We take a holiday, lie around all day

After eight weeks away it is getting difficult to remember a time when we went to work and looked forward to weekends: We are starting to really get the hang of this independent lifestyle and at the moment it is difficult to imagine being anywhere but Italy. Most days will find us either cycling, walking or sightseeing. However, we do spend days at the campsite busy with laundry, cleaning the van, drafting up posts for the blog, checking the budget (yes, we do have an Excel spreadsheet for this!) or other chores.

We also spend time reading: Book club friends may be interested to know we have both read ‘Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow’, which we found to be a diverting Danish thriller and ‘The Testament of Gideon Mack’, which we both found pleasing, but frustratingly superficial. We both trudged through an Italian classic, ‘That Awful Mess on Via Merulana’ by Carlo Emilio Gadda and Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ has amazed us and launched some spirited discussions over a beer. A request to swop books we have finished with other campers from the UK has been a useful conversation starter.

Italian campsites seem to be all or nothing: On the coast and now at Lake Garda the sites have every facility and activity you could hope for and are bustling with campers: It is good to find fast internet access and be able to skype Matthew again. The area is very beautiful, as hopefully the photograph of Lazise, the town nearest to our campsite, shows.

To get here we left the Apennines and crossed the river Po, moving into risotto rice growing country. We are now on the edge of the alps and on the warm nights we dream about the fresh mountain air.