We’d spent the previous day by lake Como and we headed for a farm stay at the top of the lake that evening.  There were photo opportunities galore, it was beautiful, but I was driving and with Italian roads being what they are, a fleeting glimpse of magnificence is soon replaced by a huge bus bearing down on you. 

Leaving Switzerland I thought I’d had a bad day when I accidentally drank a half litre of UHT while stuck in a two hour queue to get into the Gotthard tunnel and through to Italy. Turns out it can always get worse.

When I think back on our backpacking days, I only remember the good ones. But there are plenty of ordinary days too, along with some bad ones. Although, twenty years of hindsight can water it down and even bring a smile instead.   I hope yesterday will be one of those days.

It started well, we bought a litre of honey from the farm and half a dozen eggs that could be anything from duck, chicken, goose or guinea fowl and set off for the Cinque Terre on the Mediterranean coast.

Then it went shit shaped very quickly.

I backed the van into a post and smashed the brake light (can be patched up with tape until home) which was annoying.  We drove through pounding rain and stopped at a motorway services South of Milan that was so posh it felt like we were in Harrods. We hung out like the truck drivers with a couple of double espressos and returned to the van to find the hound had greedily taken advantage of a misplaced bag and eaten a weeks’ worth of treats in ten minutes.

Google maps likes to estimate arrival times speed limits but that’s a poor method when you never drive that fast on Italian roads. We shut down an entire town trying to reverse away from a tunnel that was way too small for our van. And when, three hours later than our ETA, I backed the van into a goddam overhanging balcony of all things trying to get some shopping, the day officially went sour.  A seven-metre van can NOT park in the average Italian city.

It was one of those days. 

It was a lesson because we wanted it all.  We tried to do too much, we wanted to reach the perfect destination, have the ideal journey, fill the fridge with tasty snacks and knock off some washing and a little spring clean throughout the van all in the same day. We did only half as well as we could have and the other half worse than we should.

On the bright side it was great to see the Med for the first time today.  All blue and glistening, just the way I remember it.  It will be our companion for some time now and I smile when I think of better days ahead.