standard highway rest stop, greeting us with our pick of fast food to choose from.

Back at the car, we realized that charging hadn’t worked the way we wanted but it had stopped prematurely. Slightly fed up with the whole charging situation in England, we opted for Fastned with we knew would be good. The nearest one was another 40 minutes away but we just had had lunch and Number 3 had asked for ice cream as dessert. So we even had another excuse to stop.

we are here for the carge, not the familiarity, promised

Fastned worked as well as it is known for. There was a Lidl next to it so we got some shopping down in the meantime. Number 3 got ice cream, the Agent got to push one of the fun sized trolleys and there was even a toilet to boot. All the things you could ask for with small kids. >.< It wasn’t quite as nice as the coop yesterday though. #battleofthesupermarkets

Loaded up with (now slowly melting) ice cream in the car, we drove towards the campsite. Unfortunately, it was another 1.40hours away due to a small traffic jam in the middle. There was no good opportunity to stop and enjoy some ice cream, instead we were really glad when we arrived at the campsite.

Nobody greeted us. Even after the phone call we weren’t much better off as the person on the phone had said that the internet was down and she would check later if we’d booked and paid as we said. Slightly confused, we had half-molten ice cream on our blanky when Flo read his conformation email again. It cleared up everything. It said: Please call to let us know you’ve arrived, then proceed to choose a tent site to your liking, set up and we will get back to you as soon as our work allows us to do.

Easy enough to follow. It is a great campsite on a working farm. There are many, many sheep, lots of horses and our good old neighbours, the cows. It was an instant hit with the kids. The words “farm”, “horses” and “cows” were uttered a lot, mostly by our youngest one.

By now, the sky was grey again and a chill wind blew in from the west. We are just a stone’s throw from the Scottish border after all. We got our lovely dinner done before the rain set in. Friends of ours had given us the cook book “two pans on the road” a while ago and for this trip, we’d actually remember to take it with us – thanks Number 3 for going and picking out a few recipes. Thus, the first recipe was followed and tasted great! 🙂

Good morning sunshine, porrige to get started

Day 3 – Range of Emotions

It‘s my birthday! But we forgot! Well, until we were in the car already, that is. First time in over a decade that I am not “home” to celebrate my birthday with friends. But holidays are short and we wanted to make the most of it. Plus, as a bit of a reprise of my childhood trauma, we are back in sync with the school holidays, which means my birthday is ALWAYS at some inconvenient time in the middle of them.

But back to the car – we left the campground in record time this morning, as we had a train to catch. Le shuttle eurotunnel to be precise. Departure 9.10am, arrive one hour early. Getting up at 6.30am as usual this meant breakfast in the car. But without an awning, we were even faster than that and on the road by 7.30am.

Much to our delight, the Eurotunnel is happy to deal with that to everyone’s satisfaction. Would you like to take the 8.35am instead, at no charge? Don’t mind if we do. There was just enough time left to grab an overpriced (but pretty decent) Starbucks coffee and munch down yesterday’s pain au chocolat (still excellent, obviously). Apart from the 20 min in the cue for the border checks (whee, Brexit!) that got Nina a bit worried for a moment, it was an absolutely smooth operation. Almost a bit too much, making this marvel of engineering feel a bit underwhelming as an experience. In – 25 minutes of gentle swaying in a dark tunnel, out and off.

With the time difference it was now 8.15am in England and not much in sight other than getting past London. We made it a proper push, stretching our range to one of the few fast chargers on the western route north (towards the A1). Just after Cambridge, with 40km range left, we pulled up to four Ionity hyperchargers … only to find them all offline! A call to the service line was no good. Two more fast-chargers from another company were at this service station, but full. In the end, about 20 minutes after we had arrived, the Ionity sprang back to life and we could proceed to a more relaxed lunch.

All should have been well, it was still early, only 160km to go and enough charge on the battery now. Campground was pre-booked, a pub to watch the game close by. But when we arrived, the warden took one look into the back of our car and flatly exclaimed: “adults only – you can’t stay here!” That’s it – good luck with your refund, not my problem (booked for 2 adults and 2 kids, obviously). Are you serious?! Its 2.30pm now. Breathe – double check. Not much nearby. Adults only … +45 camping … members only … what the !”§$% …

Then, Nina got the one we needed, kids almost mental in the car by now. We promised to get out, now its another 30 minutes plus the time spent searching. What a lot of horse manure. Although, in the end …

… 25 minutes later, at the new camp we had the warmest welcome and a big headshake from this warden for the behaviour of his colleagues. The space at Lupine Woods Camping is perfect for us – rustic but we have it almost to ourselves. There were only maybe 5 other places occupied and he had no issue with us charging the car. A bit of forest to roam free and explore and (as it turned out) other kids to find and play with for the little ones. And to top it all off, the wifi was good enough to stream the game!

So, with catastrophe nearly avoided, we settled in, made some new friends, had a real nice dinner that I cooked instead of oily pub-grub and got to sit down to watch the game. A loss, alas, but that would have been too perfect now, would it not?

P.S.: Dear England, I am not mad, just disappointed!

Day 2 – Cows in fog or find the best pastry in France

After a good night’s sleep, where the temperature dropped to surprisingly low 14 degrees, we were the first ones to get up at the campground. Everything was covered in fog. Our new neighbours on the pasture were hard to spot but their young ones had breakfast at the barn and they delighted our kids.

The calfs get some good hearty vegetarian breakfast too (small bugs not counted)

Even after breakfast, we were the only ones moving around the campground so we tried and failed to get the kids to be quiet. I feel like this is going to be a thing on this trip, especially with the Agent of Entropy. Either she’s going to be asleep, or she will get out as many words as she possibly can. Given that her repertoire is limited…that means a lot of repetitions.

Though we took a bit of time, we hit the road nice and early. Arrival at the Atomium in Brussels was 11am, but we hadn’t booked anything, not for the restaurant or even going up the tower. All the people there plus the queues convinced us to put “Belgium” on the list for a shorter holiday some time else and just look at the Atomium from the outside today.

it will take you more than a few moments to realise that he is not actually looking at any part of the structure

An overpriced grilled sandwich later, we explored the nearby park a little bit while walking back to the car. So far, we’re still in the pre-planned, getting-to-Ireland stage of the holiday and don’t have as much leisure as we’d usually have. Another 2 hour drive was looming for the afternoon to get us as close as possible to Calais as we’d booked the le shuttle through the eurotunnel for tomorrow morning, our best shot to get through the channel quickly.

Number 3 fell asleep in the car but since the Agent had already slept in the morning, she was wide awake and sang “Happy birthday” for about a 100 times.

Shortly after 3pm, we stopped at a cozy little bakery. Flo had googled a nice place for us to get coffee time treats as well as bread and a quick up-and-go breakfast for tomorrow morning. We all opted for pain au chocolate which will still be delicious, even a day old.

The campground this night is called “al la plage” and while I can’t see the beach from here, Flo and the kids have gone to explore how close you can get to the sea.

An hour later, they came back. Dinner was made from things we brought from home and we progressed into the evening routine.

Day 1 – Word Processor

Hey – here we go again. Nina and myself are still not sure if we have the engergy to go for daily blogging again. No other way then trying. So I will give it a shot!

What trip kind of trip are we on this time? Well, its still with Puru Hiko, still with the roof tent and the whole family. We have 5 weeks, so we were looking for something a bit further off to make use of the time and enjoy some of that late-covid freedom. Our choice fell on Irland this time, with some light Brittany as a pallet clenser on our way back.

Everything until Belfast is pre-aranged, sailing on the 3th of August. A bit of a rush, but some slight post-Brexit resentment made the choice of dashing through England much easier. Then we have 24 days on the Island of Irland, until we get on another boat from Cork to Roscoff.

Day one was, dare I say, much of the usual. Packing drags on a bit, but we managed to leave before noon. Some crappy food and broken fast chargers later, we managed to make it to Aachen for a late coffee break. Nina wisely proposed to keep the first day on the shorter side, so from here on its only a short 30 minutes to the first campground.

Aachen, the short hour we spent there, was lovely. Number one had seen a bit about the cathedral on the “Sendung mit der Maus”, so we got him to buy into a tiny bit of sight-seeing after the massive piece of strawberry-cream cake. On our way back to the car (parked at charger try number 3) he even insisted that we must come back again as it was “soo nice”.

The last 30 minutes had both kids fully amped up, talking seemingly without even taking a breath in between. The camp ground is perfect for us, single field grass pitch attached to a small farm. No hedgerows, no permanet placements. Out on a lovely hill overlooking a few towns in the Limburg region of the Netherlands. A simple dinner with fresh bread, tent up, car charging. Let’s get this things started …

leave the house clean and return with a smile

Day 25 – To the Donkey!

Good for us, Leonie is a champion of planning ahead. She had a few great options for us to avoid the “we should really not sit on our bums all day” trap ready last night, but we intentionally left the last choice between a fun park and a petting zoo-type place open until breakfast, so that Number 3 could give some input. Interestingly, he went for the “farm animals” option over the playground.

After a very nice and leisurely breakfast we still had time left to sort the kids out and let them go through some of their morning routines. Of course as always, I ratcheted the stress level up a notch. Instead of going in the two cars of our dear hosts, I thought it a great idea to finally show off puru hiko to someone else. That meant breaking the tent down – something that did not sit entirely well with Nina for a little while …

We got over it, though – and I got to both show off how quick the tent can come down as well as the fun to be had with an EV. Peter and our kids were with me, while Nina went with Leonie and their two rascals. Off to the Kinderparadijs Malkenschoten.

A bit of sunscreen and we were starting with some sheep and then straight for the petting zoo full of goats. Number 3 has a love-hate relation with them, this time apprehension won out for the most part. It has been over a year, to be fair to him.

So we made our way, leisurely, from enclosure to enclosure gazing at sheep, ponies and the odd chicken. All the while, we took the time to stop in between to give the kids time to explore the playgrounds and equipment along the way.

Unfortunately, around lunch time, we had to adapt a bit more. One of us felt quite unwell, and we hustled to get food into all the kids and get them moving towards the exit. The magic phrase was “go look at the donkeys” – since we knew they were near the entrance of the site. There was a bit of severe discomfort, to which I could thoroughly relate after having joined the 10% of people with this particular chronic ailment about two years ago.

Given the need for rest and the excitement for our little team of adventurers this morning, we all retired to an extended nap-time into the early afternoon. I took the tent setup as another challenge and had it up and ready for bedding before our hosts had their front door unlocked 😀

The rest of the day was pretty much perfect for what we expected out of a visit like that – the kids were mostly good, playing well together. Everyone felt much better after naptime and there was plenty of time to catch up and feel comfortable around each other. Even though we all communicated in our second or third language, there is a closeness we feel to Peter and Leonie, based on shared similar experiences, that is quite unique. It turned out it only incresed in the last few years, with all of us going through the experience of having two kids still sort of in the aftermath of our “big trips”.

The day closed out with lovely cold (non-alcoholic) beers and way too much Indonesian food. We were delighted and might have gotten carried away with the order, but it is really hard to come by Indonesian food in Germany (even though this batch was Chinese-cooked). We have fallen in love with the Indonesian cuisine on our “Home to Home” trip and tucked in until there was not room for a single extra bite.

We sat outside, enjoying the mild summer evening until the last light had set behind our tent. Thank you Peter, Leonie – what an excellent way to end another (little) adventure.

Day 24 – Off, off and away

It only took one afternoon and one morning to make our flat look like a whirlwind went through. No matter, we’ll be back in a couple of days and can clean up then.

Number 3 and I managed to go to the farmer’s market to buy cherries as a road snack and fresh bread at our local bakery.

Repacking was easy as we hadn’t unpacked a lot in the first place. So by 9am, we were back on the road. The distance to our friends’ place in the Netherlands isn’t too bad at 340km, but with two small kids, you have to time everything just right.

The Agent slept and Number 3 was pretty good, which made things easy. Also, he can be distracted by audio books if push comes to shove.

brand new and cool charger – but it did not take my charge card. 5 minutes delay for the call but then for free …

Finding a fast charger was surprisingly hard this time. Only because we started to be a bit picky and also because we wanted to stop next to the autobahn before we got to the sprawl that is the start of the Rhein-Ruhr area marked by Cologne. In the end, we stopped at an e-on charger. Flo couldn’t get the charger to work with his charge card. After calling in to report the issue, they activated it remotely and we charged for free.

Again, there was no shade to be found. Plus, the actual rest stop was still closed on this side of the autobahn. Now we had the choice between a bench in the shade and a toilet at the fuel station or a walk across the autobahn bridge to the open rest stop. We chose to stay and eat our delicious bread and cheese.

With all the kerfuffle in the beginning our stop ended up one and a half hours long, more than enough to fully charge the car again.

This time Number 3 fell asleep while the Agent was awake for a while. We managed to get to the Netherlands before Number 3 woke up and immediately started to complain that he had to live his life in a car and never wanted to go by car ever again. It was quite a long way for kids, we understand that. Once there, we planned to stay put for at least two nights.

As it was, the last 30 minutes dragged with me trying to keep the kids from screaming. And then just like that, we were there. 🙂 A house, a big yard and garden, shade, kids, something to drink and the world looked brighter again for Number 3. Both our kids went off to explore and we had time to talk to our friend Leonie which we hadn’t seen in way too long.

She cooked a yummy veggie meal for us and Peter arrived before we all sat down to eat. All four kids demanded attention to get them fed and ready to sleep. By the time we had our two in bed and asleep (which didn’t take long), the others also were asleep. So, we had until 11pm to talk to Peter and Leonie before I had to fall into bed as well.

The one spot with shade – not in frame, the polish van driver just behind me cooking his dinner o.O

Day 23 – Do not pass go, do not collect …

Right, I have all my phones back. The night was quiet and all there was to this day was this: Autobahn until we are at our flat – that would leave us within one day’s travel to the Netherlands, where we sorely wanted to meet dear traveling friends again after two full years. So it was good-bye to our otherwise really neat German campground. 27 € seemed like a real fair price for the convenience anyway.

There are three routes, with 320, 340 and 360 km respectively – but depending on the time of day and traffic situation, any of them can be the fastest route. I still was pretty set on taking the shortest one past Heidelberg. Short of a 20 minute bypass of some roadworks suggested by google, it worked out pretty much that way.

This is the kind of distance that all the BMW propagandised stinker drivers get all nervous about: “but how about long distances?”. Range anxiety it’s called, I think. Utter propaganda, I would say now. 200 km in, and ready for lunch we pulled in an IONITY fast charger and that was that. Plug in, tap the charge card and go.

Number 3 does like this unhealthy option

There was an unplanned deviation of plans though – since there was no conveniently shaded lunch spot in sight, we allowed ourselves to be lured by the devil and change plans for lunch. The bread rolls would last until dinner, but a plant-based whopper was here, now! (try it, btw – if you like fast food – and tell me why you would ever choose a normal whopper instead).

We got lucky and were able to have the unhealthy treat in the shade outside (restaurants are still closed due to COVID restrictions). Once again, by the time we made it back to the car before it got to 98% charge (the last 10% take 10x longer than 50% to 60%, so it is technically full by that point).

There was one more stop very near to home, intended as a coffee break. Fast charging was easier than using the charge point close to our flat. We cut the break short though, when the sun came out from behind a cloud. Home was experiencing a heat wave, with up to 37°C. And providing conveniently shaded rest for EV chargers is very low on the list of priorities for the vulture capitalist monopolist Tank&Rast running our Autobahn rest stops.

A great welcome at home: A friend looked after our flat, made sure the parcels and letter are safe and sound, even bought us some necessities and left a present for the Agent! <3

As soon as we had opened the door to our flat, we both realised how burned out from Covid we had been: What a nice place – so big, so bright. Spending that bit of extra energy before leaving to clean up added a lot. When we left, all I could see were the flaws – all looked cluttered, dirty and contraining. Now, with three weeks of travel behind us, it was a very different feeling. But, of course, the Agent of Entropy aided by Number 3 had the proper chaos restored to the living room in no time.

Getting to bed had some extra challenges this time. Number 3 was quite sad and anxious about the fact that he would sleep alone in his bed once more, with no one to cuddle up to. Having the Agent there helped him a little. To top everything off – the heatwave and a lack of venting in the last few days had left our old brickwork apartment building heated up enough that the baby monitor showed 31°C even at 10pm at night.

Just that one night – tomorrow would be the farthest drive yet …

Day 22 – Back to Germany

Our lovely campground provided us with superb German bread rolls for a small fee. It was a great last breakfast in Italy, as we were really close to the Brenner pass or Brennero as the Italians would say.

Number 3 is getting a lot better taking pictures with his own camera

Packing didn’t take long; we hadn’t even unpacked the awning. Once we decided to get going, we were on the road in good time. Flo had planned the route for today which would bring us from Brixen to Illertissen through Austria and to our next Covid test. Organising all this takes a bit of getting used to.

The Brenner was a letdown, especially for Number 3, as it’s neither an especially high pass nor a tunnel. Suddenly, we were at the gate to pay the 10€ toll for the pass we had just taken without realizing it. Ooooh. Number 3 who we primed for an extra long tunnel, was disappointed. Our next “exciting” stop for today was lunch next to a fast charger. On the way there, in search of a bakery for fresh bread, we made the mistake of stopping in front of a Spar supermarket. Number 3 saw the car-shaped trolleys for kids and would not leave this place before he’d driven around in one for a while. With Flo refusing to buy bread in a supermarket when we were “surrounded by bakeries”, we bought fresh milk and left again. Number 3 was beyond happy about this experience.

The notorious car-trolley and a happy Number 3

Having bought bread rolls at a bakery, we found the charger. It was next to a fuel station and a restaurant which you could only enter when recently tested or fully vaccinated. In search of a place to have our picnic, we used the tunnel underneath the motorway and sat down in the shade of a parking lot on the other side. It was rather hot already.

After the break, it was a straight ride to Illertissen. We’d booked a Covid test there at 4pm, but arrived at 3pm already. It was no problem to just get tested earlier. The results would be send to us via email in about 20 minutes as we had a bit of time to kill before we could get to the campground. If you wanna stay somewhere in Germany overnight, you have to be tested.

Ice cream while we wait for our test results

We opted for the usual “gelato and go” ice cream option and sat down in the shade. Before Number 3 had even finished his ice cream, we had our results on our phones and drove the last five minutes to the campground.

The campground was lovely. The owner put us in a nice grassy area with shade, there was a table and a bench next to it and the new facilities were close by. Both kids enjoyed having some free time to play and explore. In no time, both of them looked like piglets.

Flo treated us to a pancake dinner and we brought the kids to bed. We thought we were in for a quiet night, maybe even chat to friends online. Wrong. I was still in the tent with the kids when Flo started to look for his phone. He last used it to show our test results to the owner of the campground…after that he’s not sure what happened to it. So we turned everything upside down. For one and a half hours, we looked into every box, every little place in the car, asked the owner twice if someone had found a phone, looked in the bathrooms…and Flo got grumpier and grumpier. We had to face it, his phone was probably stolen. Bummer.

This is when Flo started to try the “other” solutions. He realised “google find my phone” was an option and got a location on the campground though on the other side of it from where we were. Then, he’d force it to ring even though it was set to silent mode and, on the third try, he could hear it ringing before someone stopped it. In the end, an old lady had it in her hand and he got it back. We’re not sure if she and her husband wanted to steal it or if they just have dementia. Her reaction was “who are you? What is your phone doing in my trailer?” Anyway, he has it again. Phew.

Day 21 – Low Energy

The usual reaction to any city we visit is: “Wow, that was fun. We can imagine coming here again.” Sometimes there may be a thought of: “Ok, we have seen this now.” But only a very few places manage to disappoint us so completely that they get added to the TIHI category. Bozen, well done, you became memorable to us in the worst possible way 😀

At least the day started well – the sun was in our backs now, so breaking camp was a much more relaxed and cooler affair than the setup last night.

diligent application of sunscreen – at least until BionTech has that skin-cancer vaccine fully figured out …

The plan is straightforward – we need to be in the Netherlands in four days. Well, we want to be – since long before we decided that Italy would be our best shot we made plans to visit old traveling friends at the end of this parental leave – same as we had done last time with Number 3. As the astute observer might notice: The Netherlands are not, strictly speaking, along the way to Frankfurt. But we were committed, felt we had done northern Italy enough justice and strapped in for some decent long distance travel (for European standards).

To avoid even more Covid-related paperwork and hassle, we would stop once right before the Austrian border still in Italy (well, the autonomous province of South Tyrol) and then pass through Austria in one day to avoid some hassle. That meant today was the first of four consecutive road trip days, and the shortest distance. With the EV, each of them should look roughly the same – first leg, quick charge lunch break, second leg, camp. We opted for the fastest route via the motorways rather than the scenic roads – we would probably need 2 more days to avoid pushing the little ones too much going scenic.

A roadside castle using a hill as an excellent defensible position

So, I planned ahead and saw that Italy did not really have fast chargers along the motorway, at rest stops like the rest of Europe, at least not here. If we needed to come off the toll road anyway, might as well add one more city, right? Bozen, the capital of the German speaking autonomous province of “Südtirol” was on our way, reached roughly at lunchtime. It had six public chargers marked within walking distance of the two recommended eateries on the Lonely Planet app – perfect, or so we thought.

With growing disbelief, I had to realise that every single public charger on the otherwise excellent app I am using has been removed. It seems, there are only three charge points left in Bozen, and they were A: in a paid parking garage and B: all in use, obviously. I have nothing against paying for parking if the chargers are available, but this was for me a clear indicator that we had made it back to fat old German-speaking climate-denier country.

It was late, we gave up – I mean our car has plenty of range – and settled on at least finding something to eat. We did, and again it was a beautiful reminder of what we hate about our own culture. All that was to say about the food at Gasthof Fink was that the portions are too big and they despise vegetarians. Would you like a triple layer Schnitzel, or two sad slices of undercooked eggplant for the same price, mam? Let’s leave it at that – we will not be back.

Our camp in Brixen without our car which was charging

Brixen, and the hotel / campground we chose as our stop for the day, turned out to be the light at the end of the tunnel, on the other hand. We arrived to excellent service, a really well-kept campground attached to the hotel and a nice pool. The reception offered that I could use the free guest chargers to top up the car before moving to our camp and then top it up with the 6A overnight. It was perfect, even though we looked a bit funny relaxing and cooking on our site amidst all our stuff but without the car.

Day 20 – Padua II or some things deserve a second try

Today, we left our campground at the doorstep of Venice bright and early. We had good reason to be on the road at 9am. I had booked tickets to see the Scrovegni Chapel at 10.45am! We need to go in the direction of Padua anyway to start our way home and Flo said there would be time to see the frescoes if we got tickets. I was very happy about that.

Having said our goodbyes to Venice yesterday, we now said goodbye to the campground and our Swiss neighbours. Their dog had entertained our kids for many, many moments. Especially this morning, it meant that I could pack in relative peace.

look at this blue, and the stars in the “sky”

We left on time with the intension of having a second breakfast in Padua after having picked up the tickets. These plans changed, however, when we got into a traffic jam because of an accident further up the road. We wouldn’t be too late but there was no time for a second breakfast.

We kept Number 3 going with juice and snacks, while the Agent had pureed fruit to go. Because the frescoes are almost 700 years old by now, the athmosphere in the chappel has to be maintained and controlled very carefully. Moisture from sweat can lead to damages, including salt blossoms on the wall. Thus, the access is restricted (even more so in Covid times) and you have to sit in a room watching videos for at least 15 minutes to aclimatize and let your body adjust to the cool surrounding before you are even allowed in. The kids and Flo did quite well allowing me to do this rather kid-unfriendly procedure.

If you study art history, there is no way you haven’t had a lecture or a seminar on Giotto. To see it for real was pretty epic. Even if you’re ushered through and can only 15 minutes in the chapel. Even if the Agent got unhappy about halfway through and I carried her around telling her about virtues and vices. Yes, this was a win for me.

Afterwards, we went straight to a nice cafe for our second breakfast. It turned out to be rather fancy; it did have decaffeinated tea though which is a first in Italy. Number 3 surprised us a little with his wish to order macaroons. He successfully negotiated that he could have three though as this was the same price as one piece of cake and he devoured them all himself.

Afterwards, it was time to get going. The lago di Garda was our next destination. Still hungry, we got take-away sandwiches at a tiny place right next to the cafe that was recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was good value for money and we got huge sandwiches we could eat in the park right next to our parking garage. Number 3 even got a kids’ sized one with ham and cheese – which he also devoured dutifully.

Both kids slept through the car ride pretty much until we got to Lake Garda. It was hot by now and shade was hard to come by.

the lake right in fron of our campground

The campground turned out to be pretty, with views of the lake, and be entirely in the sun. I got grumpy until we had the awning up and there was at least some shade to be found. Sitting in the shade unmoving, waiting for the breeze to cool you down a little, the heat was becoming bearable again.

It wasn’t the kind of place with easy access to the lake. Flo and the kids checked out the lake but decided only to dip their toes a little. The kids were allowed to stay up late though, until the sun had disappeared behind the hills over at the far side of the lake. The tent was simply too hot to try and get them to sleep until then.