23/08/18 – 26/08/18 – Lake Maggiore, Piedmont and Lombardy Regions
After 2 months of not staying at a campsite, it felt odd checking into one. Having said this, Camping Village Conca d’Oro in Lake Maggiore was properly organised and the staff were super friendly on arrival. (GPS 45.9361943,8.4867615) There was a major difference to staying at one this time though, as we were meeting our friends who also had their Moho.
We’d booked 3 nights at the campsite situated on the edge of Lake Maggiore where Adele and Charlotte had already been for several days with their beautiful children Toby, Ella and Woody the dog. Adele, Chief Organiser, had already prepped us a few days prior via a little video about how our vans would come together to create our “nest”. We were all very excited, and after several hugs and kisses on arrival, Dan manoeuvred our van into position, opposite their van, side by side with our awnings sort of coming together in the middle to form the nest. We were so lucky to get this space, as the place was absolutely packed. Our poor neighbours didn’t know what had hit them!
We spent the first night catching up, drinking, eating and laughing. In fact, over the course of the next few days, we did a lot more of that.
The campsite was right on the edge of the huge Lake Maggiore with the closest town being Stresa. We were all a bit gutted that the campsite did not allow dogs on the beach and that they had to be on leads at all times. We’d not expected that given it was a dog friendly campsite and it’s a river beach, not a swimming pool. Anyway, we decided to ignore that and took Marley and his good old pal Woody down there. We headed much further around to the left where we were out out of sight. No one seemed to mind when we let them off to run around. It turned out to be a much nicer area, and a good place for us all to hang out.
We took a taxi ride to the cable car not far from the main town Stresa. It was a very expensive €50 return considering it was just 15 minutes to get there, but that was for 4 adults, 2 children and 2 dogs. It was nice to have a bit of luxury for a change though. I’d managed to convince poor Dan who has a fear of heights to come on the cable car ride, well I kind of blackmailed him really (god i’m horrible sometimes). He had to pay the €19 for the pleasure too, but it wouldn’t have been the same without him! It was Marley’s first experience of wearing a muzzle, something that we’ve actively avoided so far on our trip, as it feels such an inhumane thing to do (€2 entry per dog). Anyway, he coped remarkably well with it, as did Woody and it was actually quite nice as it stopped him barking. We joked after about getting him one, but Marley knows we wouldn’t do that to him.
The cable car was good fun, and on clear day (which it really wasn’t) I imagine the view would be fantastic. Everyone in the cable car sang in chorus “‘ooooh” when it went over each support tower as it rapidly dropped and it made your stomach turn.
When we reached the top, or what we thought was the top, we then had to hop on a chairlift, which was included in the price. By this time, I noticed Dan was a bit quiet, despite him saying he was actually enjoying it. Dan, Marley and I went on one, followed behind by Adele and Woody, and then Charlotte, Ella and Toby. Could this get anymore fun! You can can click the video below to see us on it.
Once we reached the top, we stopped to admire the view of the vast Lake Maggiore, again wishing that it was a sunny day, but you can’t have everything. Instead we focused on getting to the toboggan, which Dan was very clear about opting out of. This meant that he was child and dog minder for Ella, Woody and Marley. Out of all three, Marley made most fuss, barking loudly until I was reunited with him after the ride. Adele and I went on one, and Charlotte and Toby on the other. I love anything that goes fast or high, and so does Adele so when she said she was planning on avoiding using the brakes, I grinned widely in excitement. We’d read that without the brakes you can reach up to 40MPH and it certainly felt like that when going around the bends, as we almost derailed a few times. We made so much noise and couldn’t stop giggling. Had it been a clearer day, i’m sure it would’ve been even scarier and exciting, but for €5 it was brilliant fun. Charlotte and Toby followed shortly behind us and were grinning like Cheshire cats too.
Just before heading back down on the cable car we stopped to have coffee and cake and comfort Toby who was devastated after losing one of his favourite flip flops on the chairlift down. He did ask Mama to retrieve it for him but for some reason she wasn’t forthcoming.
Being just 15 minutes away from Stresa we decided to take a stroll there. Sounds quite pleasant but actually the weather changed for the worst again, and the journey took much longer as we stopped every now and then to seek shelter from the rain. Once there, the priority was for Toby to get a new pair of flip flops, as he’d been hobbling along in just one. His face when he came out the shop wearing his new ones, was a picture of happiness – so cute!
The town centre was quite pretty, mainly consisting of souvenir shops and restaurants. We took a walk around, purchasing an umbrella and after about an 1.5 hours we’d had enough of the rain and headed back home.
During our stay, it was the gorgeous Ella’s 2nd birthday. Two of the campsite staff, out of nowhere turned up to play her happy birthday on their stereo, and present her with a “happy birthday’ T-shirt and her parents with a bottle of wine. What a lovely touch, as Ella and her parents were so made up!
The weather had turned from scorching hot, to grey and rainy, and this coincided in time for us to head off to our next destination, but it wasn’t yet time to say goodbye to our fabulous friends as we’d planned to meet up again along the way again.
What did we think of Lake Maggiore….well we had high expectations of it being stunning with the lake being a gorgeous green, so were a bit surprised that that wasn’t the case. However that didn’t ruin our experience, and the memories we have of tobogganing and hanging out with our fellow moho-ers. This was our first time meeting up with friends with Moho’s too and it was such fun. Oh, and lets not forget, the memory of Toby and Ella singing “Rain, Rain Go Away, Come Back Another Day” about 100 times a day, especially after I told them that a lot of people call me Rain.
