Still, we had a great time on Elba, and the highlight for me (excuse the pun) was the cable car trip up the islands highest mountain. Well, if you can call it a cable car, it turned out to be a 2 person cage. Jude was very brave:
We travelled up through the clouds and eventually reached the top. You can just see the cable car snaking down the mountain side in this photo of the view from the sumit:
After Elba it was off to Tuscany to visit some of the hill towns that this region of Italy is famous for. Almost everywhere we visited in Tuscany was like a picture post card but my favourite was Massa Marittama. Here is the view we were treated to over looking the town:
Here is a typical Tuscan hill town street, this one is in Volterra, another lovely town that we found. Staying there was free (car park #4!):
Of course, the only problem with hill towns are the steps. You just can't avoid them, and Volterra was no exception:
After trundelling around Tuscany we needed a bit of a rest from travelling so stayed for 3 days on a camp site on the side of Lake Tresimeno, a place called Passignano which is just across from Tuscany in Umbria. We where treated with this view every morning:
And as you can probably guess, I had the urge to cycle around the lake and did so on another very hot and sunny day. And yes, I ran out of water part way round and arrived back at the campsite 3 hours later totally exhausted. Mind you, it was 62 kilometers (just over 37 miles) so I don't think I did too badly!
Once I'd recovered from the mamoth cycle ride, we headed off to Venice. We were both eagerly looking forward to visting Venice and had high expectations. Admittedly I'm not really a city person, but to say I was dissapointed with Venice is an understatement! It was dirty, smelly, extremely over crowded, even more over priced, pretty much every surface reachable on foot has a degree of grafiti sprawled on it, and lots of San Marco was obscurred by scaffolding. OK, perhaps that's unfair, but it is certainly the overriding impression Venice left on us. Still, I did manage to get a few shots of how I imagined Venice would be (but I don't think I'll be going back):
After the hustle and bustle of Venice we headed off round the coast, stopping at a couple of beach resorts on the way, to our last stop before Slovenia, Trieste (the city is a bit dull but there is a free motorhome stop over area). If you are ever near this area you must visit the Grotta Gigante, the worlds largest accessible cave and the second largest natural chamber anywhere in the world. For about £5 you get a guided tour and it really is worth it. Here are a couple of photos that give you some idea but cannot convey the scale of the place:
and:
And then it's across the border to Slovenia, another place we have great expectations of...
