After having left Merano, Timm and I made our direction Milan, where we picked up Paul, Timm's Brother. He was going to spend the weekend with us as it was Timm's Birthday (4th of Dec).
Unfortunately, I have to say that I didn't see much (in fact nothing at all) of northern Italy, simply due to the fact that there was permanent mist, and I'm talking 50m visibility Mist. Absolutely incredible to have that density over a time span of 4 days and a good 300km!
Anyways, after picking up Paul, we drove down towards Ovada, a town which was recommended to us by Rolf Goldstrom, our gold panning contact in Sweden. He had given us contact details for Giovanni, who apparently was "Mr. Gold" in Italy - unfortunately, he was not contactable....
But undeterred the three of us panned various locations and we did find Gold. Not much, but enough for Paul to take home and show his kids :-)
One interesting aspect of this part of the trip was the complete absence of Stellplatze / Campsites. Nothing, nada, zilch. Those that were marked were nothing more than town parking lots with dubious facilities - to the point where we literally were told to dump our chemical toilet into a grate in the parking lot!
It was absolutely great having Paul over (despite leaving poor Jacky alone with the kids at home) but once we had dropped him off at the airport, Timm and I were more than ready to leave Italy behind!
Paul deserves a gold medal for digging these holes!
Hard at work
Is it Gold?
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