And finally

"It's very nice to go travelling but it's oh so nice to come home"

We rated our second attempt at Italy a success. We didn't see everything but we didn't expect to so there's plenty left for another visit. And there will certainly be another visit because we decided we really like Italy, the place, the people, everything. We noticed it was a little more expensive than the UK and the popular places were very crowded so some more thought about the best time of year is needed, plus some more intensive planning if we are going to visit some of the museums and art galleries. Towards the end of the trip the temperatures started to reach uncomfortable levels so that needs to be taken into account too. Jamie became somewhat lethargic, but that may have been more because he needed clipping quite badly. He certainly perked up when it suddenly got colder when we reached the Channel coast.

Campsites, rather than aires, featured a lot more on this trip and we stayed longer at them which gave us plenty of chill-out time, something we should try more of in future trips. We still used aires etc. whilst transiting however - there is no point in paying full prices for just the basics which is all we need.

The advice we received to use the toll roads if travelling any distance was definitely well-founded; the autostradas were generally okay but other main roads were patchy, some good some, well, in need of some TLC! Minor roads in the populated areas tended to be awful although elsewhere were quite reasonable, probably due to less use of course. Italy obviously has no money to maintain the normal roads; the autostradas being self-funding were that much better.

We ate out a lot more too, not frequently but at least once a week whereas we usually only manage once or twice per trip. Was it Italy or are we changing?

There's nothing planned for future trips at the moment; we've given up on shows as we've realised they hold nothing for us. Perhaps one or two of the smaller MotorhomeFun rallies? Or maybe another "themed" tour.

Whatever, watch this space!