We parted ways late morning, having repacked our stuff and left the back box and my helmet in the care of the hotel for the next week.

French trains are renowned for their punctuality and, unlike German trains, are cheap. I paid 40 euros first class for a one way ticket to Arles- a three hour journey. After a bit of a panic approaching Valence for the change, due to there being two stations called Valence ,10 minutes apart, I arrived in Arles. By now it was baking hot with a deep blue sky, unlike the gloomy, damp weather I had left behind in Grenoble. I wondered how Dave was and if he was staying dry.

Only 5 minutes walk from the station, you hit the old town of Arles in the area around the Roman arena where my hotel was located. It is everything I imagined. Old buildings made of local stone with blue, faded shutters and a backdrop of Roman ruins. It was very touristy around the arena in the middle of the afternoon and there was a preponderance of shops selling provencal aprons and lavender bags. I got some funny looks from the scantily clad tourists as I was clearly over-dressed for the weather in my bike boots and leather jacket.

The Hotel Calendal is right opposite the Roman theatre in a wonderfully central location. The hotel has a lovely garden at the rear and many of the rooms are set around this, including mine. The room itself was tiny and smelled of damp, as is often the case in old, stone places but had everything I needed. It wash`t  until I went to bed, that I realised that the frosted glass door to outside did not have a curtain, causing light to come in from the patio.

I changed into something cooler and spent an hour wandering the streets, getting a feel for the town. I also located my apartment where I would be moving the next day. Arles is exquisite and it is very easy to lose the tourists and find yourself wandering silent, ancient streets alone. I found myself in the Place de la Republique which was filled with beautiful, flamenco guitar music, courtesy of a busker with an amplifier. The square was full of people of all ages and types, sitting around the fountain or on stone steps, taking in the atmosphere of the place. It was far too romantic to be doing this alone.

The hotel has a free spa. I was told to ask the receptionist to let me in. I imagined a place full of other women and maybe a couple of men, sitting around in towelling robes, but was surprised to find I had the whole place to myself. There is a window from the jacuzzi overlooking the Roman arena and the spa itself is styled like a Roman bath, so the whole experience was pretty evocative of Roman times. After a 20 minute steam and power shower, I was the cleanest I had been since I left Berlin. I lathered on all of the free LÓccitane products and made a mental note to visit the LÓccitane shop tomorrow.

That evening, I ate at the Place du Forum in a restaurant opposite the Van Gogh Cafe, claimed by some to be the cafe that inspired the Van Gogh starry night painting and claimed by others to have been built in the 1980s. I had one of those magnificent, composed salads that only the French know how to make well and a glass of Cote de Provence rose wine. The square was heaving with holiday-makers and there was a very cheerful atmosphere. I finished the evening at a cafe overlooking the arena, now devoid of tourists and drank my way through a large pot of rooibos tea while watching others eating huge ice-cream sundaes and crepes with chantilly cream. The perfect end to the day was a visit from a couple of gitano buskers who gave us their rendition of some of the Gypsy Kings best songs (the Gypsy Kings are from Arles). The Camargue area of France has a large population of gypsies who were displaced by Franco after the Spanish Civil War. Of course, being of Roma blood, this type of thing really moves me, even if others might think it a bit cheesy. I wondered back to the hotel very happy.

Due to the poor weather forecast, we decided to take a more sensible, lower altitude route through the mountains on our way, eventually, to France, where we need to be in 3 day´s time. Our goal for the day was Lecco on Lake Como. We left in heavy cloud but we were lucky and it did not actually rain on us today. The Dolomites west of Trento are not anywhere near as beautiful as those in the east and the roads were much heavier with traffic so the riding was not as much fun for a large part of the day. The standard of driving was also pretty dodgy and we did not feel that safe at times.

We passed through quite a lot of ski resorts which, although having a backdrop of snowy mountains, were pretty ugly. One even had blocks of flats built on the outskirts, like a council estate in the UK.

We rode for about 5 hours with only a couple of quick stops and were pretty tired when we arrived in Lecco. We generally dislike lowland campsites in touristy areas. They are usually too hot and crowded and this one was no exception. We were directed to a space underneath the huge road bridge that crosses the lake and right up against the low boundary fence. Hardly paradise.This did not feel secure and we had local people walking and jogging past all evening, some who, to our tired selves, looked quite dodgy. At the front of the site,there were lovely pitches looking right across the lake and kiddies were swimming in the clear water. Lake Como seems quieter than Lake Garda but does not have the glamour and that real Italian feel that you get in Garda.

We felt pretty exhausted for some reason and a bit down in the mouth so we visited the bar before cooking dinner. A few bottles of Peroni and some Pringles soon sorted us out. After a chickpea curry and some more beer, we were pretty cheerful. No chance of an early night though. Unlike in most countries, the Italian kids stay up until about midnight and there was a lot of noise generally. We locked up everything to be sure it did not go missing, courtesy of people hopping over the fence and helping themselves.

The next morning the campsite seemed a lot quieter and more benign and the people more friendly. Helen has a theory that the Italians get more animated during the day as their caffeine levels peak. The mornings are just more relaxed.

We discovered this campsite in 2013. It is high up in The Dolomites at 1350 metres and is everything we want from a campsite. It has stunning mountain views, clean air, green grass, lots of space, peace and quiet, a restaurant and it is only a few minutes ride into the town of Predazzo, where there are good facilities. There is something incredibly Italian about this site. It is not used by many foreigners or passersby. Most guests have permanent tents fixed up. They wonder across the site in the morning, in their dressing gowns, toilet rolls under arms and seem very at home. They are friendly enough, without the enforced politeness and unwritten rule-following that you get in German sites. We prefer the Italian way.

In 2013, we were grateful for the high altitude as, down in the valley, it was 37 degrees. Even then, we had to go to bed at 8pm as it is too cold to sit out when there is no cloud cover and temperatures drop to about 7 degrees. This year, were were not so lucky as the weather is not that good across most of Europe and, after the first day on the site, we experienced prolonged and heavy rain, which went on for about 36 hours. This did not deter us, as experienced campers. We dug deep, still cooking during gaps in the rain and holing up inside the tent for hours and hours, reading while it hammered down outside. At the end of the last day there, we ventured to the restaurant for some respite, to be treated to delicious, simple, wood fired pizza, cooked by a friendly, old guy and some great local wine (Helen´s favourite wine is northern Italian white). The smell of the wood smoke and the thick cloud hanging low over the mountains lent a real atmosphere to the place.

Despite the romance of it all, there is no doubt we were damp and needed a change. Our plans to stay north in the mountains and cross into Switzerland seemed unwise, given the weather, so an alternative plan had to be hatched.