Fri, 12 Sep 2003

author Tim	location Gemona del Friuli, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italia
posted 09:45 CEST 13/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Italia ( all photos )

Descent into Italia ( 4 photos )
(Continued from Österreich 1 (Austria)).
We pulled in at the border to attempt to get some stamps in our passports. It was amazing how quickly things changed - there were huge Cinzano signs, those bottles of wine with cane around the bottom all for sale, and accents were completely different.
After taking a photo or two next to the border sign to prove we made it, we went in search of the stamps. The official border post was closed and looked like it had been since about 1972, so the next move was to approach one of the shop keepers.
Despite my primary-school Italian, I couldn't work out what to say! My brain was producing a strange muddle of English, German, Italian and gobbledy gook, so in the end I resported to the universal "stamping the passport" hand-action. She pointed and said "restaurant", so we followed that. Joking that only the Italians could make a restaurant the dispenser of official border crossing stamps, we were soon suprised to see that what we actually got was more a stamp advertising the restaurant, in our official passports! Still, it had the name of the mountain pass if nothing else. We will have to drop in at a police station later on.
Shaking of the hitchikers wanting a ride (luckily the wrong way), Liz started her expert piloting of Rosie down the precarious pass. The first-gear, almost completely stopping hairpin bends as the sun was shining and Italian language radio came into range was truly a great way to enter the country. Forget motorways, this is how it should be done.
Progress in terms of straight-line distance was very slow, but we didn't care, just looking down and around the valley. After we eventually made it down, small villages came and went, with completely different architecture to the Austrian ones only an hour or so earlier.
The game to play rapidly became "spot the Fiat", as the Italian national car overtook at all angles in all conditions, but suprisingly not much worse than the rest of Europe so far (and notably Czech).
We drove further south, with the rough plan that we would make it to Venezia (Venice) the following day. We opted not to use the motorways for now (you pay a toll for each journey you make on them in Italia), instead taking the very scenic back roads towards a little nowhere town called Gemona del Friuli. The tight streets coupled with little cars, old wandering Italian people, great looking restaurants and sunshine all made us feel very happy we had made it to a place we had long wanted to visit.
We pulled into Camping Ai Pioppi, were glad that the reception guy spoke a little English, and pulled up to enjoy the sunshine - a very welcome change after the non-stop rain in Österreich.
Enjoying having use of the gas, we cooked up some pasta (what else?) and enjoyed the evening sun before it disappeared and the night-time cold came to remind us that the alps were just behind us.

author Tim	location Gemona del Friuli, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italia
posted 09:15 CEST 13/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Osterreich/Osterreich 1 ( all photos )

Into the Alps ( 12 photos )
On the road for what turned out to be a mostly driving, exploring day, we headed back to the motorway the across east towards a couple of mountain roads which we had heard were very spectacular.
We wanted to go up and/or down the Großglocknerstraße, one of the highest mountain roads in the area and supposedly full of spectacular scenery. I picked a different road to take us up north of there so we could drive back down it, heading generally to Italy. However, after winding our way up towards one of the towns on the road (Mallnitz, which was a beautiful little town in its own right nestled into the mountains under snowy peaks), it became apparent that the only way forward was to put Rosie on a train which ran through a tunnel under the mountain!
I'm not quite sure why it couldn't have just been a road tunnel like so many others around the place, but we decided the cost was a bit high and the wait was going to be too long.
So, aborting our first attempt to cross the Alps, we retreated south, then pushed further west, intending to go this time up Großglocknerstraße. It was a great climb up to the start of the pass, through yet more villages nestled around the place, one of which had a huge chicken advertising "Backhenfest", starting the next day. What a shame we wouldn't be around to see that.
Pushing Rosie higher and higher (to about 1500m if I remember correctly), we eventually came to the toll gate for the start of the pass proper. The van infront of us had to reverse out, we were not sure why. However, we had to do the same after asking the little man there if we required snow chains. "Ja" came the simple answer, couple with a bit of laughter at all the stupid tourists around today. A look at the sign up the road with tyres complete with chains should have also given it away!
So, figuring we had plenty of time for mountain passes complete with snow if really wanted to do that, we aborted Alps Crossing Attempt Number Two, grabbed some photos, and decided that the cold and rain were all bit depressing. What better way to cure that than to head south to Italy!
There are plenty of different passes from Österreich into Italy, so we chose the closest one, Plöcken Pass/Monte Croce Carnico (in Deutsch and Italiano respectively). To get across you have to cross two separate mountain ranges, both a part of the Dolomites. Singing the 1980s theme from Commonweath Bank's children's bank accounts, we drove out of our last "major" Deutsch-speaking town Oberdrauburg due south, heading for another country.
The interesting thing about Europe is that if we had have pushed about fifty kilometres east instead of south, we would have ended up in Slovenia, speaking yet another language, with different cultures, customs and food. But I don't have visas for there - perhaps next time.
We wound our way up the first ridge of mountains over Gailsbergsattel Pass (982m), then back down the other side into the road and tiny towns built between the two ranges. Still beyond us were the imposing peaks of the second range, jutting like huge sharp teeth into the sky. Slowly we chugged up more mountains, overtaken at speed by fast German-made cars, and increasingly Italian-registered Fiats.
I was reminded of the movie Italian Job by all the fantastic scenery - and interestingly, in a manner reminiscent of driving into and out of Wales, the weather looked far far better on the other side!
Coming out of one of the strange half-open tunnels which are so common here (perhaps just to keep snow off while still giving you a view?), we dodged a couple of sheep who had found their way in, and then we saw the huge EU-compliant "Italia" sign!
There were zero formalities as we pushed across into Italia.

(customised)