English shortcut

English version March 25 to April 25
We leave Cologne and travel through the Mosel valley, so beautiful, but so rainy. We stop one night along Mosel, but continue down south through the rain the next day. We throught of making a stop in the beautiful city of Trier – but honestly, stopping for some out-door sight-seeing in pouring rain with three small children? I don’t think so. The next day, we go to Saarbrücken, where Christine studied many years ago. We pass the house where I used to live and then went down town for lunch at a restaurant I remember as nice, a brewery. We had some really Saarländiches Essen and then continued into France.

In France, Christine quickly had to refresh her French from an evening class in 96. That French class has proven to be very valuable throughout France. With that, we have managed many things. Shop food – which took all of Christines intellectual capacity for one day, get a living, and do some shopping.

Christine had her birthday in Beaune and it was a great day. Birthday cake for breakfast, a jogging tour along the wine fields and then a visit to a wine cave and test of 13 different Borugogne wines. Lots of sun all the time. In Beaune, we stayed at the city camping and did loads of laundry. Five people traveling make lots of laundry.

We continued further south and have had so many nice bush camping sites, met so many nice people and had a great time. We usually just look up a small road on the map, go there and then try to find a place to stay. We can never stop dreaming about the day when we have a 4WD Landrover and can go to the really cool places, but this is good enough for now. At one site, a small lake with a bunch of men fishing, Christine jumps out of the car with the map and a dictionary, in order to ask if we can stay the night there. By the time she waves OK to Pär, and he comes over, she’s sipping on a Pernod and has 5 fresh caught routs in her hand, ready to be cooked for dinner. “What have you said to them?” Pär asked and laughed. Well, the truth is, I don’t really know. One thing is what I want to say. Another is what I think I’m saying. And the third is what I’m actually saying. The three are not the same…

Then we’re invited for a coffee by a man who was having his breakfast and saw our camping, he got so interested he came down to talk to us and invite us up for a chat. We proved to have biking as a common interest, and Christine’s French is good enough to keep an easy conversation going by now. It’s easy to learn French in France, as they love their language so much that they hardly speak other languages.

After that, we headed to the French Riviera. We spent two nights in Biot outside of Nice with Bodil, Pär, Julius and William in their house. First, we planned on camping one night on their driveway, but when Bodil offered rooms with already made beds… So, we slept indoors in the warm house, occupied the laundry machine forever and even the dishwasher for a load. It’s so great to have generous friends! We had a really good time and it was good to be able to relax in a fully equipped home for a while.

Then we headed north again, we had planned to cross the Alps at one place, but saw signs saying that the pass was closed. We camped one night on the side of a small road to nowhere up in the mountains, when the whatever they’re called, the people that work for the community to fix the roads, came by in their cars. Christine ran out on the road and stopped them in her long johns and the map in her hand. With her not by now excellent French knowledge, she now managed to find out that the only place to pass was further north, and non of the alternatives we had were open until May or June, we did some re-planning of our route and kept driving more north until we passed the border to Italy and arrived to Sestriére.
The kids loved to play in the snow again.

We arrived to Lago d’Orta and spent two nights at the camping there. We got the best spot with a view of the lake and the alps, so beautiful. Stunning! Decided to stay two nights, and had a great sunny day when we walked around the half-island, looking at a bunch of chapels, the old city, took a boat road to the Silent Island, and then walked all around the half-island on a small pavement directly by the lake. Pär and the kids took a dip in the not-so-warm water before we headed back up to the tent.

Continuing in Italy, we had quite some trouble filling up our gas for cooking. We need propane or butane, and finally found a place, where he told us we could have the bottle filled by tomorrow noon. Ok, we go and find a place for the night, the rain is pouring down evening, night and morning. Everything is wet, by the time we get back to the place the next day, we’re late and he’s closed for lunch. 4 hours. We driver around trying to find a restaurant where we can kill a few hours. Stopping to ask a lady for advice, we get invited to cook our food in her kitchen. So nice! It’s great to be indoors in this weather. A few hours later, we pick up the gas bottle and our trip goes on.

One night, we stop in an apple tree field and ask an old man if we can stay there for the night. We have one of those dictionaries with sentences in many different languages. One very good sentence is “Can I park my car here for the night?” Christine end up listening to the old man talk for a long time. Understanding a few words here and there, she gets a grip of what he says, and it’s such a great meeting. We have our dinner in between the apple trees, which are in full bloom, and have a view of snow-covered mountains.

By now, we have been invited to the home of someone in every country we’ve visited (well, we got an invitation in Switzerland that we didn’t fulfil, it was in the wrong direction of our trip). It’s incredible how nice people are. In one place in France, we were sitting having our pick nick lunch, when a man came by and offered us a bottle of wine from the area, he said that he saw us sitting there eating without having wine and that he wanted to give us a bottle of locally produced wine. In Italy, a man comes by and gives us a bag of fresh baked bread when we’re having breakfast. It so fascinating how people can be so generous!

There are so many things happening all the time, big and small. First, I thought I’d be able to write everything in both English and Swedish. But I soon had to give up. This blog will be mostly in Swedish, but I’ll be trying to summarize the trip in English. So, my English speaking friends, you won’t get the great stories. You’ll have to come over and share a bottle of wine with us sometime and listen… ;.)

We find a small road just north of Trento where Christine has to jump out of the car and fold the side mirrors and then stand in front of the car to help navigate when Pär drives through with about 5 cm left on each side. Then we ask, as usual, in a house, for a place to set camp for the night. We end up in the middle of a grape- and apple field with a view that is breath-taking. We are high up on one side of a valley, and the mountains on the other side are just stunning. The children lay in the tent and reach out and smell the apple bloom. So beautiful. So hard to describe. We get an offer from Marina who lives there, to do our laundry in her house, so I walk down and load the washing machine. They live in this paradise and have this view every day. Before I go back up to the car, she offers to take care of our laundry tonight and hang it to be dry in the morning. Then she gives me some cake to bring up together with the sweetest apples. I keep saying, the people we meet on this trip are just incredibly nice! If you want to check out where we are, go to http://www.agriturmasotoldin.it/ to see what Marina and Ciro offer.

So, we continue into Slovenia. It starts to rain again… We’re shopping for food and meet Sabina, a Swedish girl who lives here. We had a nice chat and just before leaving her, I took her phonenumber. Did I know… Later that night, our car breaks down. So, we call Sabina! She helps us and by the next morning, she meets us and takes us to a car repair workshop. There we get a diagnose and advice to go back to Austria to get the car fixed. So, we drive on the number one gear to Austria, which takes us a few hours. Going through an 8 km long tunnel was the worst, just hoping the car wouldn’t totally break down. We end up at a VW dealer and workshop in Villach, and they can get spare parts on Monday. So, the first night, we camp on their parking. They’re having a Seat Exeo launch party that same night, and we’re invited to join. By the end of the night, we have found out what to do during the weekend, and the Manager has promised us to borrow a car for the weekend! Saturday, we check into a hotel, take the car and go to see some Japanese monkeys that are in a park here, and have a great day.