{"id":10793,"date":"2020-01-22T10:16:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T18:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/?p=10793"},"modified":"2020-01-22T10:19:02","modified_gmt":"2020-01-22T18:19:02","slug":"driving-thru-northern-italy-to-southern-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/22\/driving-thru-northern-italy-to-southern-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving thru northern Italy to southern France."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a bunch of long and continuous driving days in a row since we&#8217;ve left our spot in Venice, Italy. The surprising thing about camping in Italy so far is they have a bunch of free designated camper spots that include a free water fill and dump. And sometimes free electric too. This spot wasn&#8217;t the most scenic but kept us toasty with the ability to run our small electric heater for the night.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400995672\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400995672_8581b48d26_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Northern Italy is pretty dense with people so the next night, we found ourselves parked at a designer outlet mall with free electricity once again.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400994032\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400994032_940d630bb0_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We ended up at a coffee shop at the mall to do some work and paid the shop back by buying some drinks. We couldn&#8217;t handle another coffee this late in the day so we order tea. Espresso was 2 euros but tea ended up being almost 5 euros each. 5 EUROS FOR HOT WATER AND A BAG! Crazy. But at least we&#8217;ll be able to sleep tonight.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400794581\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400794581_51618b1bba_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The urban sprawl was getting to us so we made our way to a small coastal town of San Remo. Parking at the edge of the cliff overlooking the beach was free. All the other campers were Italian registered which havent seen yet. We were quite the scene when everyone noticed our California plates.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400580846\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400580846_d97c2733f5_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Our front yard for the night. Perfect for skipping rocks.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400580831\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400580831_8420316254_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Perfect spot to keep an eye on the kids from the van.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400580341\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400580341_0a4d11c842_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Coffee time for Dan and me.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400785357\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400785357_eb0ff78a80_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hello, France! Our first time driving here with the van.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400552226\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400552226_d05ee47c0a_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And hello, Monaco! The second smallest country in the world.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400581466\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400581466_942d3889fa_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We ended up just driving through since it was crowded and teeny and didn&#8217;t find a spot to park. But we did enjoy the orange tree lined streets.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400581406\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400581406_7ae5299620_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Back in France, we ended up at a winery that is part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.france-passion.com\/en\/\">France Passion<\/a>, kind of like\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/harvesthosts.com\/\">Harvest Hosts<\/a> we have in the US.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400580811\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400580811_e7068edbaf_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The reason we ended up here was because our friends of <a href=\"https:\/\/worldtowning.com\/\">WorldTowning<\/a> were in the area. We ended up camping next to each other for a late night of chit chatting and catching up before they continue onto their next adventure on a new continent. Safe travels, friends!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49401012317\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49401012317_16b285ff8b_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The host at the winery alerted us that sometimes she sees Trader Joes labeled products at the Aldi grocery store chain so the next morning we headed straight there. We ended up not finding any US products but some Trader Joes labeled things for the European market, like nuts and dried fruits. Insert sad trombone here.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400812111\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400812111_95dfe69254_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But we did load up on cheap French cheese so yeah!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400811866\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400811866_741396e771_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>These cookies went straight into my belly.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49401012407\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49401012407_572dbb5382_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Looks like we are driving straight into a storm cloud.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49401012312\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49401012312_5512bc8ba4_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Our next spot in France made me scream out loud. Do you see what I see?!?!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400333088\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400333088_174fdfdaa0_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>WILD FLAMINGOS!!!!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400316348\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400316348_6c964b3c9e_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Free parking in a public lot by the sea.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400106868\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400106868_730519a120_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The sun put on quite the show as it bid us farewell.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"49400316848\" alt=\"Driving the northern Italy to southern France.\" src=\"https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/49400316848_9bc226c698_c.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A little video from our time in San Remo, Italy. Enjoy!<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3Owzdymvomw\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Thanks for following along,<br \/>\nMarlene<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a bunch of long and continuous driving days in a row since we&#8217;ve left our spot in Venice, Italy. The surprising thing about camping in Italy so far is they have a bunch of free designated camper spots that include a free water fill and dump. And sometimes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[215],"tags":[140,259,260],"class_list":["post-10793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-france","tag-italy","tag-monaco"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/49400580341_0a4d11c842_c.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkBzA-2O5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malimish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}