Travelling to France

 Day 1 – Travel to Italy and Sirmione

The day started nicely with breakfast and with high hopes that we will leave early, so we wouldn’t be on the road all-day long. But as always, we left later than expected. Had a short stop in Krumpendorf to tank and afterwards, we were on our way to our first stop, Sirmione.

[Sirmione]

Google Maps was indicating that it would take us around 4.5h to get there, but of course, things always change when you drive on the highway on a workday, so many trucks trying to reach their destinations transporting different goods, then people going home from work or maybe travelling for work, and of course, people driving for their holidays.

I was surprised that we did not make any stop in between, and D. pushed through, he said that it is easier to drive when you think you just have to overtake one car at a time and just don’t think of the hours you have to drive, this way you can stay focused longer and the road is not that tiring anymore.

I was super excited to be back in Sirmione. The only time I was here, was years ago, but it left a certain mark. The city is beautiful, small, full of history and old houses, and of course surrounded by La Garda lake. It almost makes you feel that you are at the sea, just that the water is not salty. In my previous visit here, I remember that on a specific side of the peninsula, because it is sort of a peninsula, the water is not that deep, and occasionally there are rocks in the water where you can sit and have your feet in the water. This time, the waters were higher, but we still found a lovely rock to sit on and enjoy our food. We didn’t have much time to explore the city, on one hand, because it was getting late, we barely arrived here a few minutes before 5 pm and we still had to drive for around 3 more hours to reach the B&B where we were staying for the night and on the other hand, because I only paid the parking for 1h and 30 min, not knowing how much time we would need exactly to reach the place I wanted. After eating we rushed back to the car and off, we went.

Before the day ended, a storm came and it rained for a long time, once we were off the highway, it was really hard to see the road, so much water everywhere, being unable to see the street lines, furthermore it was impossible to tell if there were holes in the street unless you were driving into one and water was splashing everywhere. We somehow made it by almost 10 pm to our B&B.

Day 2 – Fresh weather and a lovely drive through the mountains

The second day of driving was better, shorter and no storm. We started our day with a small breakfast and once we were ready to drive the dog of the B&B had a peculiar way of saying goodbye, jumping next to the car and trying to bite the wheels of the car, I was a bit afraid that we will run her over, but all was fine. We didn’t have to drive any highway today, which was kind of nice, but then, of course, there were a lot of curves and going into serpentines, but quite interesting. For once, I was happy I didn’t have to drive, I’m always slow when I have to drive on country roads, I don’t have the experience yet to assess what speeds I could really drive and because I’m afraid that I will drive to quickly in a curve I tend to drive slower.

It was beautiful driving through the Italian mountains towards France, and seeing all those beautiful villages. I hope one day I will return there and go hiking, the area is wonderful. When we were at the border between Italy and France, we took a small break to enjoy the scenery. We also picked there two hitchhikers going to a specific city in France, which we didn’t really pass, but we tried to bring them closer to it as possible without making extra detours. The road through the countryside of France is really beautiful. We saw many apple trees and a lot of lavender fields. Although the season of lavender ends sometime in June and there were no flowers left, you could still smell it in the air. I guess coming here in May must be really beautiful. 

[At the border between Italy and France]

At around 4 pm we finally made it to our destination. For the first night, we had to sleep in a hotel, because there was not enough space in the house for us as well, but we didn’t mind it.

We took Filou for a walk later and discovered some nice roads in Malaucène. We also saw many fig trees and managed to pick up some freshly ripped figs, they tasted delicious. For the evening, we enjoyed a lovely dinner cooked by D.’s father. He’s a chef and his food always tastes amazing. I was very thankful that he was considering me and preparing some food for me as well as I don’t eat meat at all.