Welcome!

Hi Readers,

I have now finished this blog but feel free to read on and take a look at the posts and photos. Have a look on the left of the page for a monthly archive of older posts, listed by month, as this front page has only the most recent posts.

If you would like to see more I am at www.agreenmoon.com

Love to you!
Sarah

Monday 30 July 2012

Slovenia-Lake Bled

Writing you from Camp Bled in the shade of the alpine forest on two surrounding mountains, at the west side of Lake Bled. It's been a cooler day, although the cloud has cleared and the sun is out this afternoon.

We arrived yesterday after a short drive (in distance not time) from Villach in Austria with the rest of the holidaying European population. We had intended to drive straight here from Venice but after finding that the sat nav doesn't do Slovenia and not having a map we decided a detour to a border town would be handy. Honestly we has no previous intention to go to Austria but now glad we did for the scenery and little taste of the relaxed atmosphere. We have tried many a European supermarket at this point but InterSpa-the biggest Spa in the world- was great! The schweiner combination pack went well on the BBQ! Oh and the sculptured pigs head made of pate/sausage meat was genius (mom-maybe Stubbs butchers needs one of these!?).

The drive to Slovenia was beautiful as you approach the border mountains, there is no actual border marking as it occurs somewhere in the middle of the 8.3km tunnel, you go in in Austria, out in Slovenia. Ten minutes later your at lake bled! A tiny town at one end and the campsite at the other.

Yesterday evening there was a storm, rolling thunder and rain so we got cosy in the van and waited for it to pass, which it did quickly, and the aftermath was great. 22 degrees! Such a pleasure after nothing but 30+ ( I'm not complaining I promise!) and I immediately wanted to run. The lake is 7km round so I did about 5 and had a nice cool down stroll too!

Mark cooked chicken curry last night and we sat by the van and ate, wine not as cheap as Italy but still.

Today we hired bikes and rode around the lake a few times stopping for pictures, a picnic and a drink (the first Guinness opportunity for months!). It's Monday so there's less people about than yesterday but still plenty, swimming, sunbathing, walking and rowing boats. There's tons to do here with horse riding, hiking, river water sports, tennis and volleyball- this is a list of things we won't be doing!

Tomorrow is a bus ride to the Vintger gorge and probably the walk up to Bled castle too. I was trying to reserve judgement until we've been here more than 24hours but I don't think I will....everyone should come to Slovenia!

The tourism slogan is 'I feel sLOVEnia'.

So hope all is well in your world x

Thursday 26 July 2012

River (canal) deep, mountain high.

Ciao from Venice, today we have driven from the north of lake guarda to the peninsula south of Venice. Its about 30° and a bit 'sticky'; the cloud gathered as we travelled south.  We are but a boat ride from the city which we'll be heading to tomorrow. We're camped at a camperstop rather than a campsite, but its quite a bit cheaper and just has basic facilities like loo, shower and electric. €26 a night. 

Lake Guarda was an experience, we went to Sirmione in the south to find a camper stop listed in the book.   It was lakeside, but no toilet so after using the free wifi we head off towards the east of the lake.  Every site we came to was full, every site had a queue of caravans or vans outside all on the one narrow road that goes around the lake.  We stopped at one place which we ended up being glad it was full at over €60 a night! It reminded me of lake windermere, the main towns rammed with tourists and tat and then beautiful sections of scenery and not much else.  We followed the road north as it was getting more picturesque and there was a camper stop right at the top of the lake.  Probably an extra 90km then but we went through a brilliant series of tunnels with the lake side partly open (as seen on top gear???) and we got the second to last spot on the camper stop.  Exhausted but just happy to have somewhere to park after 6 hours! Oh and they closed the loos overnight...why!?
We we're staying in Torbole, at lake guarda aside from the days events these views we're beautiful.   we we're lucky mark understood some German,  all the tourists here have a D on their camper van and the Italian waiters, newsagents and all others speak to you in German!




Monday 23 July 2012

Milan's in Milan

Writing from the street side arm chairs of The Sofa bar in Naviglio district, Milan. By 6pm on a city day we are ready for a sit down with a beer. We're one side of the canal that runs through the south of Milan, apparently the "Bohemian" district. Vintage, antique and boutique shops, bars and restaurants line the canal.

Its almost happy hour which means €7ish for a drink and a buffet. Shame we're still full from lunch!

Milan's Duomo Cathedral (biggest in the WORLD) is impressive...the super posh, built in 1865 shopping arcade is beautiful and we celebrated this by having coffee in Gucci's cafe! Wandered past La Scala opera house to the castle which was really unusual and the bathing pool where you can paddle is lovely ...a corridor of fake handbags leads to a huge park.

We've not taken on the trams as maps of their routes seem to be unavailable but the metro and buses are cheap and easy to get about on.

Photos of the city coming up, and some stuff on Spain as I failed to blog at all while there. 

Photo of campsite sticker....


Saturday 21 July 2012

Ciao! From Italy.

We left Mougin this morning, a warm cloudy start, after packing the Van back up.  We've had a lovely apartment above Cannes for the last week with mark's folks.
It was a good feeling to be on the road again, exciting to think where this second part of our trip will take us.  So we headed east on the motorway, a general direction while we decided where to end up. We have now ended up, in Diano Marina.
One from the camperstop book, this is a site next to a farm shop. Al Roseto has a small veg and plant shop next to the farm. We were presented with a bag of tomatoes and aubergine for free when we booked in! And apparently there's fireworks tonight in the village/beach...excellent timing.

The motorway took us on a mountain edge drive today, here's some pics of Monaco and the view from the services ...you might notice father Ted's travelling too in one of the pictures. Also pictures of the view from our pitch and the farm shop.