28th August - Europe 2010 - Italian Lakes Holiday

Left 6am, this was later than thought, the idea was to leave at 3am so that we avoided traffic on the M25. When we went to bed, this swiftly changed to 5am as we put the alarm on for 4am .

By the time I got out of bed it was 4.3, and in the end we left about 5.30. Half way down the road Billy remembered he had left his phone behind so we had to turn round to get it. It was 6 am when we left home for the 2nd time.

Then came the decision as to whether we went the M5/M4 or the A303/M3. We decided to go the A303 because it was not such a boring road. Mistake no. 2 came when we went flying past the exit for the A303. So we trundled up the M5 ready for the boring motorway journey. Then I remembered the Taunton exit that I used to take to Southampton. So we cut across to the A303 and we were back on track.. By the time we got to Stone Henge we were tired so we stopped for a coffee but bought a take away and continued on our way as we wanted to get past the road to hell before stopping. The M25 was not too bad and we were soon past so decided to stop at Maidstone Services for another coffee and a kip.

We then continued on our way to Dover, arriving at about 12.30, we took a look at Hope Inn where we were staying the night and then drove down to the port for a reckie. On the way down we saw a B & Q and I remembered that we never got a full length mirror on the back of the toilet door in the camper as we had planned. Half hour later we came out with just the thing and whilst Billy was sticking it to the door in the car park I put the kettle on for a cup of tea.

We arrived back at the hope inn about 4pm. When we booked the campsite we had also booked a table in the restaurant for a meal. We had a lovely meal, and they were doing a 2 course meal for 2 with a free bottle of wine. I had tuna pate and chicken and leek pie and Billy had crab cakes and lassagne and they both came with home cut chips and I finished mine off with banoffee pie. Loverly!
We will definitely go back again.

Back at the camper we retired to bed after setting the alarm for 6.30