Sunday 9th of December To 24th – camping Luminoso
The weather has been pretty horrendous, but I understand it is like this across all of Europe. We keep having storms, rain, and terrible wind. One night, as a violent storm was coming, we had to take the gazebo out in the violent wind and rain. The pegs were almost pulled out by the wind. We packed everything and put all in the boot. Anything left outside not nailed down would have been lost to the storm.
On the rare sunny day we took the opportunity to do some laundry and visit few places.
We met Stan, an old English gentleman of about 75. He came to this camping some 8 or 7 years ago and fell madly in love with the matriarch of the family owning the campsite. Both widowed, they married and he never left. Life can take unexpected turns. He told us to visit a Roman villa ( aptly called Villa Romana) that had been unearthed with stunning floor mosaics. So one rainy day, we packed the van and went there.
As usual the gps took us through such small narrows roads that one ended up into a farm track. Alistair managed to turn round and we eventually found the site.
Now, the villa was really impressive. The best I have ever seen. The walls were still all up with courtyards, fountains, many rooms and a huge basilica than would have been the formal reception room were the lord would have been sitting in a throne while receiving visitors. All the floors were covered with mosaics. The whole complex was amazing.
On other days we visited the nearby old town and some marinas. The weather and dreadful state of the roads discouraged us to make the very long drive to the valley of the temples. We saw many temples in Greece.
People came and went in our campsite, mainly Italians and germans with the odd Swiss. A couple of days ago a British couple arrived in a caravan. We decided to have Xmas dinner all together.
We plan to leave the campsite on the 26th, and after more change to our plans, due to the very bad weather, make it to my brother’s house in Angers for the 30th and get home after the new year. Somehow, spending the 31st of December in a deserted dirty campsite in the south of France did not appeal and my brother and he is wife agreed to take us in despite their plans! They have guests for dinner on the 31st so it was a bit barging in but neither my brother or my lovely sister in law would be annoyed by this. We are very close an it is nice to have family members like that.
We need to revise our van set up and do some modifications. The sitting area is too cramped. We will get a couple of quotes and see if we can open up space by fitting 2 swivel seats. As the cabin is higher up than the load part of the van, it means to elevate the other seat facing the driving seat and also the table and put a platform. We have seen it done on various other motorhomes. It should create more space.
The WiFi in the campsite is dreadful so not sure if I can post this soon.
Happy Xmas everyone and thanks for following this blog!