At the moment the weather plays a more significant role in daily life than it does at other times of year. It’s dark just after 5 pm, and if there isn’t much sun in the day, the temperature will remain around zero. I had two days of sun in southern Tuscany, but the last two days as I’ve moved north, have been cloudy. It’s a fairly normal weather pattern, except that here, now just in the Ticino Alps not far from Lugano, there has been very little rain, or snow, in the last weeks.
Last night I stopped just outside the town of Pavullo nel Frignano in the north of Tuscany. There is a sports stadium, and that often makes for a good place. It was near some hiking trails, so this morning before we left we had a couple of hours out.
These winter days are a bit challenging for using my outdoor shower, so I took the advantage of the town’s swimming pool for a shower. It’s the second time I’ve done this in Italy, and interestingly, they charge by the amount of water you use. On entry you get a plastic card, like a hotel entry card, and this activates the shower for two minutes at a time. It’s charged at 25 cents for 4 minutes. It seems a really good way to stop people wasting water, so long as it isn’t expensive to put the system in place at the outset.
From Pavullo it was nearly all autoroute, with toll, past Modena, Palma, Milan and lastly Como. But in Italy, my van gets charged the same as the cars; it seems only in France I am in the category higher, and that makes a big difference. Two hundred kilometres on the autoroute today for 13 euros.
This evening I’m in Switzerland, near Lugano, in the little peninsula of land that protrudes into Italy. It gets strange weather here due to the Föhn wind, which a warm, dry, rain-shadow wind that cools in summer, and warms in winter. The last few days here the maximum temperature has been around 10C, as opposed to less than half that in surrounding areas. I’m at the campsite, though it’s closed, of the little village of Meride, about 600 metres above sea level, just below Monte San Giorgio.
Safe Return Doubtful 
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