You have good days and bad days while travelling. Yesterday was a bit half and half, but today was one of the bad days. I'll tell you why in a bit but I'll tell you the beginning of the story first.

I woke up at Lake Garda, and just decided that I couldn't be bothered going back to Sirmione. It's a decision I kind of regret, especially with how the rest of the day went, but hey, what can you do? Everywhere was really touristy around Lake Garda and I'd had enough of that, and the prospect of heading back to France was looking more and more appealing. I left the campsite and decided that today was going to be a day of driving, with the first stop being Bergamo, near Milan. It took about an hour to get there, then I went about looking for a park.

This is where my day all went downhill, at not even 10am. I found a parking lot and drove in and was immediately concerned that the ramp down to the parking area was really narrow and steep. I drove around one level, no parks, I drove around the next one with the same result. There was a park on the third level down, but it looked a bit tight. I thought I'd give it a go though, as it was doable. I was so close to getting the camper tucked in, when I heard a scratching noise - I'd caught the side of the car on a concrete pillar. Thank goodness it wasn't another car, otherwise I would have had a heart attack, but as it is I was panicking!!

There was nowhere to go without scraping it more, so I got the camper out with some more screeching, checked the damage - bad but not too bad - then drove to the next level down, where there was ample parking. It was a life lesson to me (one that I have used several times since) that it's always worth going further away to find an easy, safe park than trying to fit in a tight space.

I left the camper there, admittedly had a bit of a panic, then head outside into the sunshine and tried to forget all about it. I did, however, contact the camper hire people who were, bless them, much more calm about it than I was.

After that, I walked to the funicular that goes up to the old, upper town or Citta Alta of Bergamo. It was a nice, interesting place and I wandered around and took a few photos, but my heart wasn't really in it sadly.

I bought a giant arancini from a shop on the main street and sat in the shade to eat it while I checked my map and tried to decide what to do next. I decided to head back to the camper and drive on to Milan.

I mentioned earlier that the ramps to get into and out of the parking lot were tight, and going up and up and up them was a really scary drive. I'm sure I was millimetres away from scraping, and I was used to driving in tiny carparks in Italy and France - this one was just the narrowest I'd been in. I finally made it out and drove on.

Honestly, everything was against me today. I got near to Milan, and the road system.... I can't even explain to you how bad it was. There were people coming in from everywhere, and merging across many lanes of traffic and it was chaos. I was getting stressed out so much that I quickly decided that I wasn't going to go to Milan and just kept going to get out of the mess. When I was off the main arterial roads, I set my GPS for Pavia and drove there.

Today redeemed itself at the Certosa di Pavia, a beautiful monastery complex. You couldn't take photos inside, but I did take some of the outside and it was definitely as decorative inside as out!

I'd parked down by a restaurant nearby, in the trees, hoping no one would tell me off about it (I don't think they liked people parking there without eating). It was nice and cool, so I sat and worked out where to go camping for the night. There was a little site nearby, and I decided I'd had enough of today, and enough of driving, and would go there, have some wine and try to enjoy the rest of the day.

The camping office wasn't open when I turned up, so I sat on the swingset that they had there and read my book while waiting. The campsite itself was a shaded bit of grass near the Ticino river that wasn't particularly fancy, but it was perfect after all the really touristy sites I'd been to. It was cheap, basic, quiet and not too busy. I settled into my site in the shade, read some more, drank some wine and tried to get over the mess of a day I'd had! Tomorrow was another day!

Campsite: Camping Ticino

Rating: 8/10. Simple and not fancy at all. Could have had a couple more toilets, but it didn't really bother me because it wasn't too busy. Cheap, about €14, which in Italy was very cheap for a campsite! Quiet.