Tuesday 23 May 2017

Schwangau to Silandro - 126 miles

Up early so that we can get to Hohenschwangau for our third attempt at visiting Schlosse Neuschswanstein. We got into the car-park okay - €8.50 – but when we went to buy tickets the earliest visit available was after 13.00, far too long to leave Jamie on his own in the van in the warm. We could have taken the shuttle bus up and just viewed the grounds, but the whole point of this place according to the blurb is the interior. We did, however, find a multi-national flag for the dashboard....

So back to Bertie and get on our way, wanting to find fuel because we had been told it was more expensive in Austria. We had to resort to TomTom to find a fuel station, there not being many around, and had to backtrack a few kilometres but at least we were topped off. Back to Fussen and turn onto the road taking us into Austria heading for the Tyrol – where the first fuel station was 4c per litre cheaper. Grrrrrrrrr! Makes a difference with an 80 litre tank.

But never mind, the sun was shining and the scenery getting better all the time as we headed into the mountains, gradually climbing until we peaked at over 5000 ft. We had to be careful to avoid the motorways as we would have needed a special box that records the tolls, at €85 (although unused credit is refundable, it's a real hassle for the short distance we were travelling), but the route carefully guided us through with no problems.

Austrian Tyrol

became the

Italian Tyrol

Can you see

any difference?

Abbidi M Maria /Kloster Marienberg

We stopped for lunch at the highest point, just before crossing into Italy, noting an immediate deterioration in the road surfaces but not as bad as Portugal or Morocco. Now technically in the Italian Tyrol, we saw that everything was bi-lingual, German and Italian. Gradually moving downhill our thoughts turned to an overnight stop, Lake Garda being realistically too far away, and our faithfull route showed a sosta, the Italian version of the French aire de camping car, along our route. Although perhaps a little earlier than normal, we were both quite tired after our early start, so we gave it a look. A pleasant area attached to a car park on the edge of Silandro adjacent to a sports centre overlooking the valley and mountains.

Sosta at Silandro

With the temperature around 28º we were ready for refreshment and a snooze until it started to cool off later in the evening. Changed all the map books etc. to Italy and started checking out campsites. It seems we've arrived at some sort of mid/high season and our ACSI discount card cannot be used at some of the sites so we're going to have to be a bit picky. We have heard stories of crowded expensive sites so perhaps we'll stay away from the main areas.

Where we stayed

Sosta at Via Vogelsgang, Schandlers, Silandro. N46º37.640 E10º46.915

Room for 12/15 motorhomes on slightly sloping hardstanding with nice views. More possible in adjacent carpark. No facilities. Village approx 500m. €3 for 24 hrs.