Aug
19
Category: 
|We (Kate and I) last went camping abroad in 2002: light was provided by a pathetic battery lamp, pictures were taken on a thing called film and one of the lengthier decisions pre-trip was which minidiscs to pack.
We travelled, in a manner that we now find hard to believe, to Prague via Dresden in a Peugeot 106 diesel with our rather nice, spacious Khyam tent and communicated with others via postcard. Oh, and I did all the driving while Kate earned her Navigator’s medal (and bar) for getting us out of the Czech Republic while the country was suffering severe flooding, blocking the route through Plzeň.
This year, we booked a week on a Bavarian campsite and filled the Merc and its roofbox. Music choices were rather simpler with a 30 gigabyte iPod, lighting was provided courtesy of 240V AC mains, our Bavarian site had wi-fi (truly, I fail to understand why more sites don’t), we communicated with others by texting Twitter and Kate shared the driving. Navigational services were provided by the very efficient Navman.
Altogether, it made for a rather more pleasant experience. Despite rumours to the contrary, satellite navigation is tremendous: we were directed, without hassle, to all (but one) of our destinations and, when running low on fuel, could simply press the fuel button to find a nearby petrol station. We were even able to find local super- and hypermarkets thanks to the Navman’s onboard database so we had no repeats of the 2002 Trier experience where we were caught out by Germany’s then habit of closing down on a Saturday afternoon and had to hunt through France and Luxembourg for food to eat.
Our solitary navigational difficulty came in Italy. We hadn’t initially planned to visit the country so hadn’t obtained a guide book before going. However, Kate wanted to visit Verona which was only twenty or so miles from our campsite on the shores of Lake Garda. We therefore told Navman to drive us to the most central tourist information office in Verona. Although it was perfectly permissible to drive through the centre, many of the turns we were asked to make were simply not designed for a large saloon car so we looked instead, as perhaps we should have done in the first place, for a car park.
The Lonely Planet describes Lake Garda as the least attractive of Italy’s lakes. If that is the case, then the others must be tremendous.
