Germany and Luxembourg

After Säntis we drove in through the bottom of Germany and stopped in a small town on the banks of the Nectar river.
The town was called Nectarzimmern.
The whole region is full of castles and old history.

We visited this old castle and purchased some wine as it is also a Chateau. Wine wasn't that great to be honest. One wine lesson and I'm an expert.😊

Above is the view of the Nectar river and one of its locks.

Another view of the lock system

Here is a view from the top of the castle in the first photo.

Very interesting to watch river traffic going through the lock system.

We stayed here for 2 nights the headed north west to Luxembourg. 

Quite an interesting history in Luxembourg. 

Old grand buildings are all over the place.

Pretty normal scene close to the National museum.

The museum was huge with 9 levels.

Very good archeological displays of Roman and Paleolithic times.

Also lots about Neanderthals. 

Felt quite at home there..

Below is a funeral urn holder made of a large sandstone rock.

I can imagine Hinuera stone like this and use it for a firing oven for pottery. 

Linda is already shaking her head.

Spectacular mosaic made with coloured tile and rock from the Romans 

Below is a bronze statue with many faces.

Here is a very busy art piece from the museum.

Below is a new scate park and the old viaduct in the background.

During our stay in Luxembourg we had a massive thunderstorm with torrential rain.

We slept like logs in the van.

We packed up the next morning and drove through the countryside to south Holland. 

Switzerland

Here is another leg of our journey.

We drove from Italy into Switzerland and made our way to Saint Gallen which sits beside Lake Constance.

We came to a very small camp ground which is part of a small 15ha farm.
The farmer changed from dairy farming to beef production as the milk prices are very poor in Switzerland.  He has a small Angus breeding unit of 20 cows.
They are housed indoors during the summer days and let out at night into the cooler air. They are feed cut grass and silage.

Linda and I walked to a nearby village called Muolen.
We came here because our Neighbor Wally, from Te  Awamutu, was born here.
We sat at a cafe and had a coffee and chatted with some local cyclists.
When we left the cafe the cyclists talked to the other locals.
On the way back we were called to come back and talk with Wally's niece.
Such a small world.

Here is another local who we connected with who also knows Wally.

Here is typical Swiss farm scene

St Gallen was another old town we visited by train

The following day we drove to the Alp Santis.

At 2,501.9 metres above sea level, Säntis is the highest mountain in the Alpstein massif of northeastern Switzerland. It is also the culminating point of the whole Appenzell Alps, between Lake Walen and Lake Constanc...ref:Wikipedia. 

Sorry about the previous formatting...arhg. .

We met a Swiss couple Walter and Silvia who told us about Säntis.

Thanks for the good advise Walter.

View looking up the cable to the top.

Linda posing on Säntis 

Quite cold up there so I had shoes on my feet and a jersey.

I quite often go bare footed, which raises some eye brows.

(Bare footed on the Italian/Swiss border)

In Holland they have "bare feet coaches" because people are so removed from reality they need this kind of help.

Back to Italy and onto Switzerland

We drove back out of Croatia and through Slovenia then onto Italy.
We arrived in Chiavenna in Northern Italy and stayed at a motorcamp beside the Acquafraggia waterfalls.
Chiavenna is a very old town and also has a sister town called Villa Di  Chiavenna.

Villa di Chiavenna above.

Below is the waterfall at Chiavenna

The market in Chiavenna was worth the walk.

Lots of yummy food and Italian stuff....

Moving on from Chiavenna we headed north up over the mountains to Switzerland.

That was an incredible trip as the road was steep, hairpin bends and very scenic.

View at the border crossing. Stunning.

We just clocked 10,000km over this pass.

Here is Linda in the cold mountain wind at the border monument 

Border town 

Next post will be in Switzerland 

Croatia

After Venice we headed across to Croatia. To get there you must drive through Slovenia. To enter Slovenia with a vehicle you must pay a road tax and display the tax sticker on your windscreen. That cost us 7 euros for 7 days.
At the border there is a control post where all passports are checked. Having a NZ passport makes this easy. They look at it, look at you and hand it back. They were interested inside the van so I opened it for a quick inspection. Oh you are camping!! Please drive on.

We didn't stop in Slovenia so no photos.
Takes less than an hour to get across to the border with Croatia. Again a quick passport formality.
Once in Croatia we drove to the Island of Krk.  We met a dutch couple at Perugia who recommended Krk. We often speak to other travelers to get their ideas about destinations. There has been a lot of development since the war finished. The main roads are incredible. I imagine a lot of EU money went to build these roads. Driving off the main roads is different.  Old and poorly maintained.

Krk was a lovely place to stay and our camp ground was close to town.

View from Krk road looking back toward the mainland city of Rijika. 

The shoreline around Krk township was all rock. Sharp limestone.

The town have put concrete piers over a lot of it to allow people safe access to the water. 

Below is a premier place to swim where we think they have imported sand for a beach effect. All the other beaches are pebbles and you must wear wet shoes.

Krk was a lovery old town with medieval history.

After Krk we stayed on the mainland in a small place called SV.Filip I Jakov 

We took a days boat ride around the islands which was a great day out.

This is our boat moored during a swim break on a small island.

Another coastal view.

From here we went to a nature park....as they call it...Plitvica Jazera. 

This was another recommended stop and we weren't disappointed. 

This park is a series of fresh water lakes that cascade downward to other lakes. 

Very impressive and worth the trip.

The temperature was comfortable also as sleeping can be hot in Croatia. ..depending on your activity levels....like drinking beer or going for a run.

A limestone cave by the lake.

Overflowing lakes

In this part of the country it was sad to see half destroyed abandoned houses from the earlier conflict. 

Whole farms unused due to Serbians not returning to where they once farmed.

Lasting scars which I am certain some in the population still carry.

We headed south through Split as we had time constraints which was a bit of a pity.

We headed for Dubrovnik.
To get to Dubrovnik you must pass through Bosnia Herzegovina.
More showing of the passports and the goodbye wave. Lucky I reckon as some cars were being stopped and really searched.
This was another bucket list stop and really deserves it's own post.
Instead I will provide a link to all our Dubrovnik photos.

Dubrovnik was something else.
Old, well preserved, historical and stunning to look at.
We arrived early to avoid the tourists but it wasn't long and the selfie stick brigade was on us with a vengeance.  Arggggh

See!!!! We were there before morning smoko. 

Try this link to all the Dubrovnik stuff.
Some photos are pretty naff but some are okay.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B459-0aR3fADSWliTUhPYjI1Tmc

Enjoy.
Can someone email please if the link was a success??....thanks.
Sam

Venice

Another bucket list was Venice. It was a long drive from Perugia and we ended up in Lido.
Lido is an island part of the 117 island group which supposedly is the best place to stay on a Venice trip.
Our navigator, Lucy, took us into Lido by some narrow roading which we paid dearly for.
On a narrow street there was a BMW wagon parked half on and half off the road which incidentally seems to be common in Italy. Passing this car we heard a loud bang followed by a white beemer following us with the lights flashing.
The driver showed me a receipt for an earlier wing mirror fix up so I paid cash and shoke hands. No damage to the van as it clipped the door slider which protrudes by 30mm. Bugger.
When we got to the camp I was a bit fired up and had an argument with the camp over holding our passports.  I won that one.
In Italy, camps ask for your documents to fill in information to the local police. They then like to hold onto them until you leave. This goes against Italian law and against common sense. Identity theft is a big deal in Europe and it is practices like this that make it easy for criminals.
If you are in Italy sometime you have to be really staunch about this matter.
Aaaannnnyyyywwwwaaaayyyy.....

Venice from Lido is by boat so we booked a passage on a ferry.

The place is heaving with tourists all trying to get the best camera angles on each 

 shot. Easy with some people who only do selfies. 

Someone said a coffee in the Venice centre was 60 euros. I could not verify this but would not be surprised. 

Venice has been around during Roman times and the islands were first inhabited by fisherman escaping the wars which were a constant problem in those regions. Off course a church was established which meant written records started. 

On the island of Rialto the first church was established on 25 March year 421 AD.
Thats your history lesson for today.

A Venetian boat man plying his craft.

There are no cars in Venice city. Only boats and bikes.

Main street/canal.

Venice was so different it rated highly on our list of interesting places. 

They have their challenges which include pollution, over crowding, rising water and over pricing. 

The architecture is fantastic and comes from many periods in history.

Big day in Venice and by the end we were glad to leave.

Next stop Croatia.

Amalfi Coast Italy

We set our navigator to "avoid toll"
We selected Amalfi coast and started out. Bloody hell, what a trip.
Some of the smaller Italian towns have very narrow street and during the morning are heavily congested.
We climbed up a pass road finally entering a tunnel. What we saw out of the tunnel was spectacular.

The Amalfi coast receives passenger liners who hit the coasts beaches, bars and restaurants.

We took a lunch on the waters edge then went for a swim.

Amalfi wasn't planned but Barry and Donna's daughter recommended it as a must see.

Refreshed we made a new plan.
We headed out and back inland looking for a suitable campsite in central Italy.
We went off the main highway and onto provincial roads followed by narrow towns and park roads. We climbed up onto a plateau at around 1000 metres and stopped near a small mountain town called Opi.

The region is a national park and has lots of real wildlife.

Below is a local photo.

There are also bears in the woods surrounding Opi.

The camp was really nice and to our surprise had a few campers in it. 

That night we heard the wolves howling in the distance.

The following day we said goodbye to Barry and Donna and started out for northern Italy.

Final view from Opi. 

We ended up in Perugia on a lakeside campground. 

That night we watch the football match between Italy and Germany. 

Many beers were had as the game went into extended time with a penalty shootout.

The following morning we walked the local town which was very pretty and quite old.

After our walk around we headed for Venice.

Tuscany country side

Next stop was Siena city where we stayed in a small town called Sovicille
On the way there we came into a little town, which dated from medieval times, called
Casole D'elsa.

Siena was a lovely place to visit. We took advice to skip Florence due to high tourist numbers.

Quaint streets of Siena.

After Siena we drove to Rome. Rome is very big, noisy but bursting with things to see.

Arriving at our new camp we stumbled upon some Aussie travellers who were making an epic trip overland in a double cab ute.
Of course we had many beers together and planned for the next day in Rome.

We went to the Coliseum which is a huge Roman ruin with later medieval add ons.
Italywithus looked after our tickets. Thanks Sara.
The site is huge and there was a lot to take in.

The Coliseum 

The colesium itself is spectacular and standing there trying get to imagine the games that went on there was quite surreal. Lots of people died in that arena.

Another famous spot was the Trivi fountain which was bursting with people.
More selfies get taken than of the fountain . Seems a very popular way to record the holiday. 1000 mug shots with your face and a background.

Managed to find our bus again by walking past the Vatican. Didn’t stop for tea with the Pope as we had to much on that day. Maybe we can send another appointment.



Next stop was Pompeii. Barry and Donna followed us to the camp so we set up and had dinner with red wine and more beers.

Pompeii for me was bucket list stuff so very excited to be there.
Entry into Pompeii was easy and the site was huge. Some jaw dropping stuff.

When you see this it makes you realise that this civilisation was highly advanced.
Here is Barry checking out the package.

The whole place was caught by a sudden volcanic eruption in 79AD.
The people were running from the ash and got caught by the pyroclastic flow killing get them all.

Bodies were covered by many metres of ash and that is where they lay until recently times when Pompeii was unearthed. The gaps in the ash were filled and this is what came out.

Pompeii was a huge site and took its toll on the 4 of us.

We legged it to a nice cafe with cold beer on tap.

The following day we headed to the Amalphi coast.