Soon be off again

Temporary repairs are now complete on the motorhome (making it fully water tight) and we'll be off the end of this week. First stop is the Yorkshire Dales for the 'around Malham' walk and then on up to Scotland. Stay tuned...

What's next?

The damage to the motorhome turns out to be very minor (the fibre glass roof hasn't suffered very much at all and can be repaired rather than replaced) and is only going to cost about £2000 to repair and we're going through the usual process of corresponding with Norwich Union to sort it out. They are being very good though and hopefully we'll get the go ahead in the next couple of days. Then, book it into Brownhills Motorhomes in Newark for the work to be done.

If it doesn't take too long to get it fixed, the plan is to spend the last month of our holiday heading north into Scotland (with a bit of walking in the Yorkshire Dales on the way). I'd like to take Jude up Ben Nevis (but I might end up doing that on my own!), and spend some time at Fort William and the Highlands.

Let's hope the midges don't get us....

A lot's happened since Slovenia

Well after spending nearly 3 weeks in the rain in Slovenia, we decided it was time to cut our losses and move on back into Italy; Lake Garda was calling (along with the sunshine). Being a bit of a drive from Bovec we decided to stock up on provisions before setting off and drove round to the nearest food shop, which turned out to be closed, and it had started raining again. Not to be deterred we remembered a similar shop in Bovec center so drove there only to collide with a balcony overhanging the road just where we wanted to turn into the carpark! Disaster had struck and we no longer had a water tight roof to the van. What's more, the owner of the house was non too pleased and couldn't speak a word of English but made it clear he had called to police and was not letting us move until they arrived. Luckily the policeman could speak English and we managed to calm the owner down and exchange insurance details (though it looked to me like we weren't the first to go head to head with his balcony!). Take a look and the lump of concrete sitting on top of the balcony in this photo - that didn't get there from me hitting it with the van:

Now we had a problem as the insurance company advised us that if the motorhome was still driveable that we should get it repaired back in the UK but that meant waiting for another 2 months with the possibility of water doing even more damage if it got in. So a roll of plastic tape later we had makeshift repairs complete and we heading back home (via the lakes in northern Italy of course).

First stop was lake Garda. We stayed in Garda itself and suffered the opposite extreme of weather, 37 degrees in the shade and unbearable humidity, for about a week before we couldn't take it anymore. Lake Garda and the towns around it are lovely though. Here are a few shots:

And you can't really visit lake Garda without a trip to Verona, so on the hottest day of the year so far we visited probably the hottest city in Northern Italy and stood in the Arena, the hottest place in the city! Yes we are mad, but it was worth it. Verona is lovely and we visited during opera season and the arena was being kitted out ready:

And of course we visited Juliet's house so Jude could stand on the balcony:

Then it was a quick stop at lake Como before heading off on the long drive home to get the van repaired. We took a day trip out on the lake to visit some of the small villages. This was taken from the boat en-route to Menaggio, can you see the dog?

No? Look again, it is lying down and has big floppy ears with a church on the tip of it's nose.

So, after going through the Mont Blanc tunnel and a total of 150.00€ for the toll roads in Italy and France later we arrived back at Calais and managed to get an earlier ferry crossing back to blighty. Being home is a mixed feeling, it's nice to be out of the van and have home comforts again (and baked beans!), but I'm already missing Italy and France!