Camping Etruria turned
out to be a very nice place to be sat doing nothing for a few days. Well
shaded but plenty of space to take in the sunshine when we wanted as
the pitches were all just clearings in the trees; no regimented rows
of white boxes. Perhaps 10% of the pitches were occupied and pretty
well spread out although there was a little bit of bunching around
the more popular areas. The facilities were excellent, but despite there being fire hydrants everywhere there were no taps away
from the toilet blocks so servicing the van was a bit of a chore,
toting gallons of water around. But it provided some exercise and we
weren't complaining.
A large area near the
reception building had a variety of shops including a mini-market,
cafe and restaurant where we had a nice pizza, bar and even a
well-being centre, although we're not really sure what that was
about! The beach, with a cafe/bar was only a hundred yards away
with clean coarse gritty sand – the site had it's own “beach”
which was just a roped off area containing parasols and deck chairs
as part of the public beach. Although there were signs prohibiting
dogs, nobody was taking any notice so Jamie had a few race-about
sessions until he was sort of attacked by another dog and then wasn't
quite so keen. We do wish people would keep unpredictable dogs on
leashes, but no harm done.
The weather took on a
bit of a pattern for most of the days we stayed – dullish cloudy
start, improving to bright sunshine but on the first few days this
later turned to thunderstorms with torrential rain. With no wind we
were happy to leave the awning out to give us some protection whilst
we watched the waterfall off the end! On our last 2 days the rain
held off although thunder could still be heard rumbling around
inland.
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| A drop of rain! |
So apart from the usual
chores, we did practically nothing, which is the idea of course of a
holiday! We learned that our friends were returning early from
Sardinia so started making plans to meet up with them, deciding on
Vigni di Valle just north of Rome where there was an aeronautical
museum with exhibits Derek particularly wanted to see. So on
Wednesday (9 May) we set off south using a reasonable dual
carriageway road with a short section of toll autostrada before
turning off. TomTom led us to a reasonable campsite, not as good as
we have been using so far, but perfectly adequate for our purposes
and our friends joined us shortly afterward. It was great meeting up
and chatting together again.
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| Castegneto/Vigni di Valle/Rome - 180 miles |
So Thursday saw us up
early to go visit the aeronautical museum, getting a police escort
when we got slightly lost in the narrow lanes! There'll be a separate
page with some nice photos and information.
From here our plan was
to travel a short distance to an ACSI campsite with good travel
connections close to Rome for a visit. Once again TomTom did the
honours and once again giving us an unexpected ride through the
Italian hinterland “taking a short cut”. But it was no problem
and we arrived at Camping Village Flaminio, a very nice site, if a
bit scattered but with excellent facilities (by far the poshest
showers we've ever come across!) and a train station across the road
directly into the centre of Rome. It was, however, quite busy and the
first pitch offerings were unsuitable for two largish vans; we
spotted two somewhat better and reception were quite happy to change.
Lunch and a discussion
of plans and a decision to try the restaurant this evening. Our
friends have been here before so know the score.
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