Incontinent pigeons and a mad dash north

                                                                                  

We should still be poodling about in Puglia....instead we are in a French campsite recovering from a two day dash up the length of Italy. Our plans to hunker down in Calabria and Sicily and wait for developments, were knocked on the head on Monday evening when the Italian government announced that the shut down due to Coronavirus, which up till then had been confined to the far North, was to take effect across the whole of Italy. Travel restrictions were due to be imposed from the following morning and we were a long way from anywhere else.

A lot of Italian legal verbiage

A friend in Rome sent us a form which everyone had to fill in if they were going out on the roads giving the reason for their journey. Going to work, returning home after being away or family emergencies were the only exceptions to the travel ban. Given we had no printer Neri laboriously transcribed it onto a piece of paper so that, if we were waved down, we at least could say we had made the effort. An Austrian friend texted us to say their border with Italy was being closed and that was closely followed by the borders with Slovenia and Switzerland. We decided that our only option was to head for France, a journey of 1100 km and hope for the best. All this caused us to have something of a fretful night, not helped by the regular thump of pigeon droppings hitting the roof from the car park rafters above.

Goodness knows what they had been eating

We were on the road by 0730 having risen early and taken the pups for a swift walk to a local park where we were lucky enough to find a dog area. Then it was on the road for a cross-country journey to the west where we could pick up the autostrade heading towards Naples. On the way we passed close to the sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum which we had hoped to visit before the pestilence arrived. We will be back another time. The roads were unusually quiet, a lot of lorries but very few cars, as people heeded the requests to stay at home. All the way we were expecting to be pulled over by the police for a check but we saw no sign of any enforcement of the restrictions. On the first day we managed to get to Orvieto, north of Rome, which we had visited some years before. We found a quiet overnight spot near a football pitch. 

A nice walk by the river in Orvieto

An empty autostrade near Florence

The following day was a repeat of the first although we were a little more relaxed about the lack of any security. The Italian government announced that tourism to the country was halted and any foreigners in Italy should leave as soon as possible. We found ourselves driving non-stop through the beautiful areas of Umbria and Tuscany where we had planned to spend some time. Thanks to the empty roads we made good progress, stopping only to eat and refuel. We were concerned about the spaniels who were less than happy about being hitched up in the van for hours on end with just a quick trot outside every time we stopped. Our only major problem was in Genoa where the collapse of the viaduct carrying the A10 autostrade, back in 2018, meant all traffic was diverted through the twisting roads of the city. We did eventually extract ourselves after a couple of wrong turnings, and a bit of shouting, and drove the final hundred or so kilometres towards the French border.

There was a poignant moment as we stopped at the last Italian toll point to pay. The man

Italian motorway services have dog areas

inside gave us a farewell wave as we left, no doubt one of many he had given over the last few days. As we approached France we had passports ready for what we were sure would be checks at the border, and prepared our story to say we had come from Greece and hadn't been in contact with anyone in Italy. In the event there was no border control at all and we only realised we had left Italy when the language on the roadsigns changed. I scrabbled frantically in the glove box for our French electronic toll tag as we approached a péage. We hadn't expected to use it this early in our trip.

France at last

We rarely use camping sites but had decided we needed somewhere to wind down. This we did at a site to the west of Nice where we arrived as darkness fell. Thursday was spent taking the spaniels for a much needed walk along a nearby beach and using the laundry facilities. We have decided we are going to stay in Southern France unless circumstances change. It's an area we visited four years ago so we are more than happy to rediscover the countryside and the cuisine. Everything now depends on how the French react to the Coronavirus. We will keep a close eye on the news while finding somewhere to clean the roof of pigeon shit.

Elsa tends to sleep the journey away......

......while Max hunches up and hopes it ends soon