Whilst we do love Yoko, our campervan, we acknowledge that she is a little on the small side when it comes to living accommodation. After 7 weeks of continuously living in her, moving everything around to get anything and constantly tripping over each other, we decided it was time to treat ourselves to somewhere with […]

To break up our journey from Siena to Scarlino, we took a small detour to the natural thermally heated waters of Bagni de Petriolo. Unlike most experiences in Italy, the [natural] spa here is a non-chargeable item. From afar, the smell of sulphur is a little offputting, but once immersed you hardly notice it…

Siena is a lovely city which we only spent one day looking around, mainly because of the closure of the camping facilities there. However, had we been able to stay longer, I’m not sure what we would have seen. Bear with me here whilst I explain. On our arrival, and after consulting the Rough Guide, […]

This picture is of a statue, taken inside the Duomo of Florence. Click on it and look closely at it. I often appreciate graffiti in its various forms, in fact I came really close to buying Banksy’s coffee-table book just before we left for our trip. However, I cannot understand what drives people to believe […]

I understand why there are so many languages in the world (Esperanto, anyone?) but I don’t understand why the same place has a different name in so many languages. I had no idea that what we know as Florence, is natively called Firenze, for example. And for that matter, why do we call Germany, Germany? […]

There’s a lot to do in Florence, if you into art, sculpture, churches, food or even just mooching*. We’re into the latter two. We spent a couple of days walking the streets sucking-in the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings of the city instead of bouncing from queue to queue for the main attractions. (No […]

Let’s be clear about this upfront: Pisa is not a small town. We only saw a corner of it, you know the one with the leaning tower and the tat stalls which pedal all things leaning. I’m certain that there is way more to Pisa, however along with the million other foreign tourists in the […]

If I said the word “Maranello”, my betting is that it means exactly one of two things to you: a) Nothing -or- b) Ferrari Maranello, the home of Ferrari, is a village just outside of the main city of Modena, around which a number villages playing home to Italian marques orbit: Lamborghini, Pagani, Ducati, they’re […]

Wow. What a lovely place Venice is and what an amazing day we had. As Venice is a car free place we found a small campsite about 12km outside the city which, very conveniently, had a bus stop right outside to take us onto the island. We awoke early and set off eagerly to explore […]

Leaving an alpine Switzerland behind, we drove over the border into northern Italy, and at once the scenery changed. The vistas still included lakes and mountains, but palm trees and holiday makers created a more Mediterranean feel. Our first stop was at Malcesine on Lake Garda, a small town recommended by my parents (ta mum […]