The Grand Prix of Monaco

With the train from Albenga we went to Monaco to see the scenery while the Grand Prix was on.

I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Enjoy.

(Click on the pictures on the right side)

Sorry, click on the button fotos on top and then you can scroll through them with volgende.

To put the pictures in the writing is taking tooooo much time and this way you can see all the pictures in my albums.

Ciaoooooooooooooooooooooo

Hard work, no time for stories or pictures, but here they are!!!!!

And here we are again.

I know, it's been a long time.

Where were we? Stef finally arrived indeed on Friday the 18th of April.

On Saturday we went to Allasio and Albenga, so he could have a taste of the area as well.

(Albenga)

And then........ it was time to try to get the job done before the first arrival on the 29th of April.

This mend: assembling the kitchen cupboards and trying to get them levelled as well as the fridges, which was not an easy job, considering we are in nature: stones, roots, holes and whatever more. Connecting the electricity, connecting the gas bottles. Cleaning everything, putting up the curtains, etc etc etc. We have been working like crazy to get all the 20 tents ready by the 29th of April. Yes, it was hard work, but we had a lot of fun as well.

Our 'office', the reception tent. And yes, of course with flowers, what else could we do being at the Flower Riviera?

Reception tent by night.

I consider ourselves very lucky with our first guests: they are all great. Although it is raining a lot and a lot, everybody is still in a very good mood and also the contacts between each other is nice. It is really a little square where 13 tents and our private tents and the reception are standing and it is very social and cosey.

Opposite our reception tent Vivian and Ramon are staying. They are fantastic people and they are taking good care of us. They see us working too many hours and many nights Vivian was setting the dinnertable for four and came to us telling us we had to eat. That was not a punishment at all: Ramon is a great cook and a bbq-master.

Also we spend some evenings with other guests on our square.

Thursday Astrid and Marion arrived. On the evening of the 8th of May finally my livingtent was ready and we sat down with a few people for a drink in front of my 'house'. At midnight suddenly there were balloons, candels and a little start of my birthday.

On the 9th of May we celebrated officially my birthday and it was a nice one! Some of the guests joined us, bringing presents. Astrid gave me a beautiful plant from Mom and Dad, Ramon and Vivian's present was a fish which is telling the temperature and Rene and Bettie came with an incent burner. Maybe because my tent looks like 'little Tibet' and they heard about Nepal before? From Rien and Ernie I got village salami and a tablecloth.

All and all it was a fantastic birthday at my new home.

I will put some more pictures and then I will close for tonight. Soon more pictures and more update, but now we have to go and see Ramon and Vivian, they are leaving tomorrow. They will be missed!!! We are all together already talking about a reunion next year May! Would be fun.

Birthday party!!!!!!!!!!

Balloons, candles.

Ciao everybody and promissed: soon more pictures. Something went wrong with the download, so tomorrow I will try again for the rest.

Love you all, miss you all,

but enjoying our time here.

The tents are up!!!!

Oooooops, I didn't realize it is already another week gone.

So, you can see, times flies when you are having fun.

On Saturday the team arrived and they started straight away to put up all the frames.

The frame of my Villa!

And then........ they took two days off!!! The last week they worked more than 60 hours, they really needed a rest. Some of them went to Monaco, the rest stayed on the site, but I did not see much of them.

Finally I received a box with material, so I was able to work on the brochures I need to put in the tents.

On tuesday morning 9:00 the team was busy with putting the canvas on the tents.

Now it starts to look like a small village. I have been walking around trying to 'map' the tents and to number them, with this map I could plan the guests, especially the ones who had special requests.

The first tent is going to be my 'office', the reception. My living tent and Stef's tent are standing opposite. Luckily the boys put it up with the front door away from the other tents, so the guests won't see when I open or close my tent. We were already joking about it, when they turned the tent around. 'Don't you want all your guests shouting good morning to you?' No. Thanks.

While the team was busy pinning the tents and putting the floors I started to hang in the ceilings. This was not sooo easy, I had to climb on a chair to reach the top all the time. I am sure I had my exercise!!!

The next step was hanging the cabins.

Curtains and it looked better.

When they started to place the tables, I put them all together,(62 pieces!) so later they can put the boxes with the inventory ON the tables, saves us a lot of bending over later.

The tent next to my reception we are using in the beginning for all the inventory. Normally everything ends up in the receptiontent, but then I could not move anymore.

You see what I mean?

For lunch I joined the team, now it is more fun, all working and joking together. Also in the evening I joined them for diner. They are cooking on turn and they invited me as well. Nice.

At 21:00 four of them came to my caravan, to watch football. It was a late night, about 00:30 the last few left, after finishing off a whole bottle of Brandy!!!! Ooff, that was not such a good idea, starting at 09:00 again today.

Today we achieved a lot: all the cabins are hanging and because they were late on the site and I have so much work left to do, they helped me big time with putting the doublebeds IN the cabins for me. Thanks guys!

Tomorrow they will do a few more rides from the storage and spread out all the inventory over all the tents and then in the afternoon they will move on to the next camping.

Will be quiet again. Stef still was not able to fly, hopefully his flight of Fridaymorning will not be canceled so he will arrive in the evening.

Then on Saturday we can 'fix' our tents and I will move out of the caravan. It will be much easier to be downstairs close to the tents and then we have to 'build' up everything else. Today we made one tent ready, so I know now how and what to do.

Again diner with the team and again a few are here watching football again.

For sure I will sleep like a baby tonight, I wonder how my body will be tomorrow morning, it was a hard days work today!

Stef and I have only 1 week to get 20 tents ready for the first arrivals! But, in the week of the 10th of May we have no new arrivals and we can take it a bit more easy.

Well, that's all for now. To be honest I do not have much inspiration to write funny or entertaining, it is just summing up the jobs we have done.

Will be back on the blog soon!!!!!

Just to say hello

Just to say hello.

The tents still have not arrived, most probably the team will arrive Sunday.

Saturday Stef will arrive, which is nice, because it has been very very quiet here. Not only Ineke left, also all the other guests at the campsite are gone.

The weather is still good, 2 days sun, one day cloudy, bit of rain. Only in the evenings it is still cold, but with a few blankets, the television on, a good book, it is alright.

I have been a few times to Villanova D'Albenga and one time to Albenga, just to get around and out a bit.

This morning was a not nice experience with a non-friendly woman in the postoffice.

I had to go there to pay a bill from the tollway. When I came into the post office and I gave her the bill, she started to shout in Italian to me and almost threw a piece of paper in my face. I could make out of it that I had to fill that form in. Luckily there was a nice Italian lady behind me, who started to search for her readingglasses and she helped me to fill in the form.

By the time I gave again the form to the woman of the post office she slammed a sign Chiuso (closed) on her desk and again in very loud Italian she screamed something at me. By that time I was very confused, getting angry, a bit upset. What the hell is this????

A man standing in line behind us said that the desk was closed for 10 minutes and that we had to wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After 10 minutes another woman at the post office opened her desk and finally she helped me, she tried to be a bit more friendly and I could pay the bill.

I know that I sometimes thought that the woman of the Elounda post office was not always in a good mood, but I am sure that even she would be scared and shaking for this woman at this post office. I hope that by the time more tourists have to go to that post office this woman is on holiday, because for sure she needs it!!!! To destress, to follow a course in customer friendly behavior.

I am already looking forward to go back to this post office to send some papers to Vacansoleil

Well, people, that was all the excitement I had the last week, for sure next week I will have more to report and to post some more pictures again.

Ciao for now. xxxxxxxxxxxxx

A day on C'era una volta

Beautiful sunshine, so a day on the camping. Sunbathing and reading, walking around a bit. Making pictures of the views from the site.

The view at Allasio from the campsite.

The area where the tents of Vacansoleil will be placed.

Toilets and showers on the site of Vacansoleil.

Also today we stayed on the camping until about 14.00. Then we went to Allasio to do some shopping and had our last diner together in Villanova D'Albenga in the same Pizzeria again. Fantastic food and reasonable prices: two pasta and 1/2 liter of wine for 20 euro all together. It will not be hard to have a good time here.

Tomorrow I will drive Ineke to Milan to the airport. It will be quiet without her great company here, but I still have enough to do and around the 15th Vacansoleil will arrive with the team to put up all the tents, so better enjoy my time off.

I have an Italian mobilenumber now: 0039-349 131 7782, but of course you can always reach me through my email.

Sanremo and Monte Carlo, Monaco

After an Easter breakfast in the sun in front of our caravan it started to become cloudy again.

So, in the car on the way to Sanremo.

Sanremo was a bit disappointing. At least, to Ineke and me. It proves that we like the small villages more, with old buildings and nice promenades.

The road to Sanremo - we took the coastway - was beautiful and after two tunnels we came in the sunshine again.

The Autostrada, the road we used on the way back.

In Monte Carlo we went into the Casino, a pitty, you are not allowed to make pictures. Outside of the Casino it was very busy with people watching and photographing all the cars standing there: Ferraris, Jacqs, Rolls Royce etc. etc. Again we were not really impressed by it.

Ineke, my navigator: where are we......................where are we going?

I joked to Ineke to drive my jellow car in front of the Casino, handing over my keys to the parking-guards and she makes a picture. She would not do it, so sorry guys, no picture of my yellow 'Ferrari' in front of the Casino.

Monte Carlo Casino

Casino from the back.

Hotel Le Paris. We went inside, but when we saw the pricelist (soup: 22 euro!!), we decided to have a coffee elsewhere.

Monaco.

It started to rain, so time to head back to C'era una volta by Autostrada.

There are a million of round-a-bouts here everywhere! We decided to call them hick-up-hills (shit=hills), because I use them a lot if we miss a turn, sh...., and go round and round until we have the right exit.

With leaving the Autostrada I had a nice trick: I had to put a billet of 10 Euro in a machine but what do you think? Yes, yes. I dropped it on the floor. Ineke had to get out of the car, walk around, pick up the money, jump back in the car and I could put the money in the money to get the barrier up.

Tonight we are going to the restaurant on the camping, let's see how it is and maybe we will meet some people who work here.

Buono Pascha to all of you and speak to you soon again.

A rainy day, so good for a visit to the Cave of Toirano

A cloudy day, so a perfect day for a visit to the Caves of Toirano.

On the way to Toirano we stopped first in Loano.

Ever since Roman times, Loano has been a desirable place to live. It was also the site of Napoleon's first victory in Italy. These days Loano is an extremely pleasant town with an extensive beach. Many of the houses in Loano are painted beautifully.

Grotte di Toirano

These caves, a real wonder of nature, are among the most beautiful in Italy. They are situated in the karst area of the Val Varatella, between Albenga and Pietra Ligure. Discovered by young researches and speleologists from Toirano in 1950, these subterranean caves, full of broad caverns, stalactites and stalagmites of all sizes and rare crystal formations, are reminiscent of images of hell. Most important is the Cave of the Witch where traces of Paleolithic man and also the extinct cave bear have been found.

The 'organ'.

Sala del Pantheon. This cavern contains a stalagmite which reaches the great height of 8m (26 ft).

Sala Morelli. The Torre di Pisa, an impressive central stalagmite.

More pictures and information you can find on www.toiranogrotte.it.

The tour took about one hour, for the price of 10 Euro per person. It was worth every penny!

Bye Bye Elounda, Hello New Life

After 10 days Elounda to sort out my things and to see friends on Sunday it was time to hit the road to a new adventure: C'era una volta, (once upon a time), in Villanova D'Albenga Italy.

Sunday I went for lunch with Thanos and Radi to Paggia Amos, a nice 'end'.

Tweety to get new tires, service: ready to go!!!!

On my way to Heraklion, where the ferry to Piraeus left around 22.00, just a few hours later then planned. It proved that my booking was for the long way: Santorini and Milos, then Piraeus.

On board I found a nice sofa where I could sleep and the next morning I arrived around 12.00 in Piraeus.

A friend of Ineke had given me a GPS for the car, but when I switched it on in Piraeus I found that Greece was not in the system!!!!! Duuuuuh. So, it took me about an hour to find my way to Korinthos.

The weather was great: blue sky and full sunshine. Also the road was not bad at all.

Around 16.00 I arrived in Patras, where I had to wait to go on board on the Sophocles for Venice until 20.00.

The men on board were shouting their directions: up - down, left - right, move move move. I would not let any one make me nervous, so I stopped the car and did not move anymore. One of the men came to me, asking what was the problem. No problem, just tell me what to do without shouting. In a few seconds he said I was right and with normal directions and instructions I parked my car on deck.

The 30 hours on the Sophocles were not too bad, I had good company of Karolina, a girl from Slovakia who was also travelling alone. We had a good time all the trip.

At 08.00 in the morning we arrived in Venice.

Thank God in Italy the GPS was working so I found easily my way to Trevisio, where we booked a room for one night. Although I arrived early, around 10.00 I could go in the room already. First thing was of course to sleep a few more hours, after one night sleeping on the floor.

Shower, getting dressed and on my way to explore Trevisio. The weather was strange: I started walking in full sunshine, then it started to rain, to end up with hailstones and snow!!!

Square Trevisio

After a walk through the center back to the room, reading, resting, to go to the airport to collect Ineke, who arrived at 21.15.

Together on the search for a Pizzeria, but giving up on that idea and ending up in a snackbar where we had a glass of wine outside on the terrace.

Thursday morning after a good full breakfast on our way to Villanova D'Albenga, where we arrived around 17.00. First there was a bit of a confusion at the reception about my arrival. They did indeed receive my email that I was arriving a week before I had to start work, but because Vacansoleil and the team to build up the tents told them that they were coming around the 18th of April, they also assumed I was coming later.

Anyway, it was not a big problem. Renske, a DUTCH woman, working at the reception arranged that we can stay until the tents arrive in a wonderful caravan.

In the evening we went to Villanova D'Albenga, a nice small village where we found a Pizzeria where we had fantastic food accompanied with a good glass of wine. The prices here are reasonable: a coffee is average 1 euro to 1.20, half a liter of wine 5 euro and the pasta was around 7 euro. And looking at the picture, you can see that it was not a small portion.

After dinner some shopping and back to the car. There Tweety and I met a tree! Driving backwards we heard scratch scratch and it was a tree moving towards my car!

Well, I would not have been surprised if I would have had small damage all the way here, but I never expected to 'park' my car against a tree in Villanova! But, no damage, it was only the noise luckily. We had to laugh a lot about it, now also Tweety knows where she is, Ineke said.

Friday: after a coffee in front of our caravan in the sun time to make a walk on the campsite. It is a village on it. Big, hughe. The places were my tents will be build looks fantastic, I will make a picture soon and download it.

Then on our way to Albenga. The old center of town was beautiful,

but the promenade along the sea was a bit disappointing. The whole beach is blocked with small business, like bars, cafes, restaurants. There is not really a big beach.

Then on our way to Allasio and there it looked more like we expected: a beautiful beach with a nice promenade. We had lunch on the promenade at the seaside

and after that we found a shop where I got my Internetstick from Tim. If I wanted to use the internet of the campsite it would cost me 3 euro an hour, which is ridiculous. Now I have this stick for 6 months for 10 euro a month! Which sounds like a good deal to me and now I am sitting in the caravan with vast internetconnection.

Well people, that is it for today. Of course I will almost daily keep you posted through this blog, where it is easy to also put pictures with it.

I hope all of you will also keep me posted about your 'adventures', it is so nice to stay in touch and to hear how you are doing.