Hello again.

We are aware of what is happening in the U.S. through the BBC World News Network. The coverage of he disaster in New Orleans is always one of the top stories of the day. We and the rest of the world have heard about Katrina, the terrible damage "she" caused, the mounting but as yet unknown number of deaths, and the poor performance by the American authorities in alleviating this suffering.

As we wrote this, we had begun an adventure. We were looking for a way to get to that part of the coast that is called Cinque Terre. In our English camping guidebook, there was a listing for a private person who rents space to four or five motorvans at a time. We have liked these kinds of places, so we decided to try this one. Getting there was a story. We came up on the autostrada, got off at the correct exit, found the marker on the main street where our instructions said you should turn, and found ourselves in tiny streets going up the mountain. After a long ride, we decided to ask for directions at a bar. The young man spoke no English but he made us a tiny map. Even with this, it was a frightening trip! First of all we could hardly believe that we could drive on these roads. Secondly, we were not sure the place was still there, because there were no signs. Third, it was quite obvious that we would not be able to turn around for many miles. When we did find the site, we could hardly believe it. And what a place it turned out to be.

It is a private establishment – a hillside farm where they keep all kinds of poultry and grow olives, figs, grapes, and vegetables, attractive to so-called agri-tourists. It was situated high on a terraced hill. There were three or four buildings, including huge dining rooms with seating for 40 or 50 people. It took us a while to figure everything out because our 82 year old host spoke only Italian. His wife spoke both Italian and French, but no one spoke any English at all. But in the end, we found that they rented rooms and also apartments as well as space for motorvans. Apparently they also get busloads of people on some kind of agri-tourism, so they sometimes need the big dining room to feed their guests. Those in the rental units eat with "the family" and we were offered dinner too. Of course we accepted. (Picture 1 shows the view from our camp site.)

The long table was set for 20. At every third place were three bottles – one green soda bottle with red wine in it, one clear soda bottle with white wine in it and one blue bottle of mineral water. In addition there were periodic cruets of their own first pressed olive oil. The Signore also had made the wine. He kept on indicating that it was just vino tavolo - table wine - but Ron thought it was better than the table wine he has been buying. Our host poured himself wine, and then put a slice of bread into the soup bowl in front of his place. Then he drizzled the olive oil onto the bread. We followed his lead. Then we were served family style: primo piatto was gnocci with ragu sauce; secondo was bracciole in a tomato sauce with capers and mushrooms. Cucumber salad in some kind of cream sauce; roasted, herbed zucchini; and a tomato and lettuce salad accompanied this. All the vegetables were grown on the farm. For dessert, we had extremely sweet figs from their trees and then an artful-looking fruit tart. The Signora prepared all the food.

The other guests were French, Italian or German. When we explained what were doing in Europe to those who understood English, we became the focus of the conversation – with others translating what we said. It was quite an evening. At the end of dinner, the guests returned to their quarters. But a teen-aged guest and his mother, both of whom spoke English, came over to talk to us. We sensed that the young man in particular was very interested in seeing the inside of the RV so we invited them in. We had a wonderful time that evening, with lots of laughing and tasty food. It took us a long time to find that place, but it was certainly worth it.

The next day we left early. The road down was much quicker than the drive up the hill because the instructions we had been given went the long way round. We drove to the mainland town called La Spezia where you get either the train or the boat to visit the five towns that are all built into the mountain next to the sea (which is why they are called Cinque (five) Terre (land). We had been told we could leave our motorhome at the railroad station, but that did not seem like a good idea to us. Someone might decide to see what things we have in it. Instead we planned to leave the vehicle at a secure campsite that was supposed to be right near the ferry dock. We drove a long time in that town and could not find the waterfront, let alone a campsite. There were almost no signs and those that were there had very small print. Without a safe place to leave the RV, we decided we’d have to leave that visit for another time, and we left for the last town on the Italian Riviera before you enter France. We had been told that on Monday, Ventimiglia would be a huge outdoor market – and you don’t have to tell us that twice. We love outdoor markets.

So we drove to the town, heading for a resort-campground in the outskirts that was listed in one of our books. On the way we passed a campground right in the middle of the town – so we changed our plans and stopped there for the night. We washed our clothes and hung them out to dry. Then we took a walk. We found the beach – all pebbles and no sand – and walked around the beach area, had our daily gelati and generally acted like tourists. After all, we’ve never been on the Riviera before.

One of the things that struck us both about Italy in general was that there are so few birds or other animals. We see pigeons and wrens, though not many, and don’t hear songbirds. But just as Adelle noted that there were no birds in the water, we walked back from the beach where there was a large area of brackish water on which were swans, several kinds of ducks and a few terns. It just goes to show that you should never make broad generalizations. But the fact is, we hardly see any animals – domestic or otherwise although there were some as we moved south. The farm landscape is nearly all crops.

Next morning we got ready to go to the market only to find that our original information was wrong. The market is only held on Friday. Disappointed, we walked downtown to go to the supermarket, and bumped into an indoor market that was nearly as good as any outdoor market. We bought too much stuff, walked a short way, and then found the supermarket. Ron still wanted to get a few things in the supermarket, so Adelle sat down with all the packages in a café across the street, had a cappuccino, and watched everyone go by. There were very few tourists in this area. Many passers-by were greeted by name, and most were locals. The time passed very pleasantly watching people go by.

So what conclusions did she reach from her observations from the café? First, that babies are adored by older siblings. It is a pleasure to watch them interact. The older children take care of the little ones, often kissing them. Second, that all those old stereotypes about elderly Italian ladies wearing black is a myth. There seem to be a lot of well dressed, swinging old ladies in Italy.

Before we left Italy, we had to buy some salami and a pannetone. That was the least we could do. There was a lot left to taste, but we couldn’t taste everything we saw because we just can’t eat fast enough! Arrivederci, Italia.

From the Italian Riviera, we drove onto the French Riviera over the really beautiful hilly shore, past many very fancy villas in places like Menton, Monaco and Cannes. (See Picture 2 which shows the road to Nice.) Many times it was a nightmare, despite its beauty. Think of the Pacific coast highway with densely populated towns hugging the hills every few miles. Consider the traffic from those towns plus the traffic from all the tourists that come to gawk at those hillside towns overlooking the sea. Add a goodly proportion of Italian and French drivers going at breakneck speeds on narrow lanes with hair-pin turns, and a great dearth of signs. That ought to give you a good idea about driving through this area. Suffice it to say that we drove into places we would not have believed possible and followed signs that indicated campgrounds but never came to any that were useable. Once we followed signs for "Camping" just before Nice. It was up a high hill overlooking the Mediterranean, at least a seven kilometers steady climb. The view was spectacular but there was no bus stop to Nice nearby. So we passed and drove back to Nice. We stopped at other sites but again there was no way to get into the city. Then we tried long and hard to find at least one of several campgrounds listed in our guides without any success. We finally found ourselves at an intersection where there was a sign for a different campground. This very nice campground wasn’t listed in any of our books. There was no bus service there either, but it certainly was a safe haven for the night.

The name of the facility was the St. Paul Campground (although it was not really in St. Paul). The owner spoke terrific English, and he talked us out of visiting Marseilles and into visiting the town for which his facility is named. St. Paul of Provence is very famous according to him, although we had never heard of it. It deserves to be famous. It is a medieval town perched high on a hill. They allow no cars. Everywhere you look is just beautiful. Although the buildings in town were all shops, the stores had beautiful and interesting things for sale, almost all of it for the "economically advantaged". We both loved it and were really glad that the man at the reception desk had told us to go. (Picture 3 is a shot of a St. Paul street.)

This drive through the French Riviera was necessary in order to get us on our way to Avignon. We didn’t get to town until quite late, since we had spent the morning in St. Paul. As we drove into the city, we happened to see a huge Auchon Supermarket. Since we feel that shopping in either Auchon or Carrefoure is as much fun as anything else we can do, we went shopping. Besides, we knew we could not have walked around in Avignon that afternoon. It was raining very hard.

An Auchon is a great place to be in the rain! These huge markets are usually part of a mall, and this mall had a great aisle exhibit. A woodworker extraordinaire had made wonderful things out of wood—all live size – cars, motorcycles, irons and ironing boards, even the clothes that were waiting to be ironed. (Picture 4 shows a wooden racing car, complete to the last detail.

We didn’t get into the campground until about 7:30 that night to settle in. That night the rain turned into a deluge. In the morning, we were amazed to see that we hadn’t developed any leaks from the driving rainstorm. The weather looked better and we were off to see the Pont D’Avignon (the bridge over the Rhone River made famous in the child’s song), and the old town. This walled city included the Palace of the Popes. This town had been the headquarters of the Papacy when the Popes left Rome in the Middle Ages. We weren’t planning to visit anything. We had done all that last time we were here in 2002. We just wanted to walk around. Several times during the day, we found ourselves in pouring rainstorms but we managed to walk for miles. We spent time at an internet cafe going through our e-mail messages and sending out a letter. We went into a post office, an experience that reminded us that when we did that the last trip, Adelle said that a French Office du Poste was a lifetime commitment. That was correct! To buy two stamps took way over half an hour although there were only six people in line. (Picture 5 was taken of the city wall and the towers of the Pope’s Palace and other buildings in Avignon.)

We finally gave up on walking about 5:30 pm and came back to the RV. That night, we had another deluge. We were warm and dry, but the International Herald Tribune had a story about a town in Provence that had flooded from all that rain. That town was on the route that we were planning to drive through on the way to the ancient walled town from which the 13th century Crusaders shipped out to "The Holy Land". So few of them came back that the town acquired the strange and mysterious name of Aigue Mort—Agony of Death. We tucked that information away for use in a day or so.

On our way, we decided to visit another of our favorite cities – Arles. Here again, we didn’t plan to go into any monuments. We just like Arles. And it has one of our favorite museums. The Museum of Antiquities is small but beautifully laid out. All the artifacts on display, from large statues and lead pipes to jewelry and tiny needles made of bone were found in the area although many of the originals are now in the Louvre. They also have wonderful dioramas illustrating what the ruins of the Roman buildings looked like when they were new. We drove there from the campground.

After going through the exhibits, we asked at the desk if we could leave our motorhome parked in their lot, and received an okay. So we took a bus into city center where there would be a Festival of Camargue beginning at noon. The Camargue is that part of France on the southern shore just before the Cote D’Azur. It is kind of marshy, and there really are black bulls, white horses and pink flamingos running around. Apparently it also grows olives and rice. We had no idea what to expect but attending the opening ceremonies seemed like the right thing to do. (Picture 6 shows the square in Arles. The band is playing. The background shows rice stalks in front of white ornamental glass with the food tents behind.)

There were a modest number of people in traditional outfits, a band, displays of the products of the area – and free samples thereof. We had a rice dish made with vegetables, a taste of beef cooked the traditional way, salads of rice with shrimp and mushrooms, rice pudding and a drink. Total cost: zero. And we saw the four white horses the organization of horse owners brought. They were small horses, and I managed to say so to one of the men, and his reply was great. They may be small but they are bigger than you are! After I finished laughing, I explained to him as best I could that my daughter raises large horses and that’s what I am used to!

Adelle & Ron

Authors of "Take Your RV to Europe, The Low-Cost Route to Long-Term Touring"

For more about the Milavsky's adventures, go to:

http://travelwithachallenge.com/RV-Vacations-Europe.htm

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