Campervan Therapy

I don’t expect our journey to Elba to be anything special, apart from the visit to my old school pal, Pina, in the Aosta Valley, which is always wonderful, as we’re setting off on 1^st October’s low season. But our very first stop at Camping Châlons-en-Champagne is a musical surprise. We spend a little time stumbling along between the canal and the River Marne on our way to the centre of town, before we realise that dusk is settling in. Trudging back to the site, we accept that it’ll be a tame evening in the van. But the café has sprung to fairy-lit light. Two folk singers in stripey French t-shirts and sheepskin waistcoats are singing Irish ballads, accompanied by acoustic guitar, squeeze box, tin whistle, flute. These musical minstrels weave their magic accompanied by lemon-crisp champagne.

Our next stop, Pontarlier, in the Jura, just before the Swiss border doesn’t promise much as French campsites outside season can be very sleepy.

Again, we’re surprised as we wander down to the attractive, granite and limestone buildings, stained glass windowed museum and the bar with its glass and wrought iron canopy.

Its interior is so art-deco that I expect an artist with a canvas under their arm to arrive to trade it for absinthe.

Talking of absinthe, Pontarlier used to make the drink and they’re just about to celebrate the green fairy this month. We read of how the workers saved the absinthe when the factory caught fire by throwing the barrels into the river.

Our journey through Switzerland becomes dramatic as we reach Lake Geneva, the west side of it swallowed up by bruised clouds, the east side sun-silvered. Majestic crags loom so you can really see how Mary Shelley invented Frankenstein’s monster when confined to the Villa Diodati in 1816, a year of a cold, dark summer caused by an eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.

The snow-topped Alps crowd in as we wind up to the Gran St. Bernardo tunnel. Pulling up in the camper-stop in Aosta, we’re metres away from the historic centre, and  Augustus Caesar’s arch and statue.

We wander through the cobbled streets with Pina, the town full of life, to listen to her son, Matteo, play Irish jigs with his band, outside a bar and yet again we’re treated to an international , musical evening.

Matteo drums on a Chilean instrument, the violinist and guitarist belt out the tunes too .

Also, something I’ve never heard before, and a great treat, was a saxophonist playing Irish airs.

The next day Pina takes us on the Francigena walking trail, from Aosta to Etroubles, which traces the route of the canals, dug from the bare rock in the 1400s.

The valley floor is way below and between the tree cover we’re treated to snow-clad mountains on our way to the Madonna and the Adolescent Jesus’s grotto.

We blast down the Ligurian and Tuscan coasts to the port of Piombino where we stroll through the outskirts and stumble across the Citadel’s ancient walls and the old town. On the pier I can’t get Seán put his App away, he’s that excited working out which of the rocky islets is Capraia, which Pianosa while Elba waits for us on the horizon.