I have been travelling for almost 20 years, mostly in Europe, but elsewhere too, I have a love for the mountains because people tend to be more open and hospitable, and much simpler, so I have traveled through quite a few ranges over the years. Driving through the Apennines was a real voyage of wonder […]
I have been travelling for almost 20 years, mostly in Europe, but elsewhere too, I have a love for the mountains because people tend to be more open and hospitable, and much simpler, so I have traveled through quite a few ranges over the years.
Driving through the Apennines was a real voyage of wonder for me, here was a long range of mountains going through my favourite country in Europe and they are….. amazing, and I never new about it, thinking them to be a little range of hills.
We drove into the mountains just after Assisi, famous for St. Francis,
Instead of going up to chiusi della verna (where he got his stigmata wounds), like we did last time we came here.
We chose to continue down the road a little and enter into the mountain there.
Reaching the mountain top I was amazed by some of the scenes, like the grand plane (piano grande) in the south of the monte sibilini national park. The scenery looked as if it could be in Mongolia, with horses roaming free and open grassy planes with Shepards walking their flocks, although the distinctive hill top village was looking like something out of the Middle Ages and very European.
We left Umbria at Forca di presta, another amazing mountain overlooking the hills, covered with hardwoods.
We entered Abruzzo by Lago di campotosto, back in the UK this would be a tourist hot spot, here it is quiet and on it’s own, the snowy cap of the gran Sasso mountains can be seen and one starts to appreciate the diversity of Abruzzo, with it’s high mountains and national parks it is becoming one of my favourites, very slow and very spectacular.
All in all the mountains here are such a wealth, it’s Northern Europe nestled inside the meditarenian, so one can walk through beech forests one minute and be next to cane and fennel the other, from broad oaks to fig trees, it’s got it all, with wild goats, and deer, and even a few bears, and of course plenty of wild boar.
This has taken me a few days to get to and the recent snowstorm feels like a distant memory as Spring now begins to lift her pretty head. But somehow out of Jack Frost’s latest dream emerged a new vehicle…Thor. The story goes like this.. It is maybe our connection to Jack Frost or Angel’s […]
Thor comes again
This has taken me a few days to get to and the recent snowstorm feels like a distant memory as Spring now begins to lift her pretty head. But somehow out of Jack Frost’s latest dream emerged a new vehicle…Thor. The story goes like this..
It is maybe our connection to Jack Frost or Angel’s not wanting to leave, but somehow this little Welsh valley got the most snow in the country. Snow snow snow. The first night the front door blew open and there was a pile of snow on the doorstep, and it was all quite pretty and white.
The next day we awoke and it was DEEP, and as there snow time like the present, The Heart suggested we go forth with the Land Rover to have breakfast in town. We got to the top of the hill out but got stuck in thigh-high drifts which had blown from the fields either side of the track, so had to dig our way back. It was very exciting being snowed in, like a siege until we got down to the last carrot and then Ivian, the farmer, managed to get his 4×4 tractor in to tow the Land Rover out. We thus avoided the challenges of scurvy.
Jedi icicle from the side of the house
Snow problem
We then went on a wintry mission across the country to meet the new truck, a Mercedes 814D 4×4. There seems to be a bit of a snow theme and a yellow theme with our vehicles, as the 1820 was a road gritter in a previous life, and was yellow but is now in the process of being resprayed, although it is taking a long time whilst waiting for a dry day in Wales.
1820 in mid-respray
And when I first went to get the (yellow) Land Rover there was a spectacular hail storm, then the sun came out when she drove towards me.
Hail! Defender
So we knew that we were onto a winner when we got to the guy’s house through the snow, and he turns out to be a polar bear fanatic with pictures of polar bears, stuffed polar bears and polar bear cushions etc (and the truck is yellow).
Polar bear collection
814 4xThor
We then re-drove across the country and made it to Hereford, where the cap of the Land Rover’s fuel filter fell off stranding us at a Cash and Carry car park with an unhappy boss, on a closing Saturday afternoon. No new fuel filters were to be had, then The Heart came up with the idea of putting a bolt in the old filter. Great…but I had only bought 10 litres of diesel, not enough to go through the system, so back to town for more diesel, then back to the car park…where the Land Rover battery is flat, so we jump started….and we made it out with 15 minutes to go on the closing gate….
So…we got back to the farm with the dark already descended, but a full moon behind the clouds. The farmer drove us up the steep hill in his Isuzu, and despite there being little snow left elsewhere, somehow our track was still knee deep in wet snow. He has good tyres, and a sense of adventure, and after getting stuck a few times, drove some tracks through the mush,….then the Land Rover and the new Mercedes made it up the hill in one go.
The minute we got home, there was a big flash of lightning, a roar of thunder (the first since we got to this little valley), and a torrential storm started which washed all the snow away….and brought the thaw with the promise of spring.
Thor is the God of thunder and lightning (and 4×4 trucks).
Thor
I have been travelling for almost 20 years, mostly in Europe, but elsewhere too, I have a love for the mountains because people tend to be more open and hospitable, and much simpler, so I have traveled through quite a few ranges over the years. Driving through the Apennines was a real voyage of wonder […]
I have been travelling for almost 20 years, mostly in Europe, but elsewhere too, I have a love for the mountains because people tend to be more open and hospitable, and much simpler, so I have traveled through quite a few ranges over the years.
Driving through the Apennines was a real voyage of wonder for me, here was a long range of mountains going through my favourite country in Europe and they are….. amazing, and I never new about it, thinking them to be a little range of hills.
We drove into the mountains just after Assisi, famous for St. Francis,
Instead of going up to chiusi della verna (where he got his stigmata wounds), like we did last time we came here.
We chose to continue down the road a little and enter into the mountain there.
Reaching the mountain top I was amazed by some of the scenes, like the grand plane (piano grande) in the south of the monte sibilini national park. The scenery looked as if it could be in Mongolia, with horses roaming free and open grassy planes with Shepards walking their flocks, although the distinctive hill top village was looking like something out of the Middle Ages and very European.
We left Umbria at Forca di presta, another amazing mountain overlooking the hills, covered with hardwoods.
We entered Abruzzo by Lago di campotosto, back in the UK this would be a tourist hot spot, here it is quiet and on it’s own, the snowy cap of the gran Sasso mountains can be seen and one starts to appreciate the diversity of Abruzzo, with it’s high mountains and national parks it is becoming one of my favourites, very slow and very spectacular.
All in all the mountains here are such a wealth, it’s Northern Europe nestled inside the meditarenian, so one can walk through beech forests one minute and be next to cane and fennel the other, from broad oaks to fig trees, it’s got it all, with wild goats, and deer, and even a few bears, and of course plenty of wild boar.
This has taken me a few days to get to and the recent snowstorm feels like a distant memory as Spring now begins to lift her pretty head. But somehow out of Jack Frost’s latest dream emerged a new vehicle…Thor. The story goes like this.. It is maybe our connection to Jack Frost or Angel’s […]
Thor comes again
This has taken me a few days to get to and the recent snowstorm feels like a distant memory as Spring now begins to lift her pretty head. But somehow out of Jack Frost’s latest dream emerged a new vehicle…Thor. The story goes like this..
It is maybe our connection to Jack Frost or Angel’s not wanting to leave, but somehow this little Welsh valley got the most snow in the country. Snow snow snow. The first night the front door blew open and there was a pile of snow on the doorstep, and it was all quite pretty and white.
The next day we awoke and it was DEEP, and as there snow time like the present, The Heart suggested we go forth with the Land Rover to have breakfast in town. We got to the top of the hill out but got stuck in thigh-high drifts which had blown from the fields either side of the track, so had to dig our way back. It was very exciting being snowed in, like a siege until we got down to the last carrot and then Ivian, the farmer, managed to get his 4×4 tractor in to tow the Land Rover out. We thus avoided the challenges of scurvy.
Jedi icicle from the side of the house
Snow problem
We then went on a wintry mission across the country to meet the new truck, a Mercedes 814D 4×4. There seems to be a bit of a snow theme and a yellow theme with our vehicles, as the 1820 was a road gritter in a previous life, and was yellow but is now in the process of being resprayed, although it is taking a long time whilst waiting for a dry day in Wales.
1820 in mid-respray
And when I first went to get the (yellow) Land Rover there was a spectacular hail storm, then the sun came out when she drove towards me.
Hail! Defender
So we knew that we were onto a winner when we got to the guy’s house through the snow, and he turns out to be a polar bear fanatic with pictures of polar bears, stuffed polar bears and polar bear cushions etc (and the truck is yellow).
Polar bear collection
814 4xThor
We then re-drove across the country and made it to Hereford, where the cap of the Land Rover’s fuel filter fell off stranding us at a Cash and Carry car park with an unhappy boss, on a closing Saturday afternoon. No new fuel filters were to be had, then The Heart came up with the idea of putting a bolt in the old filter. Great…but I had only bought 10 litres of diesel, not enough to go through the system, so back to town for more diesel, then back to the car park…where the Land Rover battery is flat, so we jump started….and we made it out with 15 minutes to go on the closing gate….
So…we got back to the farm with the dark already descended, but a full moon behind the clouds. The farmer drove us up the steep hill in his Isuzu, and despite there being little snow left elsewhere, somehow our track was still knee deep in wet snow. He has good tyres, and a sense of adventure, and after getting stuck a few times, drove some tracks through the mush,….then the Land Rover and the new Mercedes made it up the hill in one go.
The minute we got home, there was a big flash of lightning, a roar of thunder (the first since we got to this little valley), and a torrential storm started which washed all the snow away….and brought the thaw with the promise of spring.
Thor is the God of thunder and lightning (and 4×4 trucks).
Thor