Following on from Monte Cassino comes the little mountain town of San Pietro Infini, a collateral action but which preceded the destruction of Cassino, due to German forces taking over a small mountainside town as part of the defensive line designed to halt the Allied advance through Italy. The American Texan division stormed the town with many civilian casualties and the destruction of the town. After the war, the Italians decided somewhat pragmatically, to rebuild the town further down the hill and leave the ruins as a reminder of the cost of war and its these ruins you can visit for free, walking through the homes and streets as they were when the town was liberated. The main church is being restored sympathetically, but in a way so you can still see how much it was damaged.
Finally we got to the Amalfi region, somewhere we had always wanted to see, after all, all the guides and Insta influencers say you must do it.
Well….. if you do and you drive LHD, then go from west to east, or your co-driver mainly sees cliffs and lemons.
Don’t stay in Salerno (utter dump). Controversially, don’t do the drive in a van – it’s not fun. The road is incredibly narrow, lots of hairpin bends, pinchpoints abound, Audi drivers are still twats and there’s nowhere to stop unless you’re driving a Fiat 500, an Ape (want) or a scooter! Seriously though, it’s ok but not worth the hype and certainly not on a grey day. I’d recommend leaving the van parked on a campsite and hire a nippy little car or scooters, or better yet do the boat trip!
Neither of these were an option with our dog as he’s a knob and doesn’t like people, boats, towns, cars, other dogs or being left in the van, so we decided to leave and maybe try again sometime in the future.
Since then we’ve drifted back up the spine of Italy and frankly are enjoying the roads less travelled, wild camping and seeing little towns with hidden surprises like Massa d’Albe and it’s Roman town, amphitheatre, medieval castle ruins and church, all there in a field for free and with no fuss.
We then left the area east of Rome, travelling along the spine of Italy, tracking up through Umbria, into Tuscany and Lazio. I have to say this is the most glorious scenery we’ve seen, just breathtaking in its beauty. Every town, every mountain is stunning it lives up to all the hype.
Along the way we dipped into Cascate del Mulino – often misrepresented as Terme di Saturnia, staying in a cheap camper stop 500m from the free hot springs!
And this is the thing to note: Mulino is in fact the place you see on Instagram and Google, often claimed to be Terme Saturnia.
Mulino is free to bathe in the hot springs, totally free (except parking) and has showers, toilets and a cafe. Whereas Terme di Saturnia is a hotel and spa complex, which always seems to use images of Mulino, but is something else and very expensive – like Iceland’s Blue Lagoon.
Go to Cascate del Mulino, the water is 37.5°C and comes down with some force, but top tip – take swim shoes as the pools crash over sharp little rocks and have pebble floors which are uncomfortable on bare feet.
To avoid crowds I’d recommend going in the early morning when the sun is on it: it’s hellishly busy most of the day and then at night it’s quieter but in shade. It is 24/7 though, so you could have a midnight dip! You’ll needs 1€ coins in the showers, but the toilets are free. There’s even a pizza vending machine – but we didn’t try it.
Now picture the iconic scene in Gladiator when General Marcus Aurelius is reunited with his murdered family and as he dies and he walks through the grasses of Elysian Fields. It’s actually a place, near Pienza….. you’ll know it for sure…. you can walk it. It’s really, really stunning. The route we drove took us along well made but unpaved gravel roads and these are proper published roads to Pienza, where you will pass our new house (I wish!) to park by the church and walk the kilometre or so back down to the filming point – it’s marked on Google maps. Take a camera. 😍
We are deeply in love with Tuscany – you must visit to fall in love with it too. But a word of caution, the roads are terrible in Italy, more pothole than not and often not built for the modern world, so narrow, twisty and uneven. The mapping on TomTom isn’t reliable and we were taken to alleyways, no entry signs and roads just 1.8m wide, including one through a building! So take care and don’t follow your GPS blindly.
Anyway, our winter trip was coming to a close so we reluctantly started homewards, entering France via the Mt Blanc tunnel, leaving 20° morning sunshine, to emerge in a blizzard which became rain as we descended. We had more rain in 4 hours, than in the preceding 11 weeks! The route up on the Italian side is beautiful and the traffic flowed all the way, except for lorries which were separated and held for about an hour. On the French side the traffic was mixed up and queuing for many hours, with police deployed along the queue, so be warned. Also the Mt Blanc toll price is “steep” (🤣) at just over €50, but it saves a long, steep mountain route via St Bernard’s pass or a very long, low ground detour, via Genoa and Nice.
We adored our time in Italy and will certainly come again. There’s so much to see, so add it to your plans and be sure to give yourself plenty of time.
The Little Red Bus 