Thursday 11th July 2019 – Friday 12th July 2019

Rob had planned our drive from Paris to Bale across three days. Day two would see us move from France across Switzerland and into Italy around Como which is North of Milano.

We set out from Ribeauville about 8:45am and headed for Colmar where we joined the Motorway and then onto Basel where we crossed the Swiss Border. We had to stop here to purchase a vignette (pass) which is required for Swiss highways travel.

Almost immediately across the border we could see Alpine ranges in the distance on both sides. If you zoom on the photo of Rob driving you will see the snow caps. Also most of my photos today are taken while moving so apologies in advance for the quality. 🙂

We travelled towards and past Luzern and then onto St Gotthards pass. There are lots of tunnels on this route, the longest being the Gotthard at 17km’s. The scenery was amazing and I took way too many photos!!!

We stopped for lunch at a rest stop at Piotta. The above photo looks back towards Piotta and the amazing Alpine mountains.

We passed through Switzerland to Italy around 4pm crossing the border at Chiasso near Como. Rob’s plan had been to drive around the spit and Lake Como stopping at Lecco. Good thing we hadn’t booked accommodation as we were thrust into very chaotic Italian traffic and the route to Lecco became very narrow. We took a wrong turn which wound up and around a steep mountainside with nowhere to turn around. It took 11km’s before we found a place to turn back. We returned to Como and found another route out of Como and accommodation.

It was like a movie where the Westerner is completely overwhelmed by the Italian traffic, people were whizzing past in their cars and it felt like a collision was imminent the whole time. Rob kept his cool though and we made it through safely. 🙂

We were only stuck in the crazy traffic around Como for about an hour and we found accommodation at nearby Albaville, arriving around 5:45.

Enrico our host, referred us up the road to a local pizzeria and ristorante “Elvis ” near the local supermercato!

I took this photo as I know this word well from an Italian lesson on grocery shopping and it’s my very first visit to one!

After a long days driving, over 400km’s, it was nice to sit back and relax over a glass of vino Rosso which comes chilled in a carafe with a choice of “House” or nothing else. It was Moulto Bene however and ideal to celebrate our first Italian meal together in Italy.

Rob was hungry so ordered Antipasto hot and cold plus a Seafood risotto for secondi! The antipasto ended up being three plates plus we received a complimentary pizza bread. I ordered Linguini Vorgola (seafood) and that was huge too so all up way too much food but it was all deliciosa!

Friday 12th July

We woke early to a beautiful morning – view from the flat’s balcony below. After a typical italian breakfast of cafe, biscottis, fruit and yoghurt we said arrivederci to Enrico and we’re back on the road by 7:40am.

Some days are great for photos, some aren’t. This was one that wasn’t with a cloudy heat haze hanging low on the horizon most of the day.

I couldn’t resist trying to get a photo of the Dolomites though. This is how they look on a clear day, courtesy of Google.

The very tips of the mountains slipped in and out of view for about 50 km’s. This my photo taken from Podere Pustot at 1:00pm when we had to stop for roadwork. The dark blue areas that look like clouds are actually the tops of several mountains!

We passed from Italy into Slovenia and then about 30 minutes later we crossed the Border into Croatia and before long, around 4pm we arrived at Bale. We will be staying here for the next couple of months, on and off as we continue to travel Croatia.