Campervan Therapy

Leaving the peace of the Aosta valley, we wrestle with the A4 before we turn off on the A26. The mountains reappear on the horizon like a mystical mirage. Seán has found a municipal camper-stop, or Sosta as they’re called in Italy, in Lake Varese’s Gavirate, a stone’s throw from its better-known cousin, Lake Maggiore.

The great value camper-stop would be brilliant, with the town 500 metres away, and it’s lake-side position. Even better is the cycle track around it, linking up to the even smaller lakes of Monate and Comabbio. At any other time of year it be perfect.

But in August not only is the lack of shade and 36 degrees too much to handle, but the mosquitoes are out in force. As I prepare a Calabrian salad, (twice baked bread, tomatoes, salt and oil) learned from my friend Pina, I’m eaten alive by miniature vampires.

But this is the wonder of the campervan – we stay for a few hours to explore Gavirate  and head off somewhere else for camping. We wander through the streets of Gavirate and as we usually do make our way up to the church tower.

At first it seems a pretty ordinary town, despite the grand palazzos from previous eras, now banks and pharmacies, covered in geometric frescos, with towers and imposing facades. Despite too the massive mural of Romeo and Juliet’s last kiss, by Andrea Ravo Mattoni, based on a painting by Francesco Hayez – which stands opposite the supermarket of all places.

But as we follow the cycle track signs from the church we come across a hidden network of streets, Via Gerli Arioli and Via Nino Bixio.

Each house sporting a different scene etched into the walls, from peasant women working in the fields, to mountains and forests, even some old wooden shutters are painted with a vibrant scene of a woman in a meadow.

It’s what makes tearing off after any old walking sign so exciting, there’s so many glorious, little-known treasures to discover in Italy.

Of course with my very meagre Italian vocabulary, I spend ages before the poem etched on one wall by Enrico Brunella, before calling in Pina for a translation and I like the sentiment expressed: “It is not the power of regret nor the hypocrisy of roads we have followed, it is that the earth’s deep breath still resists in the scent of a vegetable garden.”

We leave the misty peace of Lago di Varese to the waterfowl and motor off for twenty minutes to Monvalle on Lake Maggiore’s eastern shore. Camping Lido di Monvalle offers up spectacular views of the lake and mountains.

We spend mornings walking along the lake shore, in the foothills of the Alps, following and losing walking signs, through lakeside hamlets, terracotta and lemon sherbet coloured villas with verdant gardens of hibiscus and mallow.

Barns house balconies with straw baskets containing massive green bottles for winemaking.

The corn is higher than an elephant’s eye; forests of chestnut, walnut, oak and hazel shade us from the sun.

The afternoons are spent dreaming by the impossibly magical lake, or eating ice-cream at lakeside cafés, under the lace-work shade of fir, maple and willow, not forgetting the towering plane trees.