Tag Archives: free charging

Day 6 – Juicy

Flo:

Maybe I should’ve gotten to bed earlier. But the company was too good and sitting around a little fire just added this magic to it. Now it’s early and I’m a little bit tired. But even at 6:30am, it just gives me back my energy.

We were among the first to have breakfast and, with no awning to pack, were really fast breaking down our camp as well. So we took the time we gained and gave Number 3 his wish: a really big loop in the forest. We found cool and hidden things and he had a real good time, most of the way. Only near the end, an hour in, the novelty of it started to wane. So, in the car we hopped and off we went!

Instead of going straight north we decided to push on east first to go up along the coast. Nina read a Lonely Planet recommendation about the orchards there and found a cool place to spend lunchtime. We were still early so we were thinking of maybe checking out the fast charger in the town we were going for. It was fast and free, but a poor Swedish lady arrived just a minute after us and her exaltation that I would use the CCS plug leaving the ChaDeMO to her turned to despair when it turned out this station could only fuel one at the time. We were ready for lunch anyway, so we left it to her and headed off.

Nina:

Once we arrived at Kivik Musteri, I immediately got into the looooong queue just because it was there. That left Flo some time to get the kids ready and check out the place. It turned out that Kivik Musteri offered free charging for electric vehicles anyway so we were all set up right here.

Kivik Musteri consisted of the butik which I was queuing for, a restaurant, a little 6 room museum and a cafe. After some thought, I left the queue again as it didn’t make sense for us to get into the shop where we basically couldn’t buy anything (no space in the car) and it was lunchtime anyway.

We decided to go to the cafe which also gave me an option for cake. J After a good lunch break, made slightly uncomfortable by wasps, and a coffee/cake dessert, we were ready to tackle the “garden” and the museum. Number 3 enjoyed jumping around in the garden and looking at the different apple trees dispersed with other fruits.

The museum started with a room full of preserved fruits. It then went on to the history of Kivik Musteri, followed by the factory parts and a kids’ activity area. Number 3 got to be a little bee as well as testing his strength at pulling up 1kg of apples.

All juiced out by Kivik and all juiced up by the free charging, we left for our camp of the night. It was a nice campground at a lake where we really and definitely needed to do some laundry. We arrived late and it looked like rain so we quickly set up our tent. With me doing laundry and Flo organizing a cooked dinner, it left Number 3 to explore the lakeside by himself. He loved it even if he decided to go into the water with his shoes and socks still on.

After our dinner, Flo and Number 3 had one last round to check the place out before the kids went to bed. It was my turn today to tuck them all in. The Agent was already asleep when Flo opened one window from the outside and called Number 3 and me over. “Look, there’s a rainbow now!” So cool that Number 3 also got to see it. The rain stopped and we had a lovely, quiet evening at the lake.

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 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 …

Chaos roaming the world

random pieces of life of Nina and Florian