We’re so relieved to be in Italy, we stay at the nearest available campsite at Klausen/Chiusa in the Adige Valley. This is Sudtirol and all the signs are still in German first and then Italian, which is a bit mad really. We park up and then realise we are literally underneath the A22 transit route, with trucks thundering past our heads, and also rather too close to the main international railway line. Every time a goods train goes through, the whole valley seems to shake, not the best night’s sleep ever.

We awake to realise that we may be in Italy but we’re still in the Alps. The steep-sided V-shaped valley of the Adige is very pretty, with little castles and forts dotted about on the slopes, yet at the same time quite oppressive. The sun pops up eventually on the east side, only to disappear a short time later over the west. The motorway still looms over our heads. I’m beginning to realise that I don’t like mountains very much, far happier by the sea.

Crammed into the limited available space on the valley floor are a river, a motorway, an A road and a major train line, all criss-crossing each other. There are a remarkable number of industrial units and any land left over is packed with fruit trees and vineyards. It feels cramped and slightly chaotic and we long to get out of the valley, away from the snow chain signs and feel some space again.

We head south along the A road, avoiding tolls but stressing Chris. The Italians have far too many road signs to keep up with; they ignore most of them anyway and screech past us over solid white lines. Giving way appears to be optional and the road system at Bolzano makes spaghetti junction look like a minor crossroad. Finally the valley opens out, the snow disappears off the peaks, then through a tunnel, round a bend, and there twinkling in the mid-day sun, is Lake Garda. Hurrah!

There’s only one thing for it - a celebratory pizza. It seems, however, that Lake Garda is Shut. Hotels, villas, restaurants, bars, shops are all closed for the winter. We find the one campsite that’s still open, the aptly named Bellavista, and head off down the Lake in search of food. My friend Claire advised that Lake Maggiore would be quieter. I doubt her truth. There’s nobody here but us chickens. We have the Lake to ourselves and it’s a glorious day. We saunter along the edge of the clear water admiring the view but struggling to find any sustenance. Finally one little pizzeria that’s open with one other table occupied. Our benchmark Pizza Diavolo is €7, by the way, the cheapest so far but the campsite is extortionate at €28, especially as most of the facilities are closed.

Not only but also, we’ve arrived at Olive Picking Time. This serves me right for waxing lyrical about “wandering through olive groves”. The site is full of olive trees laden with fruit, and one of them scratches Hector on the way in – Hector and trees don’t get on. We awake with a start to what sounds like a machine gun, ra-ta-ta-ta-tat. Followed by plop, plop, plop on the roof and grunts of pigeon Italian banter from the Eastern European olive pickers.

The terraced site is huge and we are, as ever, the only people here, but naturally they’ve decided to harvest the tree right above Hector. The machine gun is actually a gadget with which they bash the tree, whilst perched precariously on poles, in breach of all European Working At Height Regulations. It’s an unsophisticated approach which results in lots of olives tumbling into nets and also on top of Hector. They keep this up for four hours. Four hours for one tree! I taste an olive and it’s disgustingly bitter, obviously the cheap oil variety rather than the marinate-in-garlic type. The whole process seems a bit hit and miss and again begs the question of how economically viable it is to have a few olive trees on a campsite. The answer is probably “not very”, hence the price to stay on the site!

Fair Verona

“Two households both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene...” The opening words of Romeo and Juliet are etched in my brain, as I only had eight lines in the 1979 Poynton County High School production, and these were they. My best friend Anne was Juliet. My theatrical career was shortlived but I like to think I have other skills.

Anyway, there are only really three things we want to see in Verona: the Roman amphitheatre, Juliet’s balcony (allegedly) and the market. Shakespeare never actually came here and he even nicked the story from someone else, although probably wrote a better version, to be fair.

We get brave and decide to stay at the sosta in Verona, “handy for exploring the town” – perfect. Stacey the Satnav takes us straight there. Would you believe it? For two days a year, it’s closed for tree pruning, and guess what? Yep. Told you Hector and trees don’t get on. We drive around trying to find any of our three sights but the signposting is rubbish, unless you want the football stadium. And a lot of it isn’t that “fair” at all, but a bit industrial. We give up and head for Ferrara instead so we’ll never know the delights that Verona has to offer.

Ferrara, on the other hand, has a lovely site just outside the medieval walls, with pheasants and hares skipping around. There’s us and one other van. Despite the fog, we spend the day meandering along the tree-lined walls and exploring the medieval and renaissance old town. I’ve never heard of Ferrara before; I suppose it’s a poor relation to Venice but it’s still a World Heritage Site, packed with historical sights and teeming with bicycles and students, a bit like an Italian Cambridge.

Vistas of Venice

Then we tackle the big one, Venice. We take the train although alas it’s still too murky to see much. We walk for hours and see all the main sights in the gloom and can’t believe how busy it still is in November. Just our luck, most of St Mark’s basilica, the Doges Palace and the Bridge of Sighs are all under scaffolding. The Grand Canal seems to be a bit of a free-for-all with gondolas, water taxis, vaporetti  and delivery boats weaving precariously past each other.

There’s a lot of tat for sale and everything is extortionate – €7.50 for two coffees. We had been warned by Google Translate that “Venice is believed to have available to infinity owls from fleecing foreign tourists”.  So there you have it. However we treat ourselves to a pizza for lunch, courtesy of a birthday gift from my Mum – thanks Mum!

The first ever ghetto was in Venice, when in 1516 the Jews were forced to live in the old iron foundary district, from the Italian “gettare” – to cast (as in cast iron, rather than cast out), a reminder that persecution didn’t start with the Nazis. The area is still full of Hassidic Jews going about their business, not what I expected to find at all.

If religious art is your thing, you’d need a month here, but we make do with admiring the architecture spanning many centuries. There was a mock funeral procession here a couple of days ago (naturally we missed it), mourning the death of the city, as the population has dropped to less than 60,000, mainly due to the cost of living. It’s not like a real place, and of course it’s sinking and has a lingering smell of disinfectant. Whilst it’s beautiful, bits of it are decidedly decrepit and we wonder what the future holds for this relic of former glories.

Fog bound

For two days we’ve had no internet. Alvin says he’s found the satellite but Computer Says No. Chris thinks it’s due to the very foggy conditions. In my head, if Alvin can deal with the Alps, a bit of fog shouldn’t be a problem, but what do I know, so we decide to head south, away from the swampy Po plain, to try and escape the mist.

Some days go to plan, others, well, they just don’t. Plan for the day was: whizz along to coast, pick up a few provisions, stay somewhere in the sunshine near Rimini, connect to internet, work. Be ready to explore San Marino. Easy!

It actually went like this: manage not to get on to autoroute as all junctions are closed. Can see autoroute, but are stuck on 30mph back road for hours. Chris grumbles, apparently my fault, as I have The Map. I am claiming places are not on the map but Chris says they are, just not where I expect them to be. Try three times to buy diesel from different petrol stations but cannot work out how. Girl shrugs and says “self-service”. Finally manage to buy diesel. Forget to weigh bread in supermarket, have to go through whole check out procedure twice.

The road to Rimini is reminiscent of the worst of Ireland, as well as being chock-a-block full of Eastern European trucks rumbling up from Ancona and Bari, and Ladies of the Night positioned at every lay-by. It’s still foggy. Rimini, which I imagined to be some up-market Riviera-type place, is not looking appealing. Decide to jump on autoroute and head for Fano, with open-all-year campsite. Campsite is not open all year, it’s closed for ****ing TREE PRUNING!

It’s now even foggier and also getting dark. We don’t do driving in the dark. Find signs for sosta, drive three times around Fano in desperation. Cannot find sosta, in any case Fano is like Fleetwood on a bad day and completely deserted.

Last ditch option is to try site at Pesaro, access described as “steep and narrow”, which turns out to be a major understatement. Hector lumbers up the hill in the fog and the dark, only to find, right at the top, a No Entry sign. You have to lurch to the right to go around the bend to the left. Chris jams on the brakes which are struggling to hold, hand brake is useless.

There is no way we can regain momentum to get up the hill AND turn sharp right. Try to remain calm, roll carefully back, give Hector as much welly as possible and completely ignore No Entry sign – no other option.  Find site which is deserted and stop anyway. Site on a slope, under pine trees. Fingers crossed we don’t roll off. Pine cones plop on Hector’s head all night, mingling with the olives. A mosquito joins us for the evening, wake up covered in mossie bites.

Still foggy. The site is supposed to have “stunning views” – can’t even see the sea which is at the bottom of the cliff. Chris calls the internet people and asks if it’s possible that foggy conditions are affecting our connection. A jolly German called Bernhard says it is possible, but the more likely explanation is that apparently we’ve been cut off. £$%^&*()&£$%!!!!!!!! There’s been some misunderstanding about our “package” and it’s all sorted within the hour. Deep breath.

We’re only on this side of Italy because the teeny weeny principality of San Marino is one of the 47 countries. It’s basically one mountain which has somehow retained its independence, in the face of everyone including Napoleon. We’ve not been able to do any research because we had no internet, remember?

We wend our way up the mountain and the fog gets thicker. At the top, there’s supposed to be a campsite but it seems to have vanished into the pea-soup, we can’t see the castle, we can’t see the view, we can’t see anything at all in fact. We give up and drive down again so I can’t tell you much about San Marino. We need to get out of this fog and head West...