20th and 21st September 2019. Stayed at Camping Porticciolo in Bracciano. All the services. 42.106201, 12.1863

00062 Bracciano, Metropolitan City of Rome, Italy

Sorting stuff and a barbecue

We left our beachside parking spot and headed to Bracciano stopping on the way to shop at Lidl for a few supplies. The friendly lady at the reception gave us a map of the place and told us to take a walk a pick a site. The place was really quiet and we chose a spot between some trees. The plan was to do some sorting as in a couple of days we would hand over the Bunyip to Luke, Karen and the kids. The reception lady said that we were not the only Australians on the site and it wasn’t long before a man came up to us and asked “are we Dutch or Australian?”. This we get often as the Bunyip has Dutch number plates but is covered with kangaroos and Australian. Paul and Karen are from Sydney and like us are on the final days of their travels. We talked for awhile and then decided to meet up later for a barbeque. Very Aussie thing to do.

The sorting continued through the afternoon as we couldn’t do much else as the sky opened up and it poured down with rain for most of the afternoon.

The evening was spent with Paul and Karen sharing some food and drinks while exchanging travel stories. It was amazing how much we has in common even listening to the same podcasts. We exchanged details and we will keep in touch.

Pizza and a Castle

On Sunday morning we said our goodbyes to Paul and Karen as they headed of to Rome. By mid morning our sorting was finished and the weather had cleared up so we took the bus into Bracciano for lunch and to visit the castle.

In a lovely backstreet we found a restaurant/pizzeria and ordered a pizza to share. As usual the pizza was excellent. Before heading off to the castle we stopped for a gelati again trying some different flavours.

Castle Orsini Odescalchi

When choosing our stopover for these two days I was aware that there was a castle in the town, what I didn’t know was how good it was. After paying our entrance fee of 6 euros each (very cheap) we went to explore what would be a great castle. We were surprised that we were nearly the only ones there and could roam the open areas with no staff and no other patrons. Jenny said after the visit that it rates in her top 10 of castles visited and over the last 10 years we have seen plenty.

 

 

 

 

 

There were many rooms furnished and others with displays of weapons and armour. On the towers and ramparts were spectacular views of the lake and the town. Being only 38 kilometres from Rome we were surprised it wasn’t a busy tourist destination. If you are travelling near Rome please take the time to have a look.

The walk back to the campsite was only 1.5 kilometres and all downhill. Back at the campsite more people had left and we had a large area all to ourselves, was it something we said? No the campsite was winding down and at the end of the month it would close and reopen again in April. A bit more packing and sorting and it was again a quiet night