Day 0-3: From Germany to Venice

 

Finally, after 13 days of travelling, I found some time to care about my blog. I need to catch up a lot. And one more thing: I decided to write the blog in English because I meet so many people and this is the easiest way to keep them updated. 

I started my journey on 7^th of November in the late morning. After a long good-bye and some tears, I was fully motivated to finally leave my daily live. But reality wouldn’t let me. I drove around 1 hour as I got caught up in a traffic jam at “Walldorfer Kreuz”. One hour of waiting later, I could go on. But there was another traffic jam of 11km on the A8 including a complete closure of the motorway. 

When the sun went down, I had reached “Wiesensteig” which is only 200km away from home. What a great journey! I left the highway and searched for a place to stay for the night. Right behind Wiesensteig, I found a big field where I could park.
The next morning, I woke up to a great sunrise. The night was really cold. I needed my blanket additional to my sleeping bag. Fortunately, my water containers were in the car. In the roof box, they’d probably been frozen and busted. 

I wanted to leave those cold conditions as soon as possible and decided to drive south. Via “Memmingen”, “Imst” and Merano, I wanted to drive to Bolzano. Passing Austria was quite quick and snowy, but with perfect sunshine.

"Reschenpass" in Tyrol

Anyway, I arrived in Bolzano late and ate the worst pizza ever. In exchange, the second night in my car felt already a little familiar.

The next day, I drove to Mestre. South Tyrol showed its best side.

At Mestre, I found a nice campsite near the dam to Venice and with only 3-4 motorhomes. Venice was empty compared to terribly crowded summer times, but still I only heard Italian a few times. 

I’ve been to Venice already, but this time, I found some new impressions like this quite funny and creative criticism to the huge tourist rush in the summer and the ocean steamers driving through the “Canale di Giudecca”:

At Dorsoduro, nearby the famous boat builder site “Squero di San Trovaso”, some artist, musicians and free spirits established their own record label “Caigo Recordz” and build a record studio in one of the older houses. I was lucky, because exactly when I arrived, they had an open day. In the backyard, there was a huge lawn which I had never expected in the city of the canals and narrow alleys. Supporters, students, alternatives and all kind of people hang out to some live music and some beers. This little backyard garden felt like a portal to Berlin’s wild east for me. A great experience.

I came home late and enjoyed free wifi. My Land Cruiser really felt like “home” already and I decided to even improve its comfort the next day. With a tarpaulin and two poles which I had carried in my roof box, I build my own terrace with marquee.

Two friendly artists of Circus Roncalli (on holiday in Venice) complimented me on my rolling home.

Pretty late, at 12 o’clock, I left the campsite and headed for Slovenia.