“The youth who confine themselves to the house always have a narrow mind.” William Shakespeare

With the magic of the Internet and procrastination we travel in time and space : let's leave for a while the month of February 2019 and the New Zealand for a fall getaway 2022 without going through square one.

After eleven years of good and loyal service, TNT bequeathed its place to a youngster – six years younger than him – a little more spacious and comfortable. We immediately took him to prove himself in the fall 2021 in the Eastern Pyrenees, but it's not this escape that I'm going to tell you about either.

Do not, in this Thursday dawn 15 September, it is towards the East that we will drive, so as not to be limited to the Biotois home. Left before the workers, we have breakfast on an Italian motorway rest area. The journey starts well, they have vegano croissants ! Before Genoa we branch off to the North then again to the East : Pleasure, Cremona, Brescia and finally Lake Garda, our first step on a long road of just over seven hundred kilometers.

Sirmione, the city on the peninsula of the lake, we don't like it at all, overloaded with tourists, we have the impression of being on the Côte d'Azur in the middle of the summer season. We run away from it very quickly to gain height, climbing Mount San Giorgio on the eastern side and it is near the eponymous monastery that we will spend the night. The view of the lake when you wake up is much prettier than downstairs and to the north, the coasts seem to become wilder.

Our choice of stage was strategic and it allows us to be quickly in Verona the next morning without taking the highway. At first not very cheerful by the agglomeration, we go around the rampart of the old town looking for a parking space not too far away and free if possible. We find it in an alley perpendicular to Via Marsala and leave on foot to discover the city of lovers of Verona.

If Shakespeare's tragedy is pure fiction – he never set foot here, the historical remains are real. We cross the Stone Bridge over the Adige River and let ourselves lose a moment in the quiet alleys, before finding the crowd that takes us to Piazza delle Erbe, the oldest square in the city.

We barely peek into the courtyard where tourists gather to take pictures of a balcony added in the 1930s. Playing on the sound of two surnames, la fiction s’est immiscée dans la réalité : Dal Cappello, une famille de la noblesse italienne ayant fait construire la demeure et Capuleti, l’imaginaire famille de Juliette.

Nous préférons trouver un petit restaurant à l’écart des foules, tout en étant près de la Piazza dei Signori – sur laquelle trône entre autres la statue de Dante – où nous dégustons bières et lasagnes avant d’aller faire le tour des arènes, vieilles de près de deux mille ans. Sur le chemin du retour nous passons sous une reproduction de la reproduction du balcon : l’hôtel Giulietta Romeo 😆 avant de continuer à nous perdre dans les ruelles, longeant de loin en loin l’Adige. We will not have seen everything of Verona but this aimless stroll made us really like the historic city.

Back on the highway, everyone has the opportunity to take a shower : us in an italian rest area, Junior – the motorhome – in the pouring rain, the worst of which we left behind before stopping in the village of San Stino di Livenza. Chosen almost at random to spend the night there, we take up residence in a parking lot surrounded by greenery near the church, who will not stop ringing the bells for us !

Tomorrow we will only have a little more than a hundred kilometers to reach our true destination. : Slovenia, dont nous avons prévu de sillonner une partie pendant une bonne semaine. 🙂

 

Ah ! Les autoroutes italiennes, ou comment renouveler ses amortisseurs tous les ans ! Bon, ils font des efforts, ils installent des lavoirs tout neufs (les panneaux affichent lavori sur presque un tiers du trajet!) go ahead, je suis mauvaise langue, enfin ça se discute mais je ne sais pas dans laquelle ; elles s’améliorent et se transforment en 3 voies flambant neuves par endroits 🙂

 

Le petit nouveau, ben il a même fait du 4×4 dans un parking sauvage (gratuit mais très plein !) a trois niveaux de difficultés (rochers, trous, nids d’autruche) en pleine ville, d’où nous sommes ressortis au bout d’au moins 20mn de sueurs froides, enfin surtout moi.

 

Laissant la dernière canicule de la saison derrière nous, nous sommes enchantés de retrouver un essaim de moustiques venus des larges steppes entourant cette assez tonitruante église.

 

See ya!

 

PS : Bon ok, lavori veut dire travaux 😉