Italy, Pisa

The next stop in Italy was Pisa, we wanted to see the famous tower.
We drove through some nice landscape again, passed the Italian Riviera.


Once we left the coastal road and arrived in the mountain area we stopped to walk around in some beautiful forest.



Arriving at the camping site is seemed a very large one that we normally don't like a lot, so we decided to see the tower straight away and leaving again for the next stop the next day.
When we came to the tower site we seemed to be some sort of tourist attraction ourselves as well. Our dogs must be famous now all over the world, because a lot of pictures where taken of the boys, one nice Italian guy even asked to hold Toby and be on a picture with him alone.


And what do you do in Italy, exactly eat an ice-cream.

Rob eating an ice-cream at the Pisa tower is on the background of many pictures taken by other tourists.

Italy, Genova

The next stop was in Bogliasco, a small village next to Genova. We camped on a camping site in the mountains.

From the camping site it was only a 500 meters walk to the Italian Riviera, this seemed to be a 500 meters straight downwards walk that was challenging to do. We discovered that walking on 4 legs is easier than walking with just 2 legs, because the boys weren't having any troubles taking the stairs upwards and downwards at all.


Downstairs the sea was there and that of course was a big treat as usual.

In this picture you can see where the camping site is located, somewhere above all the houses in the woods.

Italy, Lago Maggiore

After our fantastic beardie weekend in Checy, France we continued our journey towards Italy. We decided to have a one-night stop-over in Switzerland, on the borders of lac de Genève. We had a tough drive through the mountains and relaxed a little bit.

So not much news on this, the only thing that our camping-site wasn't as quit as expected being next to a road with a lot of traffic. The next morning we drove onwards to Italy. We had some nice views that I tried to capture on film.

We arrived in Italy passing the Simplonpass (at 2006 m). We stopped here to stretch our legs before continuing with the journey.


You can see how high we actually are when you look at the snow that was on the mountain tops.
It was actually very sunny weather but it was nice and cool high up in the mountains.

The boys back in the van wondering where I'm staying.

The first Italian destination was Lago Maggiore, one of the greatest lakes of Italy. We drove around the lake for about 80 Kilometers to arrive at our camping site, that was directly located at the border of the lake.

The border was scattered with wood. Later we discovered that the day before we arrived there a big storm had taken place that caused all that wood to be there.


Toby of course couldn't resist the water and rushed inside the lake, Brego needed to be encouraged somewhat by throwing a stick or two in the water, of which there where enough laying around.

We had some beautiful days here, and where ready to continue the trip.

Checy, Show

We didn't participate in the show, but nevertheless the boys needed to be groomed. It was lovely to experience grooming the dogs on a camping-site without the whole camping watching wondering what I'm doing. Here everybody groomed their beardies, so I was no exception this time.

Furthermore we watched parts of the show.


And what did our dogs do, when other beardies where "enjoying" their show appearance. Yesss swimming in the river.

As always they enjoyed this very much.

Checy, Fun with beardies and their bosses

Besides the sheep trial there was also a agility match, a Cani-cross, and a coup d'Fonzy award, where bosses dress up and walk a mini-agility course. This was very funny to watch, here some of the picture we made of the "crazy" Frenchmen and woman and us having fun watching this all.

Checy, Working Sheep Trial

On the working day in Checy we participated the Sheep trial. First I didn't want to participate because of the language problem, I realized that I didn't know the language good enough to understand what the judge was saying. But with the help of Hanneke's translation I could participate after all. Brego sniffing around the cage where the sheep are in.

Toby and me watching the trials from other dogs:

First Brego got into the arena with the sheep, he wasn't interested in the sheep whatsoever, only in their droppings, so he failed the test.

Second Toby got into the arena, this was a completely different story, the judge was very enthusiastic about his working skills and Toby succeeded the test. The judge wrote an end conclusion: Showing excellent working skills and attitude while working with sheep.

Checy, Bearded Collie Event

This weekend we visited a regional Bearded Collie event in Checy (near Orleans, France). This is a yearly event that takes place during a weekend, on Saturday the working ability of the Beardie is the central theme and on Sunday the beauty-show takes place. We visited just for fun although I described both Toby and Brego for a sheep working test (CANT).
The weekend was visited by about 200 bearded collies. It was very funny to see such a lot of beardies altogether.
We camped on a camping-site where the even was held. A lot of beardies camped there as well.

Toby and Brego loved to watch all the beardies walk by our home.



Checy is located next to the river Loire, during the evening walk on the shore of the river I made a couple of scenic pictures.



And the boys couldn't resist the water, so they both entered the river.