Dramatic Valle D’Aosta Into Piemonte, Ivrea

Zagan the motorhome’s alone in the sosta alongside the bank of the Dora Baltea river in Ivrea (N45.46344, E7.87603), within easy striking distance of Turin to our south. Being in Italy, the rules of motorhoming have subtly altered, as they tend to from country to country. Here car parks are free game. As long as the lines are white, and there are no signs saying you can’t stay, you can, and for free. If the lines are blue, you’re time-limited and/or need to pay. If they’re yellow they’re residents only. So although maps of sostas (aires) might not show somewhere official to stay in your area of choice, chances are you can just rock up and kip in a car park, likely among Italian vans if you’ve found a decent place! Here in Ivrea there is an official sosta, and it has a barrier at the entrance, but you just lift the bar and drive in. Payment is on a voluntary basis – contribute as much or as little as you like.

Zagan in the motorhome sosta in Ivrea, Piemonte

Despite being parked within smoke-sniffing distance of the ugliest fume-belching rusting hulk of a factory, which hummed and hammered all night, we both slept well in Aosta. As we left the town, heading south along the valley towards a distant blue sky, a short distance brought us to a quiet car park, with maybe eight Italian motorhomes parked up in peace. Grrrrr! Need to get our eye in again in Italian and sniff out these spots!

A wee bit further along, ‘GPL’ announced a sign, and in we swung. Pulling up at the pump, an attendant strode over, chatting to a friend. I hesitated. Italian fuel stations have two prices for each fuel, one for self-service and one for the attendant to pump for you. The latter is about 10% more expensive and, being British, I’m more than used to holding the thing myself. But, again this being Italy, those rules only apply to diesel and petrol. LPG is always pumped for you, with no surcharge. I think… As the bottles filled, I could make out the odd reference to ‘camper’ as the two Italians chatted, and afterwards he asked how many Zagan could sleep. We invited him in for a quick look around; he’s saving up to get himself one, and he waved us off with a ciao.

Most of Italy’s motorways are toll, but check the map, there’s almost always a non-toll national road, following a similar route. However, while the toll roads leap valleys on concrete stilts and burrow beneath mountains through swift tunnels, the national routes do neither. They cling to hillsides, rising and falling in sympathy with the topography, while the speed limit dances back and forth between 30kph, 50kph, 70kph and 90kph. Staying on top of the speed limit itself is a full time job.

They should use Italian roads in hazard perception tests. Mini digger, speed camera, corner, crown of a hill, erm, erm, what else is coming at us!?

Apart from the lack of toll, the national roads are sometimes a wonderful experience in themselves. This is heading south out of the Aosta Valley

Again heading out of the Aosta Valley. You might be able to see the stone-roofed houses to the bottom-right. All the old houses have roofs with inch-thick, foot-across stones as tiles

Castles burst from the top of every high point in the Valle D’Aosta

Driving in Italy unnerves me a little. I’ve come to the decision that Italians aren’t crazed drivers. They’re not all bent on overtaking at the next blind bend, or driving hands-free while they chat on the phone and light a cigarette at the same time. Some of them are though, just a tiny few, and that’s enough to keep me on edge. Today one chap overtook us to find we were following another car and then a tractor. You could see him hesitate, considering trying to pull in front of us or the car in front, and then think ‘what the hell’. Off he went, the car heading towards him drifted to the right, making a new, third, lane. No flashing of lights or angry gestures, maybe I just need to get into this new swing of things?

Stone walls shoulder vine terraces high up the valley sides. Abandoned houses told a story of a difficult or changing life

The Piaggio Ape, my favourite of Italian vehicles. I love these things more than Ferraris or Ducatis. Old men or even couples crowd into the tiny cab, and the things sputter along shouting La Dolce Vita! at about 10mph

Driving into Ivrea the road bubbled up into stone cobbles, my mind leaping back for an instant to our first taste of a Ukranian city. The difference being these are well-maintained, and were rather freer of Ladas. After a ‘no way am I driving down there’ moment, we realised that was actually the way to the sosta and, having passed the entrance, it was actually easily passable. Again Italian roads have me jumpy, sometimes the roads themselves narrow like funnels, unhelpfully parked cars now, ah, helping. Not this time though, we pulled in to be greeted by, what’s this, another British couple! Wayhey! Keith and Jackie retired a while back and now split their time between European motorhome wanderings and a 60 foot narrowboat back in Blighty. After a long chat about all things motorhome, Italian wanderings, and a bit of interrogation from me about the boat life, they headed off north. Having made it down to Naples, they’re making for the Mont Blanc tunnel in a day or two, then slowly back through France to the UK where a family reunion awaits.

The river alongside the sosta’s been ‘tamed/angrified’ for canoeists

Ivrea gets a mention in our Rough Guide as it holds a fruit-chucking festival in the week leading up to Shrove Tuesday. Oddly they fight it out with oranges. The Battle of the Oranges being weird since oranges don’t grow here – they’re imported from Sicily far enough to the south to almost be another country. That’s about the main attraction though, as far as we can tell. Wandering the town all traces of pulp and peel are long gone, and what’s left is pleasant enough but not massively inspiring.

Ivrea’s Battle of the Oranges

Shopping in Ivrea. Or not shopping, as they’re all shut for 3 hours for lunch.

Ivrea’s castle. It only has three towers. The fourth was an ammunition dump until it was struck by lightening…

It’s hot by the way. 28 degrees in the cab on the way down here. And hot feels guuuuurrrrdddd! The ice and snow was fun, but the warmth and sun is being well received here in Zagan Land. Charlie’s even considering having his winter coat shaved off, and the satnav announced it was overheating and refused to charge.

Anti-sun device. TomTom take note: we’ve applied for a patent.

Right, time for bangers and mash! Ju’s knocking up some Savoyarde white wine and onion sausages with carrot and spud mash. Bring ’em on. Soon we’ll have some space in here for Italian grub – both of us are looking forward to our first supermarket stock-up in (arguably…) the world’s greatest foodie country!

Cheers, Jay

Oh, hang on, a few pics I uploaded then didn’t use:

Now and then – to the left the Euro, to the right Italian currency with the fascist fasces symbol

An unidentified duck! Any help appreciated…