Under the Tuscan sun

Today turned out to be longer than expected having to drive on further than intended. We packed up camp easily enough and left fairly early (for us). The drive was straightforward to Bologna and we had read that it is a beautiful city - one of Italy's gastronomic delights. It has a label of La Grasse - the fat - so we thought of good food and beautiful buildings. The campsite itself is situated within the city which is unusual in itself, but as we drove towards it we thought something was more than odd. The place was teeming with black clothed, long haired, spotty oiks as far as the eye could see. There were cars parked everywhere and tents dotted on every spare piece of ground. As we pulled up to the reception of the campsite some official or other came to the car and said "no spaces - there is a big rock concert - Eye ron maydon and Acdc" - not what we wanted to hear in the blazing sun on an empty stomach.

We had no option but to move on to the next camp site on our itinary - close to Florence. So another 60 miles further on we came to our new temporary homeland. It is set in a remote area amongst trees and is quiet to say the least. It does have internet but at a high cost so the blogs will be sporadic unless we find a good internet cafe along the way. No photos until we can use the laptop either but we will add them at a later date as before.

We had a quick piece of pizza and a drink in the bar beside the swimming pool of the campsite - awful pizza - we,ve had better from Tescos - shame on you Italy. Then we went off to a supermarket to stock up on provisions. The towns around as far as we have seen so far are bland and scruffy - a disappointment for Tuscany. Or have we been spoilt in the beautiful lakes area.

This campsite is perfect to use as a base though. The train goes to Florence and Bologna and there are lots of Chianti villages to see further south - so we will do a lot of visiting while we are here.

The temperature is still very hot - 35 or 35c so that limits the walking or cycling around. There is always the pool to dip into though as we need to.
Lets see what the forthcoming days bring...