Summer '09: Part One.

So, in my last post (which was quite a long time ago- I need to get a grip...) I said I would talk about my holiday in a later post. This is a later post and, since it has now been three weeks since I came back from my holiday, I think it's about time I document it before I completely forget.

I did kinda keep a diary during the trip, which I wrote by the light of my iPod in my tent each night before I went to sleep, so I'm now trying to decipher the scrawl to help me :)

And to make it more digestible/ less for me to write, this blog comes in an as-yet-undetermined number of parts.

Mon 20/07/09
We set off in our campervan, prepared for the 17 hour drive we had in front of us. We drove down to Folkestone, which took about four hours, where we ate some food before getting on the channel tunnel train. I really like the channel tunnel. It's fast and simple, and if you book in advance, probably the cheapest option too. There's no sea sickness involved, like on a ferry, and I don't think they accept campervans as luggage on planes, so we might have had a problem there. All we had to do was sit in our own van for half an hour and there we were, in another country.

That other country was France. This was the main part of our drive- we drove from Calais, through Belgium and Luxembourg, then came back into France, before stopping just south of Metz for a break. My Dad was driving the whole way, as we thought it would be better doing the whole drive in one go. His girlfriend had sat in the passenger seat up until this point, but now it was 10 pm, so I swapped with her to do 'the graveyard shift' of navigating, which wasn't really necessary since we had the sat nav, but otherwise my Dad would've been driving in the early hours of the morning whilst everyone else was fast asleep, which I didn't think was fair. Also, I really LOVE driving at night, and I'm so glad I stayed awake.

We drove past Strasbourg and into Switzerland, which is so pretty at night, because you can see all of the lights on the mountains. However, it was even prettier at dawn, with the sun coming up over the mountains. Beautiful.

Tues 21/07/09
We soon got to the area we were planning to stay at, Lake Lugano, at around 6 am. We didn't know which campsite we were going to stay at, but since none of them were open yet, we pulled over and had a nap at the side of the road.

We ended up in a very nice campsite just south of the Swiss border in Northern Italy. We could literally step out of the campsite and onto the bank of the lake. The first time I did this, I was speechless. My little brain couldn't quite take in the stunning views of mountains and lakes and... gah. It was just amazing. If I use my technical skills here, I might be able to add a picture...

If only my photography skills could portray the true awesomeness...

That night was the first time I had slept in a tent by myself in a foreign country and the first time that I would be doing it for more than a few nights, so I was pretty excited. XD.

Loser.

Weds 22/07/09

This was the first full day of the holiday, and it didn't actually go too well.

We decided to drive to drive around, to 'look at the lake from another angle'.

Van + small, windy Italian roads which aren't well signposted = disaster.

We got quite lost and couldn't find anywhere to park to get out and look around. We were driving down some quite narrow, steep roads and around hairpin bends. Luckily, my Dad has some experience with this, thanks to the great Cretian 'Stuck-in-a-Nine-Seater-Van Up a Winding Footpath on a Cliff Hundreds of Metres Above the Sea' incident of '05 (it's a long story), but still, we really were fed up when we found ourselves at a dead end and had to do a 1000-point turn in the van to get back up the road whilst loads of impatient Italians beeped their horns at us.

Eventually, we pulled over somewhere to make some sandwiches, and it started to rain. So, we had nap. Then we drove straight back to the campsite.

This time, it was traffic that was our nemesis. The roads were COMPLETELY full. We stopped at a supermarket to buy supplies, but then remembered that we had crossed the border into Switzerland, where they use Swiss Francs and not Euros, which is all we had. Thank god for credit cards, but we have no idea how much we spent...

Back at the campsite, we were all hot and a bit fed up, so we went to the lake. One thing about me is that I don't swim. I just don't like it. I haven't swum in three years, and don't even own a costume, so I wasn't expecting to swim on this holiday.

The rest of my family were swimming, and I stood on the edge, kinda talking to their bobbing heads in the water. My Dad suggested that I just get in fully clothed. I don't know if he was joking or not, but in the end I decided that I would. So I took off my belt (it's too colourful and cool to get damaged :P) and walked straight in, wearing my full length jeans and t shirt.

As I say, I hadn't swum in three years, and I had almost forgotten how to, but I eventually got better, and had fun! I got loads of weird looks from passers- by, and my clothes took days to fully dry, but it was certainly an experience!

Now I must stop, because I am so tired that I just forgot how to spell 'got', so part two of my Italian adventures will continue in another (and hopefully more interesting and concise) vlog soon.

:)