Day 9 2 fat foodies in food heaven

We are a day ahead of schedule and after leaving the campground we try to find a Balsamic Vinegar House that I had reservations for the following day. After driving around for 30 minutes and finally on tiny roads Mark isn't happy about we decide to give up and head over to Parma the next stop of our trip. A dissapointment since Balsamic Vinegar is why we drove to Modena.

On the 45 minute drive to Parma we stop at an Autogrill (think truck stop) outside of Modena to get our morning pastry and the espresso that I will soon become addicted to. We quickly learn that the food at the autogrill is very good, better than any American fast food restaurant. After a quick stop we are off to Parma Italy and it's Parmigiano Reggiono cheese and Prosciutto Ham. Being a day ahead we figure we'll just stay the night at a campground in Parma so we select one as a POI on Tom Tom and shortly arrive at the address indicated to find ourselves amongst a bunch of apartments with no campground in sight. Sighs. So with a mission to find a parking spot for the RV we drive around.......and around.......and around.......and around. After driving around in the pedestrian heavy town for an hour and half we just call it quits and head the 15 minutes to Torrechiara Castle. Dissappointed yet again that we won't be visiting any specialty food stores.

Once parked at the bottom of the castle in the parking lot I step outside of the RV as a tour bus of German high school students pull up. After they all get off I try to speak with the bus driver to find out if he knows where bus parking is in Parma. Though I don't speak much of his German and he doesn't speak English he gets a map out and shows me what he thinks may be parking but isn't sure since he's not done it.  Mark and I tread up to the castle admiring the amazing views on the way up. The castle has a restaurant that I had wanted to have dinner at so we settled for a nice lunch instead. This is where we got redemption for missing all of the specialty foods that we had travelled to the area for. We had an incredible lunch at the castle that gave us everything we were looking to try. This is another one of those things that ended up turning out better then we originally planned. God does work in miraculous ways as we find out again later when we arrive in Levanto. When we write up the review of it on the 2fatfoodies blog I'll post a link here.

Torrechiara Castello

 Lunch at the castle

 Local Wine

 Foods of the area Prosciutto Ham and 24 mo. aged Parmigiano Reggiano cheese with 18 yr old Balsamic vinegar

While having our wonderful lunch we debated our many choices to camp for the evening. When Mark discovered that we were just 2 hours from the Mediterranean coast of Italy he was done drinking wine and ready for the drive. What a shame that I was stuck drinking the last of the bottle of wine, you don't really believe that I was upset about it do you? 

 More ruins

About an hour into our drive it started raining off and on until we hit the little winding road that goes from the motorway down to Levanto then the heavens let loose. This would be a difficult drive in an RV in normal conditions but with the rain it was even worse. These roads were more windy and of course more narrow then any roads in the Alps.

White knuckling it down to Levanto in the pouring rain

As soon as we hit the coast in Levanto the rain stopped and the sun was shining on the Mediterranean. Want to talk about an AAAAAAA moment (picture angels singing).  As I waited my turn to check into the campground I stood under a tree that dropped the occasional drop around or on me and with the view of the moon coming up over the hills (see picture below) I realized that we have arrived at a great location. We decide to stay at least 3 nights here and later on spread it out to a 4'th since we loved it here so much. If there wasn't so much more to see of Southern France we may have stayed here until we had to return the RV.  After parking the RV and getting Marks nerves calmed down (can't remember if it was a beer or wine that did the trick) we walk the 3 minutes to the shore and watch the sunset over it. We then return to the campground restaurant for their highly acclaimed pizza and a bottle of their local red wine. The pizza wasn't anything to write home about but the wine was pretty good.

Our view from the camper

 Levanto Striped church chimed every 15 minutes night and day

Private castle on the hill above Levanto

 Levanto beach at sunset

Day 8 Modena Italy

Well yesterday we awoke in Munich with a damp cool morning and then once we came out of a tunnel in the Alps we arrived in warm sunshine that lasted the rest of the day. So we weren't surprised to wake to rain again today. Guess with a cloud cover like this we won't be heading up the Nordkette cableways to the mountain top. So onward we go and head down to Italy and Garda Lake area. Once around Lake Garda area it is still raining so we decided to keep heading down to Modena for the night.

The view from our camper in the morning.

Different ruins along the road

The drive down through the Alps and into Italy was very interesting as we passed through the Adige river valley and it's various geographic area as heavily wooded areas turned to farm land. Once we passed the area of Lake Garda the mountians just stopped no kiss goodbye....nothing.

We found our campground in Modena very easily but the gate was closed when we arrived. I walked up to the campground office and found the owner sleeping with his feet up on the counter and very loud rock & roll blaring in the background LOL. Once settled in we asked the owner for dinner recommendations. He recommended Tratorria da Omer downtown and called us a taxi as our camper wouldn't clear the closest underpass for the highway. The taxi dropped us off at the door of Omer but they wouldn't be open for about another half hour so we just started walking around and discovering the area.

Modena Italy

 Ghirlanda Tower

 A lighting shop

Trattoria da Omer

best tortellini we've ever had

My first real Italian esspresso oh so yummy and addictive

Taxi back to the campground and we tried to sleep with all of the noise created by the highway toll booth just on the other side of a building. This was our least favorite campground of the entire trip and dirtiest.

Day 7 Dream Castles and the Alps

We wake up to another cold and damp morning but today we are leaving Munich and traveling 2 hours to Hohenschwangua, Germany the home of my favorite childhood castle.  I have dreamed of seeing Neuschwastein Castle since I was a child and saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the first time. You got lucky that I used some restraint and put a few of our many pictures on here.

We were surprised to turn a corner on the road and see this view of a chapel and the two castles Neuschwanstein on the left & Hohenschwangau center above tree line.

 Alpsee lake

In Hohenschwangua parking is very near the only street to sight see on and practically right under

Hohenschwangue castle.

I did not get online and reserve a tour a head of time so we just walked up the street of Hohenschwangua and admired the beauty of the area, shopped for more Christmas ornaments and had our last Schnitzels while in Germany.

When we first arrived in Hohenschwangua it was about 10:30 am and peaceful that all changed as soon as all of the tourist buses arrived. After lunch and the increase of tourist into town we decided not to camp in the area and to head on down to Austria. I can only imagine how crowded this tiny town gets during high season.

This is just another castle ruin that we passed shortly after passing into Austria.

This is the small town we stopped in to purchase our vignette so we could legally drive through Austria.

Some of our many pictures of the Alps

 We wanted to go up the Zugpitze gondola's for a view of the Alps if weather was going to permit. But with the low lying clouds when we arrived in Ehrwald, Austria we decided to keep on going to Innsbruck.

 Fern Pass where we met a gentleman that owned a hotel in Garda Lake Italy, possibly a place we were going to stop.

 Our view from our camping spot in Innsbruck we just loved this location.

Kranebitterhoff Campground & restaurant. The best pizza we had in all of Europe. This is where I first  tried to start updating my blog and learned that I was unable to edit it well.

 The view from the restaurant deck.

This campground was only a couple of years old and very modern. While taking a shower that night the motion sensitive lights went off leaving me in the dark LOL. I had to literally step out of the shower to get them to turn back on.