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Show THE DAILY HERALD, (www.HariTheHerald.com), Page A16 Provo, Utah, Sunday, May 19, 2002 JNJLS Kim and cay affordable RV tour of Europe Taking an adventurous By FRANK BAJAK Rentals can be arranged through many U.S. travel agencies and international automobile rental companies. You can save money by dealing directly with a European rental agency. After and Internet search, we chose an agency based just outside Paris. Often, the longer you rent the cheaper the daily rate. Rates are highest in July and August. We paid about $150 a day during high season for a big rig that sleeps six. RV RENTAL: The view everyone loves from the Piazzale Michelangelo is of the sun's shimmering reflection in the Arno River in the day's waning light, the Duomo bulging majestically from the Florentine skyline. From the plaza's southern perimeter there's another good, if unspectacular, down onto one of view Europe's premier campCampeggio grounds, Michelangelo. The place is a wonder. On any given night the terraced townlet is home to 1,000 or more people from the world over: backpackcar caravaners, ers, campers and motor home trekkers like us. Beyond the expected sanitary and shower facilities, Campeggio Michelangelo has a grocery, a bar, Internet cafe, and a covered picnic table terrace overlooking the city of the Medici, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. Throughout Europe, such quality campgrounds are often just a short walk from the narrow cobbled streets of ancient urban centers. Many of these campwell-stock- grounds are municipally owned and expertly run, like Campeggio Michelangelo, or the the one in Avignon, France, where we "camped" just across the Rhone from the opulent e seat of the papacy and had front-roseats for Bastille Day fireworks. They were the secret to the success of our family's y excursion in a motor home. Starting in Paris last July, my wife and I along s with our three covered nearly 4,000 miles in a rented mobile home, spending one or more nights at campgrounds across southern France from the Dordogne valley to one-tim- w 21-da- teen-ager- the Riviera, the Spanish Pyrenees and Barcelona, the Italian cities of Pisa, Florence and Perugia and on to Berlin after a quick dash through the Alps. This was Europe the way European families see it in the equivalent of a cramped motel room on with sleeping wheels, accommodations for six, a kitchenette, chemical toilet and constantly changing viewf DRIVING IN EUROPE: You can drive anywhere in Europe driver's license, although severwith your U.S. state-issue- d al countries technically require an International Driver's Permit. This can be obtained through your state chapter of the American Automobile Association for $10 (www.aaa.com) and two passport-sizephotos. d CROSSING BORDERS: Although we carried our passports in the RV (and photocopies of them separately in case of veranda outside our screen door. And it was surprisingly hassle-fre- e (if the congested suburban Paris motorways are discounted) .from the moment we retrieved our motor home from a rental agency on the outskirts of the City of Light. Before I go on, a confession: As a younger man and avid backpacker I always disparaged the RVers I would encounter in U.S. national forests and How dare they drive right into the wild with the comforts of home? Despoil-erI would curse them. Now I'd become one of them. And I loved it. a Our mobile home French-mad- e Pilote built around a Citroen delivered exactly engine as expected: affordable, flexible and (mostly) comfortable travel. No lugging luggage around from train station to hotel. You only unpack once. No hewing to a fixed itinerary. The option to linger longer or move on. The chance to get an early start some mornings without waking the adolescents. So when we awoke in Avignon the morning after Bastille Day to a driving rain though we'd planned to tour the walled city on foot the consensus was easy: on to Antibes and the Cote d'Azur, where the sun was indeed shining. I'll admit to a certain smug satisfaction at having opted for a camper as we d pulled out of our site past soggy tents and one particularly sorry clutch of campers eating breakfast in the rain. I'd had my morning coffee, pre 20-fo- ot park-land- s. s, 2.8-lit- er hedge-bordere- $530 on fuel. members may obtain a Camping Card International for $15 from the Canadian Automobile Association (www.caa.ca). The camping card is a must. It can be deposited with campground managers in lieu of passports. Some campgrounds supposedly offer discounts for cardholders. The card, goflti for a year, provides third-part- y insurance for your traveling party up to 11 people. CAMPING CARD: AAA near the campground French Mediterranean port of Sete for attempting to power plug our 220-vocord into an outlet to which we were not assigned., That campground,- Le campers are generally tourists, younger and more Castellas, was rated four itinerant. At beaches and stars (pool, organized activlakes, the campers tend to ities for children," a disco) be vacationers who stay for and at $39 per night was weeks, establishing what among the most expensive are essentially summer cot- spots where we stayed. Campgrounds charge per tages replete with refrigerators, impressive arrays of vehicle or tent, per person furniture, carpets and and for electric hookup. The even satellite cheapest for us was $17 a awnings peace by pulling in one day in our monstrous vehicle and pulling out the next, scraping against tree limbs clearance with our and puffing diesel exhaust. Three nights was the most we spent at any one campground. With the tourists, we occasionally consorted. At the foot of the French medieval fortress city of Carcassonne, we compared notes under the stars over a bottle of Bordeaux with Martin and Christina, a German-Danis- h couple from Copenhagen we'd met doing laundry. Then there were the young Czechs we helped (don't forget to pack duct tape) after they locked the keys in their late model Skoda at the Florence campsite and had to break a window. We even recharged their cell phone. Never did learn their names. lt night with the median about One of the best things about motoring was that we g could alternate $25-$3- 0. child-pleasin- with parent-pleasin- g days. One parental favorite began with an early departure from Florence, included breakfast in Chianti country, shopping at a huge grocery in Montevarchi (where you don't meet tourists and where the patient, pleasant woman at the cheese counter doesn't speak a word of English and smiles as you massacre the Italian language) and ended with an afternoon walk up through the medieval southern Tuscan hill town of Cortona to the church where the mummified Saint Margaret lies in glass box on the altar. We spent that night on the shores of Lake Trasi-mena clarion's call from where Hannibal decimated the Romans in a battle still dissected in military academy lecture halls. The followOther campground ing day we hit Perugia in encounters were less the swing of the internacharming, like the day I was tionally renowned Umbria upbraided by an imperious Jazz Festival. A motor home tour Dutchman at a beachside 10-fo- ot cross-cultur- heavier-than-usu- al best-equipp- water temperature can't bfe regulated and timers shut off the water flow automafti cally after 20 seconds onsui (Showers are a major issjie :ztz in our family.) A few lessons for the road? Yes, it's like driving" truck. It gets tiring afteBi Or the next day, after crossing the Pyrenees into Catalonia, when we drove into the center of Puigcerda following the tourist office signs over increasingly narrow cobble streets and there was general panic when we reached a tiny square from which there appeared no exit. They're going to have to extract us with a helicopter!" my son's stentorian voice reverberated through the plaza. That was our last foray into the center of a town al THE HEBER YALLEY RAILROAD . for travel. For one, we filled a sturdy duffel with five telescope-foldin- g chairs and a few golf umbrellas. We also carried more books and electronics than normal. Our son even took his guitar. Along the way, we picked up a few indispensable accessories including a portable plastic basin for carting the dinner dishes to campground sinks. We learned a few lessons early: Don't think that just because your rig is too big for normal spots you can park at a designated bus lot in France. We tried that in the Dordogne Valley seat of Sarlat, whose Saturday morning market is famed for local foie gras and truffles, and wound up with a ticket. allows - the vacationers, we were the annoying Americans who disturbed their four-lan- ACCESSORIES: RV rental companies typically offer bedding, folding chairs and tables and even bicycles for an additional fee. The vehicles should include a full kitchen, a long electrical extension cord and the necessary adapters for the countries you plan to visit. on the camper's propane stove in cozy dryness. The culture of camping in Europe varies with the venue. In cities, the To Except in Germany; which has no toll roaSK' motorways can be costly, and RVs are charged m6i than simple passenger vehicles. We tried to hew to the e national two- - and routes wherever possible It's the only way to see Provence and Tuscany, btft youH want to take to the "Autoroute" or "Autostrada when the terrain gets as in the entire rugged drive from Nice into nor&p western Italy along tfie Mediterranean coast. We probably passed through 50 tunnels on that stretch. Campground quality will vary. The French offee? ings were generally the cleanest and although be forewarn: Expect toilets without seajs or even squat toilets, whjglj are little more than porcelain holes in the ground with foot grips. Italian campgrounds are less reliable, while the only German one we experienced Thalkirchen in Munich on the Isar river, a favorfte waS during Oktoberfest superlatively clean antf required tokens for mrt" showers. French campsites generally have hot showers bWE theft), we rolled through European Union border crossings never having to show them. If the rental agency permits taking its vehicle in eastern Europe, it will require you to purchase additional insurance. pared TV. and spent about Paris IF YOU GO Associated Press Writer FLORENCE, Italy rn ULKJ 13th-centu- ry that predated the o, while. io Don't plan on driving east of Germany, Austria: and Italy. YouH need add; tional insurance coverage for that if it's permitted at all by the rental agency,, Most campground won't take reservations Arrive early in the day. ; Public transportation is great in Europe but if you want greater mobility try renting a caravan and car to tow it. Then you simply unlatch the caravan, park it at the campground and you're mobile. There were a few times that idea was truly appeal-ing- . automo- bile. A few details to bear in mind before deciding on motoring through Europe: Gas is expensive. Even if you rent a diesel RV youH still pay about $3 per gallon. We logged 3,340 miles almost our flight distance from New York to . Like in Barcelona, Spain,-city that only just cornea to life at 11:30 p.m., whjen the last train left for El' Mansou, the seaside town 12 miles away where our mobile beds were parked. a SALE (DAMUPDRKE Sale Starts Monday May 20th and Ends Saturday May 25th Thomas the Tank Engine is Coming to Heber City, UT Ride the Thomas Train A Meet Sir Topham Hatt May 30. 31. June 1. 6. 7. 8 - Tickets are selling Fast THEEtcrfiERALD Call Smiths Tlx 1 800 888-849- 9 for reservations - www.hebervaUeyrr.org World Famous Family Size Tent 10X10 733 Reg. $1 19 9- GREAT DEAL! 25XOFF weekend Wot Marriott Downtown f Two Burner & Griddle Lagoon Memorial Day Weekend Packages just $199 plus tax. Two nights at the Salt Lake City Marriott Downtown and four passes, good any day, all day to Lagoon. 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