The manager of the camper stop in Schio came and had a chat with us. He was very passionate about the camper stop and encouraging people to use it. He told us about the Pasubio Pass and how in WW1 the Italian soldiers built a road with many tunnels.

We happened to drive over the Pasubio Pass to get to Rovereto on the road to the Brenner Pass to Austria. It’s quite a road – initially passing through some villages and then getting steeper with many hairpin bends. There were good views down the valley – if you could see them for the mist.

Eventually we arrived at the top of the pass. There was a bit of history here. The border with Austria had been held for hundreds of years only 100 meters away. In 1915 Italian soldiers pushed it back.

The road the soldiers built goes from near here – “Strada delle 52 gallerie”.

We then started heading down the other side of the pass – still steep and windy and through many tiny villages.

I wonder how many people still live in these villages. There weren’t many around.

We continued down with the road skirting the mountain and with many hairpin bends.

We arrived in Rovereto and stopped for lunch in the large stadium car park.

From there it was a straightforward drive on the toll road to the Brenner Pass. This is the border with Austria there was a huge toll plaza for taking the tolls.

In Austria you have to have purchased a vignette to cover your motorway use – which we had done. It’s easier than having to each time take a ticket on entering a toll road and then pay when leaving.

We made our way down towards Innsbruck but stopped off 25km beforehand at an aire – Trins Fussballplatz. There are 9 spaces beside the football pitch with toilets and a shower- sophisticated for an aire.

The views are amazing so we did a walk checking out the geese farms. The peaks around are very high but there’s lots of houses in the flat valley.

We had a quiet night as the geese behaved themselves and kept quiet.