Italia!

Well, yes, many of you were right, we went to Italy! It was wonderful...

We started off just over the French border, in Pietra Ligure, which is a fairly standard seaside town but just what our sea-starved British souls needed:

We were getting very good vibes about Italian campsites, which seemed cheerful, shady and relatively quiet. Our next stop, in Siena (close to Florence - well done, guessers!) was an incredible campsite actually within the medieval city. We visited the sites by day (too hot) and then by night (wonderful).

On to Rome, where another city campsite on the banks of the Tiber was calm and relaxing - and much appreciated as we visited Rome:

Pompeii:



and the particularly wonderful Herculaneum:

Exhausted by a lot of walking and driving (these sites aren't near each other!) we headed off to the Apennine mountains near the Adriatic sea. Our final campsite was a tiny one in an olive grove, full of very friendly Dutch people:

It's where we got to make (and eat) pizzas with the local pizza chef!

It was a wonderful three-week holiday, made very easy by great campsites, a GPS system and good-natured family members. One of my French trainees asked me: 'Was everyone happy, all of the time?' and the answer is, of course not! We just worked on the theory that everyone would have their off moments and that this wouldn't matter. It didn't. We will be travelling like this again!