day 398 50.–52. Tag: Sorrent und der verrückte Verkehr
On 31 July 2025 we left Munich with two children aged four and two, in our camper called Enea. We write about where we are, what we come across and what we learn day by day.
A family of four, a camper called Enea, and a year to find out what a childhood off the usual track actually looks like.
See how far we have come The numbers →
The countries we crossed
The line is our real trace, recorded with a GPS tracker. 22 stages are written up so far — more will follow. Pick a name from the list and the map shows where it was.
the stages 22 stages
selected stage
18 September 2025 – 20 September 2025
The journey
The blog stopped on 15 September 2025. The journey did not: another 16,289 kilometres, four countries and not a line written. Let us start with why.
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The journey
From 21 to 31 August 2025 the track records 0.2 kilometres. It was not laziness, and it was the best decision of the first month.
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The vehicle
On day nineteen we scratched an entire side of the camper rather than go back on our word. Would we do it again? We still do not know.
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The journey
After three intense days between the Sigean safari park and the visit to Carcassonne, we took a break by the sea.
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The journey
We were not entirely sure whether to make the small detour and go and see Carcassonne. Now we are really glad we did.
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The journey
The drive to the coast turns out to be the real challenge. Then three nights with a pool, a scooter and an hour on the water.
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The journey
We thought Pompeii would be too much with two small children. A series of coincidences takes us there anyway.
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The journey
For a gas bottle we drive an hour and a half back the way we came, and spend the afternoon in the old town of Ostuni.
Continue readingWe gave up Lavinia's and Valentino's nursery places and look after them ourselves. An experiment that starts from something simple: as much time together as possible. And from being curious about what care and learning can look like otherwise. In public, with all the complications.
Growing
We leave the camper stop at Alberobello and go to visit the Waldorf school La Stella.
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Growing
After the night in the car park in Ostuni we try to have our empty gas bottle refilled.
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Growing
We have been travelling for exactly a month and so far it still feels like a holiday.
Continue readingYoga, pranayama (the work with the breath), traditional Chinese medicine, cooking in seven square metres. And training without a gym: HIT when we stay somewhere longer, and a pitch next to a calisthenics park is, for us, a good pitch. In some of this we have serious training. Herbs, the garden, growing our own — those interest us a great deal, and there we are at the beginning, which we say every time.
The camper is an Etrusco, and out of that came Enea: the man in the Aeneid charged by the gods with finding a new home. Ours keeps us company on the same search — and for as long as it lasts, he is the home. Here are the damages, the conversions and the tools.
The vehicle
On day nineteen we scratched an entire side of the camper rather than go back on our word. Would we do it again? We still do not know.
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The vehicle
Ostuni luckily has a camper accessories shop. We buy a disinfectant for the tank.
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None of this is new, and you can arrive at it without a year in a camper. Living it is another matter — feeling the understanding rise in you. These are the sentences that come in the evening, when the children are finally asleep — or out running, when room opens up for the voice inside.
Four people in seven square metres: anything that comes along takes space from someone else. That calculation sorts things faster than any resolution. After a year the list of what we actually miss is short — and there are no objects on it.
Almost none of the worries people listed for us before we left came true. The difficulties that did arrive were on none of those lists. Since then we notice how many decisions are made out of fear while looking like good sense — our own included.
There are days when everything falls into place: the pitch, the weather, the people you meet. That can't be planned, only allowed — and that is exactly where we fail on a regular basis. Setting off without knowing where we'll be that evening is the part that still takes practice.
Without a goal the energy runs in every direction and therefore in none. But the goal is not the place where something happens: what counts lies between setting off and arriving — provided you go into it instead of waiting to arrive. It is the thing we remind each other of most often, usually while driving.
Tap an entry to open it. These are the answers we usually give by email, written out properly once. Where we don't have one yet, we say so.
Keep a fuel log from the first tank. Nobody at the dealership told us 11.69 l/100 km: it came out of 64 fill-ups and 20,683 kilometres, and it is the only figure you can work out a leg of the trip with beforehand. Lowest 10.41, highest 14.36 — those four litres are how you drive, not the vehicle. The most expensive day was always the one when we were in a hurry.
We noted every night, one by one: of 390 nights, 294 cost nothing — public car parks, roadsides, friends and relatives. The other 96 we paid an average of €25.47 for, which is what anyone pays. The low average doesn't come from haggling: it comes from where you sleep. An aire costs a third of a campsite and does the same job for a night in transit.
On day 37, in Ostuni, we disinfected the tank. It is not something you do when you have time: it is something you do before filling from a source you know nothing about. We realised too late that we had taken on rainwater. The full procedure — disinfectant, roundabouts to mix it, two rinses — meant 250 litres moved by hand with a 12-litre canister.
This entry isn't written yet. We're not filling it with what people usually say: as soon as we have an honest answer, it will be here.
This entry isn't written yet. We're not filling it with what people usually say: as soon as we have an honest answer, it will be here.
This entry isn't written yet. We're not filling it with what people usually say: as soon as we have an honest answer, it will be here.
We're glad to write the open entries in whatever order is useful to you. Tell us which question brought you here: five lines, and we read them all on Sunday evening at the table in the camper.
Maddalena is Italian, Gunther German, Lavinia is five and Valentino three. Enea is a 2024 Etrusco A 7300 DB and has been carrying us around Europe for over a year.
One long piece we publish nowhere else, plus a summary of what happened. You can leave whenever you want.