Possibly had the worse nights sleep so far on the trip. The heat was crazy and then to top it off the church bells rang every 30 minutes. Al managed to sleep through them all but when he asked Robert is he had heard them in the night his response was 'oh man all of them!' 😂 Usually it was just the number of bell rings to match the hour with a cheeky one added afterwards in a different pitch for the half hour. That was until 7am where clearly they want this sleepy little village up and moving and the bells went on for a whole 2 minutes.

Last night I ran past a very stinky cow shed full of milking cows and I think that's attracting a lot of flies so they were a big nuisance on top of the sweltering heat so we're keen to have a quick breakfast and move on.

I didn't fancy walking around the centre of Milan and have no desire to go shopping so I had found an artificial lake in the outskirts that is supposed to be popular with the locals in the summer. According to the website, Idroscalo park has something for everyone. Swimming pools, beaches, water sports, outdoor gym, kids play area, inflatables and splash park. As I'm rechecking things last night the website (using Google translate) is very contradictory as to whether certain areas are open but as I've mentioned it to the kids we figure we're close enough to go and explore.

My first reaction is that it's like a ghost town, there are other cars parked up but the reviews online made it sound like we might struggle to get a seat.

Things aren't looking promising but I can at least a bunch of inflatables so that's something. As we walk past those, looking for the splash park a chap on his bike stops to tell us everything in the direction we are walking is closed, including all the kids areas.

We turn around and go back to the inflatables, it's actually very reasonable at €5 per child for an hour and quite well shaded. We see 2 other children and hundreds of chairs for Al and I so we didn't need to worry about finding a spot 😜.

I do wonder if this place was more popular back in the day and whether parts are closed to give them a much needed refurbishment, either way after an hour the kids were happy and ridiculously sweaty.

Before leaving Italy we headed to the local lidl as I'm sure it's cheaper to replenish our supplies there than in Switzerland. Our route took us through the outskirts of Milan and it was shocking how run down it felt and how everything was covered in graffiti. I have noticed this is other major cities like Paris and Barcelona too, I'm sure parts of London may be similar but I've managed to avoid them if so.

We've been driving on the motorways throughout Europe and many have to be paid for, either a 7 day pass or pay as you use. Switzerland has an annual pass which runs from the start of the year and costs £36! We quickly reroute to avoid tolls and it's only an extra 6 minutes. Turns out we shouldn't have bothered since to get to Liechtenstein it makes a 2.5hrs journey become just under 5hrs and having to go back into Italy so we're just going to have to suck it up.

We've had some pretty relaxed border control points during this trip but this one didn't seem to serve any purpose, just 2 men stood waving everyone along.

It's strange to think we've still got 3 more new countries to visit and 3 more we covered at the beginning of the trip, which seems like a lifetime ago. We have done most of our big city trips now though so the next week should be a bit more relaxing.

To start things in that direction we spend the whole rest of the day down by the lake. Our van is only a 20 second walk away. The water is such a relief from the blistering heat and we instantly notice the kids stop arguing and are much more relaxed and happy, after some time with all of us in the lake Al and I take turns in parenting to read / do puzzles in shade. It's only taken 3 weeks to get this downtime 😂.

We're all having a fab time when things get even better, they open their Saturday night mobile Lake bar serving cocktails. Yes please!

There's no menu as such so I tell him the things I like and he sets to work. Can't remember exact what was in it but definitely vodka and gin, strawberry, coconut and pineapple. Didn't necessarily sound like it would work, and I know it wouldn't if I was ever to recreate it, but it was delicious.

Whilst the pasta was cooking Al popped to the on site shop to buy some swiss cheese to accompany the meal then it was straight to bed for the kids.

I needed my swiss run and there's just enough light to get in 2 miles. It was by far my sweatiest run of them all. Despite this being the most we've paid for a campsite the whole trip they still only give you one free hot shower! Well I'll save that thank you very much and enjoy the outside freezing cold one!

Even at 9.30pm it's still recording 31°c so I'm just sat outside drying off with the new lemon beer I've discovered is rather refreshing.