Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 11:45:11 -0400
Reply-To: Malcolm Stebbins <mstebbins@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Malcolm Stebbins <mstebbins@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Pilgrim's Progress #3
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
I do believe that we last talked to you all from Athens. We had a few days
on Crete (lovely) and back in Athens we received new credit cards (via
FedEx). The Peloponnese part of Greece was very interesting and beautiful.
We drove around a lot of the coast line and many interior archeological
sites (Olympia, Sparta, Corinth, Mycenae, Epidaurus).
We then traveled north to get a ferry to Italy (an overnight ferry where
folks are allowed to sleep in their campers on board the ferry). Once in
Italy our travel style changed a lot as we hit our first Autobahn and headed
straight for Naples (which is written up in the Lonely Planet (LP) as the
thievery capital of Italy). We stayed just outside of Naples at a
campground within spitting distance of Pompeii. We had a nice full day at
Pompeii, but as the summer hits here and we get closer to the major tour
sites in Europe, the crowds get bigger. An effort to get to the Museum in
Naples failed as there was some labour dispute there, but we were able to
spend some more time in Erculano (another town buried by the big Vesuvius
volcano eruption).
Now we are in Rome. Rome is definitely worth a few days of your (our) life.
Central Rome is a low rise city (like Paris) and cars are banned in many
parts of the city which makes the inner city much more livable for humans.
There are GREAT piazzas around every corner and in one afternoon we saw 3
obelisks that had been taken (gifted or looted) from Egypt! The temps are a
bit better at 26 Degrees C, but we are still not used to the humidity. The
down side of Rome is that we waited for 1.5 hours to get into the Coliseum,
and queue everywhere. Oh yes, we just paid CDN$10 for 2 coffees.
Oh yes, for the Vanagon.com folks, in Greece we had another Drip, Drip, Drip
that a 2nd clamp was able to cure. Later we began to hear what sounded
like a blown muffler, it rapidly got louder and LOUDER. When I stopped to
check it, it turned out that one of the bolts holding the exhaust manifold
to the engine block was missing!!! I had another spare 13mm bolt so that
was easily fixed, but it turned out that ALL of the bolts on ALL of the
exhaust manifolds were loose!!!! I will have a talk with my mechanic when I
get home (Jeff are you reading this??). Then later I had another drip,
drip, drip that tightening the bolts (where a pipe is bolted to the rear of
the engine block) did NOT stop. So we stopped at a real grease (Greece) pit
of a place (half disassembled cars and trucks all over the place & the
ground black with oil) by the side of a country road to see what they could
do for me. The mechanic was quite good and again withOUT one word of common
language between us, I showed him the problem & the Bentley manual and he
set to work disassembling the pipe. Then he cut a new (flat) gasket from
gasket material and put it all back together again, all for about CDN$12.
So that was that for van troubles in Greece. No trouble yet in Italy.
We are now camping in campgrounds where camping is the European
cheek-by-jowl style and being quiet is still a foreign concept it seems -
thanks to ear plugs we do get some good sleep. I long for the FREE and
isolated camping spots that we had for the 1st few weeks of this trip.
So folks, I'll try and check in from maybe Berlin. We have about 3 more
weeks to go. Being a tourist is really exhausting WORK. Staying excited
about what we're seeing is difficult as we have good days and bad days. We
try to remind ourselves that this is a 'trip of a lifetime' and that we'll
have time enough to rest when we get back to our 'desk jobs' (we are both
University Profs).
Your vanagon correspondents on the scene from Rome. Malcolm and Pat
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