Italia

Ciao. Well we have covered lot's of territory since my last post.

When we woke up in Innsbruck it was raining and had low cloud cover. So we didn't take the gondola lift up the mountain and just headed straight down to Modena. For a change we found the campground easily. Hurray for Tomtom.....he actually came through for a change. We had the campground call us a taxi to take us downtown for dinner since the bridge was to low for the rv. We ate at Trattotia de Omer a very authentic Italian restaurant. The best tortellini we have ever had. It was quite the experience since the waitress didn't speak one word of English and the 5 (cinque) words of Italian we spoke did not help.

Thought we might go to a Balsamic Vinegar Villa for a tour and tasting this morning but Tom wouldn't recognise the address so after 1/2 hr driving around we called it quits and heade over to see the sights in Parma and to shop for a wheel of cheese to bring home. Well after driving around for 1 1/2 hour we left town since we couldn't find parking for the RV. What a bust so we drove the 15 minutes south to see Trochetertio castle. We ended up having a wonderful lunch at the restaurant at the castle so all was not lost. During lunch we decide to drive the 2 hr's to our first Mediterranean stop.

We again had another beautiful drive with sunshine until we got off the main motorway and hit the hairpin roads. Poor Mark he was white knuckling it. I got some great video. As we hit the sea the rain stopped and the sun came out to welcome us to Levanto. After a few beers Mark was destressed enough and we took a sunset walk on the beach. What another glorious day. 

We're several days ahead of schedule and will stay here etleast 2 if not 3 nt's. We really need to just chill for a bit. We are waiting to hear back to see if we can hire a boat tour of Cinque Terre if not we'll go tour it by public ferry probably day after next. Tomorrow we'll walk the town go to the weekly street market.

Dreams realized

Wow we're here. Pardon any misspelling as the keyboard on this tablet isn't easy to work on. We have finally gotten some internet access. At the moment it is 5:30pm Sunday here in Innsbruck Austria and Mark and I are sitting on the deck bar at our campground enjoying a Zipfer beer and the hot sunshine. It is probably mid seventies and gorgeous we're surrounded by the Alps.

We arrived into Paris early and got the RV. We have been to Reims and Epernay France where we free camped in the parking lot of NotreDame cathedral in Epernay. It was so cool wakingup and seeing the spire.

We then drove over to Heidelberg, Rottenburg ob d.Tauber, & Munich Germany. We left Munich this morning and went to Nachwastein castle then on down here to Innsbruck. Tomorrow we head down to Italy. We are a day ahead so may stop off at Lake Garda Italy after all. We met a guy today at Ferns pass Austria that has a hotel there. What a small world.
We met many great folks and have lot's of great stories. We also have a ton of great pics but I am unable to upload them until we get home

I will try to update when we have internet. Look for a more detailed trip report sometime in the future.

Sorry unable to get this damn thing to edit....maybe it's the bright sun or the beers.

3 day until our Trip of a Lifetime

I know that we have been super excited about our Trip of a Lifetime but I didn't think anyone cared about all the little details in my planning. So I'll catch some of you up real quick.

Passports
Our passports arrived in about 10 days...imagine my surprise that the US govt could work so quickly.

RV & Apartment
I made all final payments for these so it's a relieve that I have the big ticket items payed for. We received our key to the apartment yesterday so that just helped to add to our excitement.

International Drivers Licence
We spent some time getting International drivers licenses at AAA since it's mandatory in Austria & Italy.

Euro's
We also exchanged dollars for Euro's with no so called fee from AAA. They say no fee but the company they use, uses Western Union who has a much higher exchange rate. So we paid $1.37 per Euro vs the $1.30 listed everywhere else. I'd say that 7% difference is sizable.

Guidebooks
Speaking of AAA the best guide book we purchased was from AAA. It was their Paris guide in spiral back. This was buy far the most thorough guide book. We also got the individual Michelin Green Guides for France, Germany & Italy. They are OK but don't offer as many details as the AAA one this could be because they are for the whole countries vs just a city. We also purchased a few Rick Steve's guide books for Cinque Terre Italy and a phrase book. These are much better then I expected considering all of the nay sayers out there about him.


Credit/Debit Cards
I did a ton of research looking for cards that did not tack on 3% conversion fee for foreign purchases. I of course had the answer in my wallet the entire time. What's in your wallet :), yes it was Capital One. I had both a credit card and a debit card so no new cards to deal with. I had thought about getting a pin & chip card (used through out Europe) instead of our swipe & signature cards we use here. These would come in handy anywhere that we would need to use a c.c at an unmanned kiosk ie:gas stations, toll booths, metro stations. But decided against it.

There are many other little details I haven't listed. If anyone needs any help planning their trip let me know I'll be happy to help where I can.

So I'm off to my last day of work and then packing for our flight out on Sunday. I wonder if I'll get any sleep between now and then.