Day 6 - Fri. 19/08/2011

Departure Campsite: International du lac d'Annecy, St Jorioz, France (N 45.83083 E 6.1786)
Destination Campsite: Camping du Parc, Pre St Didier, Italy (N 45.76153 E 7.00614)
Distance: 83 miles/134 km (today) 959 miles/1545 km (total)

After breakfast, Ali, Ellie, Matthew, James and Zoe walked off toward the lake to find a little beach from which they could go swimming. After packing down, Simon and I went off to find them, leaving the vehicles on the site. The water was crystal clear, and it was a shame there were so many holidaymakers in the area, otherwise we would like to have returned. Ali reckons its a cheaper version of Luzern.

We walked back to the campsite to pay up and then drove off, us following Simon across the Alps and the French/Italian border at St Bernard Pass, where we stopped to take some photos and look around. Worryingly, the Bongo fuel gauge suddenly dropped to "empty" after filling up with diesel, this could cause us a few problems for the rest of the holiday.

We were heading toward Mont Blanc, to find a site at the foot of it on the Italian side. Using the ACSI campsite guide, we came up with "Camping du Parc" at Pre St Didier. On arrival, the site didn't look that impressive, but it turned out to be a very pleasant, but short, stay. The site was in the shadow of a mountain, and we noticed that the caravans all had wooden roofs added to them, to protect them from falling rocks. We were a bit concerned to find that the toilets were of the hole in the floor variety (the first site we had come across like this), but at least they were not unisex. In fact, too late, we found that there were also a few "normal" toilet pans. The WiFi on site was free and worked well.

In the evening, we drove into town and took a lot of photographs (many in the dark) of the river running through it etc. A lovely evening and we had our first taste of true Italian ice creams, which didn't disappoint. This was one of the best days so far - a great drive and a great evening.