Snippets 9

Doctor Mc Dougall with his wife and three daughters went to Italy towing a caravan in August 1966, driving over the St Goddard pass and down through the Dolomites in the middle of a very severe thunder storm. They stayed in a nice camping site in Lido de Jesolo, close to Venice, intending to spend a lot of time in that wonderful city. During the next few days the thunder- storm continued without cease, with a flash of lightening every two minutes and torrential rain, which quickly resulted in severe floods all along the coast and particularly in the actual camping site. Several caravans and camps were hit by lightning and a few people were killed, and to get to the facilities one had to wade through a foot of water, making everything very unpleasant and dangerous. Dr Mc Dougall decided to yoke up the caravan and crawl slowly through the floods until they reached high ground, which proved to be a wise decision as the storm got even worse It was the storm which damaged Florence and many other cities and towns and was in fact the worst storm in living memory. Having started in the early morning they arrived at the foothills of the Appenines at midday, and being hungry they found a very interesting restaurant for lunch. None of the family could speak Italian and the staff couldn’t speak any English, so without preamble they started to serve delicious food one course after another, each with a half bottle of wine, which they enjoyed thoroughly. Not being in a hurry they lingered and the staff continued serving until eventually they had served twenty- one courses, going through starters, fish, meats, game and deserts, each with it’s particular wine. It was 7 p m when they finished and found that there was no camping site in the area so they consulted their map and found that it was only ninety miles to Pisa, which they thought they could make in roughly two hours, so without hesitation they found themselves underway and saw a sign N 7 to Pisa and followed the route indicated. It got dark almost immediately and around half an hour later they ran into fog, which slowed them down. They soon found they had to negotiate hairpin bends, which seemed to come at ever increasing regularity and there wasn’t the slightest chance of turning around to retrace their steps. To make things worse there were sheer drops at both sides of the road with no protection whatsoever, the drops looked hundreds of feet deep when they could see in the gaps in the fog. There was no traffic in either direction and no area where they could possibly park the caravan even for a short time so they had no option but to proceed until at midnight they arrived in a small town where they parked for the night in the middle of the town square. Next morning they woke up to the sound of many voices outside, so Dr Mc Dougall put on his shorts, and accompanied by his two older daughters went outside to find hundreds of people who cheered them and then lifted them shoulder high and took them off to see the mayor. He gave them a great welcome and explained that they were the first people to take a caravan over the fifty-six mile long Abatone pass. The doctor’s wife was dressed by now, and when collected by her husband they were all taken to a specially prepared feast in their honour, with plenty of wine and champagne. Later they were told not to attempt the descent on the other side, that they would never make it, and rather that they should return the way they came. Next morning however, they chanced the descent to Pisa, a journey that took them all day, as they had to manhandle the caravan at every sharp hair -pin bend. After a couple of days exploring Pisa they made their way to Rome and found a beautiful site in Lido de Ostia where there was a lovely beach with great swimming, and the best thing about it was the fact that it was only half an hours run from Rome. They made their way to that wonderful city every day leaving the beach at around four o’clock in the afternoon, which gave them time to sight see and to dine in some of the city’s lovely restaurants an to get back to camp around midnight. The doctor’s daughters were sixteen, fourteen and four, the latter needing a sleep after lunch every day, while the other two were beginning to attract the young men, particularly the eldest girl who attracted one handsome youth for the duration of their stay. Obviously he thought she was much older as he approached the parents to ask their permission to propose to her, and later visited England to further his prospects, having driven all the way in mid winter. He had to accept that there was no chance of success. Before the return journey they stayed in a site called Solfatara, which is near Pozzuoli, an extinct volcano crater which hadn’t erupted for two thousand years. There was a distinct smell of sulphur all the time and one small area of boiling lava, which they were told had been like that for hundreds of years, but there was a little island to which they could swim and it was the base for exploring Capri. However a week was enough before starting the long journey back to England, so they left and decided to take another week enjoying the return trip. A week after they left the previously extinct volcano erupted, swallowing the small island and completely destroying the site at which they had been staying.