The not so dolce vita - our journey begins (moving to Italy blog)

Elinor Salter
Jul 8
3 min read

We left the UK at 8:30 on a Saturday night, towing the caravan (for the first time properly!) behind our "new-to-us" car, and drove through the night to catch the 3:00 a.m. ferry from Folkestone. Sleep completely eluded us. My husband managed an hour on the ferry — but then again, he could sleep on a pin!

We arrived in Calais at 6:00 a.m. and drove on… and on… and on — stopping briefly for a snooze (him) and a pit stop (me). Eventually, nearing the Alps, we found a hotel with a secure car park, collapsed onto the bed, and slept the sleep of the dead.

The Alps ahead of us - our next mountain to climb!

The next morning, we left around 10:00, thinking we only had a half-day's drive ahead of us. We had booked a hotel for the night — complete with pool and restaurant — but hadn’t checked whether we could actually access it with a caravan. (We couldn’t.) So, we drove on… and on… until, at last, we reached our beloved Tarquinia.

Arriving in Tarquinia - moving to Italy blog

We spent the night at the wonderful Civico Zero Hotel, who welcomed us and our caravan with open arms. The guard at the gate thought is was a bit strange for us to be arriving to stay at a hotel with a caravan, but then we are English......! After a huge bowl of perfect pasta and a couple of glasses of wine, we fell into bed and into another deep, dreamless sleep.

The next morning, we dropped the caravan off at a friend’s farm, where we’d reunite with it in four days’ time, and made a beeline for our “special place” — the beach bar Porticciolo. It’s our tradition: arriving in Tarquinia always starts with time at the sea, letting our minds and bodies decompress, soaking up the Italian around us until it replaces our Englishness.

After a slow, lovely morning there, we headed to our usual apartment for a short holiday.

Now, we’re back in the caravan… and we already wish the holiday had been longer!

Don’t get me wrong — I love our little caravan. It’s brilliantly fitted out and everything works, but we hadn’t quite anticipated the intensity of the heat. We bought an air-conditioning unit (a total lifesaver), but our dream of working outside with our laptops? Not happening. So now we both sit semi-clothed in the caravan, the air-con battling the heat from both the blazing sun and our overheating devices.

Venturing out at lunchtime is short-lived — either it’s just too hot, or the diesel motor running the farm’s watering system is thundering away, or the combine harvesters are going back and forth right past the caravan, bringing in grain to the waiting lorry.

I should explain: our wonderful friends are hosting us at their farm while we wait to complete on our farmhouse purchase. Tarquinia is, above all, a farming town — with the sea and lido its secondary focus.

This region has long been a major producer of pasta wheat, along with fruits and vegetables. Our friend Claudio grows wheat, melons, and assorted vegetables. The upside? A fresh melon magically appears on our doorstep each morning, along with cucumbers and other glorious produce. We feel reconnected to the rhythm of the seasons and the land — something we’ve deeply missed.

The downside? We’re up at 5:30 a.m., sharing our “pitch” with tractors and combines. But honestly, it’s a small price to pay for the beauty that surrounds us: evenings watching the sun dip into the sea, spotting hares, red kites, bats, and fireflies.

The early starts mean that by 7:30 a.m., we’re at the beach — having already emptied the caravan loo, topped up the water, done our washing, a bit of Pilates, and other daily bits and bobs. We walk along the shore, swim in the sea, then enjoy a cappuccino and cornetto before getting back to our desks by 9:00. Sometimes, we flip the day — walking around the farm early and heading to the beach later for a sunset swim and an aperitivo, chatting with old friends and new, before returning to the caravan for a light salad.

So yes, a fairly sybaritic lifestyle — if I’m honest. That said, there are certainly less glamorous moments. Like dragging our laundry to a stifling hot lavanderia, only to return later and find the drying rack has toppled over into the dust, leaving our whites… not so white.