Holidays and Gold Panning in Italy Part 1

Hello Dear Wox Community

I would like to tell you about the first 4 days of my family holiday and money laundering holiday in Italy.

Preparation:
The plan was to spend two weeks in Italy, one week of which my family and I would spend in Cavallino at the Camping Village on the beach, before heading off on my own to Piedmont in the mountains for the last week. So that was the plan!!! Half a year before, I applied for the gold panning permit for the Piedmont region at the relevant office. About two weeks before, I started preparing for my Piedmont trip. Personally, I usually start my preparations with remote prospecting via Google and various other map providers. I also read up on the area where I want to pan for gold. This usually gives me a rough overview of the situation. Even though it often turns out that the situation on the ground is completely different. Nevertheless, I always meticulously look for suitable places where I could start my prospecting, often I also look where there are good parking possibilities and I don't have to walk long distances, which cannot always be avoided. (I always have a bit of luggage with me).

(This is a geological map of Italy. In older versions, there are also more detailed maps for each region. With the help of maps like this and others, you can find suitable places that you want to test)

One day before departure I packed the car, I was a bit afraid that we wouldn't get everything in, although I already have a quite big boot and a roof box it all got cramped very quickly and my wife came with more and more things. At some point the car was finally packed. And we could let the evening wind down in peace. At 4 o'clock in the morning, we set off in the direction of Italy. Our route went past the Black Forest and through Switzerland until we finally arrived in the bay of Cavallino. According to the sat nav, we would have had a pure driving time of 12 hours, but due to the fact that my wife was heavily pregnant at the time, we could not drive for many hours at a stretch and had to take many breaks, which extended the driving time to 18 hours.


(The journey there really dragged on because of all the breaks, but we were still in a good mood. Our dog was also comfortable, so we just kept going until we got there)

When we finally arrived, we found our bungalow and were able to bake in peace. Afterwards, we were all hungry, so we ate something in the pizzeria offered by the campsite, then we went for a short walk to see the surroundings and the holiday complex.

(Pictures on the right, source Google)

We had only sun the whole week, most of the time around 35 degrees. At the bungalow it was already very oppressive in the morning, but we didn't like to stay there anyway, as it unfortunately didn't meet our expectations. It was unfortunately smaller than expected.


(Unfortunately everything is very small and not really clean, so we had to clean it first. It would have been enough for me alone, but with 5 people and a dog it was much too cramped)

In addition, there was a nasty mosquito plague in Italy this year, and since the campsite is surrounded by trees, you can imagine what we looked like after only 1 day. You couldn't sit outside in the evening, as soon as dusk started, without getting what felt like 50 mosquito bites. So our evening sport looked like this... Go into the bungalow and hunt for mosquitoes. The one who catches the most mosquitoes wins. We liked to go to the ice-cream parlour, because the ice-cream in Italy is mega delicious, but also from the ice-cream parlour countless mosquitoes chased us, so that we quickly lost our hunger for ice-cream, so we spent most of our time at the sea bathing, swimming or just having fun and getting brown! For the dog and the teenie child, the part of the holiday was of course the best, we were extra close to a handstand, so that our dog could move freely.


(This was real art directly on the beach on the promenade, the artist was busy all day creating such a work of art in scalding hot heat)

In the evening, we usually left the campsite and went for a walk in the surrounding area. We ate out most of the time so that we wouldn't get bitten even more. It got so bad with the mosquitoes that my mother had an allergic reaction to the bites, her arms and legs became extremely thick and after a while it hurt her. Despite various mosquito ointments, it got worse and worse. You can't imagine what my wife looked like, unfortunately she couldn't put anything on the mosquito bites because of her condition. For this reason, my wife and my mother then decided to accompany me to the mountains in the hope that there would be no mosquitoes there, or not so many, and also in the new accommodation we had much more space and were not almost on top of each other. I can only say this much about the first week, for my dog it was absolutely great for the young one too, (apart from the bites), but for the other 3 of us it was really bloody bad, we had expected much, much more from the accommodation too. Well, that's all over now and on we go to the mountains.
Fortunately, this time the journey time was only 5 hours. We had booked a really nice and historic accommodation in advance. An old rustic castle made a bit medieval style but mega beautiful,
Castello La Rocchetta

(Being housed in a 15th century castle is really great! The Hotel Castello La Rocchetta offers its guests a unique and charming ambience. The rooms, as you can see, are individually decorated in friendly colours and very clean)

Gold panning
Day 1
When we arrived in the afternoon, we first inspected our flat and were quite satisfied. A really nice, large and cosy flat. More than adequate for my / our purposes. The other guy liked it much better than the bungalow on the campsite. So first I unpacked and had something to eat. Then I grabbed my prospecting equipment and drove for a few hours to some spots I had picked out in advance. Due to the long heat wave, the riverbed was dry in many places and it was not possible to take samples or only with great effort. For this reason, I decided to return to my family's accommodation shortly before it got dark.

Day 2
After I had gained a small overview the day before, I continued with the prospection the next day. I continued to drive through the various places I had picked out in order to carry out tests. I wanted to prove whether this section of the river was carrying head gold.
I was able to prove the presence of gold in some places, but unfortunately it was not as I had hoped. I have to say that I had no experience with creeks because until then I had mainly been a Rhine gold panner. Nevertheless, I moved further upstream and kept taking sample pans, but the yield didn't get any better, so around 6pm I decided to drive back to my accommodation. At home, I evaluated the sample at my leisure and was able to mark a spot for surfing on Google.

(This is the gold from my test pans, not all but most!)

Day 3
On this day I started my prospecting with a trip to the old Roman deposits and the gold panning museum (Museo dell'Oro e della Bessa), it was impressive to see what they used to achieve with simple means.

The spoil heaps were simply huge as you can see in the pictures.


I then went in search of them in the surrounding area. After many kilometres and many test pans, I was able to find two places where I could spend the next few days. At around 7 pm I drove back towards my accommodation, on the way I got myself something to eat because my wife had written to me that they were also eating out and I should bring something with me. When I arrived at the castle, I ate, got ready and then went to bed. The next day I had to get up early again.

Day 4
Today it's mass prospecting, so off to the site. First we arrived in peace and quiet. Then it was time to unload before I started building the dam to set my gold panning channel. I quickly realised that the difference between digging in a stream and digging with a highbanker on the Rhine are completely different worlds. Whereas on the Rhine you just have to fill the highbanker with material, the situation on a stream is usually completely different. Here, larger stones can block the way to material. This often makes digging very exhausting, especially if you are not used to it. After about 7 hours, it was time for me to call it a day. My back was starting to show and I was very satisfied with the day until then. So it was time to pack up and head for my accommodation. Once there, I did a clean out by washing out the material I had collected with the pan. The daily result was 0.827 grams

Kind regards

For your kind attention - #club5050

I hope you like this article again and follow me for more.
All pictures were taken with my mobile phone or an actioncam

LG