Registration has started

The registration for participants started already on Thursday for those who take the Gustavo and Giselle seminars.

Above you see Pino Dangiola busy giving the arrived guest their papers. One of the things I very inpressed of at Tangocamp is that you receive your own personal schedule. Excellent!

When you register you'll also receive a colored bracelet that indicates which group you're in.

Today many more people will arrive. I looking forward to meet you. Please don't be shy, come and say hello to me. I'm trying to learn some basic Italian phrases, so if you want to teach me some I'd be very happy.

In the coming posts I'll present what the surroundings look like.

Is there anything in particular that you would like too see? Tell me. Please comment.

Day 3 Arriving In Italy

A slumber later I wake up south of Milano. Yes, we´re in Italy! But, there are still 500 or 600 km to go, (whatever!). It would have been great to have breakfast at the hotel in Rome, but that clearly isn’t going to happen.

As Peder is a café owner, he likes to sample to coffee here. We stop for a few minutes and we have a cappuccino and a sandwich. We have only short breaks (15 minutes or so) when we change drivers every 2 hours. We think that it’s much nicer to get to the hotel in Rome than to have longer breaks at the road.



It’s been said that all roads lead to Rome. I’m very surprised over this particular road that takes us there. I expected it to be of better quality, this is supposed to be one of the main roads to Rome but it’s very bumpy at times. I’m spoiled after driving at Autobahn. Road construction leads us to a very small road, more road bumps. After 100 km things improve. The closer we get to Rome, the better it gets.

Sometimes it just feels that you’re driving forever, Peder and I have established "The Close Rule", if we’re less than 200 km from our destination we’re allowed to say “we're getting close”.

The trailer behind the mini bus really pushes us forward when we go down the hills towards Rome. When we reach the ring road around Rome, we feel like it’s close but we’ve still 30 km to go.

At 3 PM we arrive at the hotel. I practice parking with the trailer. Finally we are here, the 24 hours drive from Dusseldorf is complete.

How long does it take you to get to Tangocamp? Please comment.

Day 2 Tuesday

Too little sleep today also. Big sigh. I would like to get going on the road again but we have lots of things to do in Dusseldorf first. We need to first get a trailer behind the mini bus and then we have to pick up all the things that you will find in the shop when you arrive at Tangocamp, like shoes and t-shirts and more. Finally, at 14:30, we are ready to go.

The first bit the road goes over hills and valleys and I’m glad that Peder is driving. When I take the wheel in Wiesbaden the hills stop and the landscape is flat again. Yes!

One of the things I noticed that is different between Sweden and Germany is that the trees are much closer to the road. That’s because they don’t have any elks to worry about suddenly turning up in front of your car.

It’s 22:45 when we cross the Swiss border, we worry because we have heard that the Gotthard tunnel under the alps maybe closes at night. After a bit of adventure on small roads we notice that luckily that’s not the case. We drive through the long tunnels (also a surrealistic experience because of all the lights on the side of the tunnel, you lose reference points and the tunnel looks like it’s going on forever) and at this time of night there is no other traffic. That is good because you have less things to worry about. (No traffic. check. No elks. Check. No worries mate. Check.)

At a certain point uphill becomes downhill and you almost don’t have to press the gas pedal at all. It feels good to drive and I’m surprisingly not that tired, but at 4:00 AM we reach Lugano and Peder takes over the stearing wheel. I lie down in the back of the bus to get a little rest while Peder takes us into Italy.

How do you get to Tangocamp? By plane, train or car? Please comment.

Day 1 Monday

The alarm clock goes off at 06:45. It was early. Way too early and way too little sleep but after a quick breakfast and a last minute coordination talk with Pino I was ready to leave. I drove into Stockholm to pick up the other driver of the mini bus: Peder Nordenstad.

I picked him up at his café, Kafe Tjärlek. His café is a tango café where there are always tango in the speakers. It’s good to have Peder in the bus, because he has done this Tangocamp tour two times before and has lots of experience of what to do and not to do.

Peder is a little late and I’am eager and impatient to go. I know we have a tight schedule in order to drive to Dusseldorf in one day. Peder told me that.

As we drive down through Sweden I notice what a beautiful and warm summers’ day it is. It’s almost a pity to leave Sweden when it’s so nice. But I know that we will have awesome weather at Tangocamp as well.


In the middle of the afternoon we leave Sweden by ferry and roll down through Denmark and Germany. Everything goes well until Hamburg where we get stuck in a traffic jam and it takes us an hour to get going again. Say “so long” to our plan.

It gets dark and now we must rely on our GPS, without it we would be lost. I can tell you that it’s a really surrealistic experience to drive in the small streets in the suburbs of the German towns. You think: Is really this the right way?

But of course it’s the right way. We are getting closer to our destination for the first day: Dusseldorf. At 3:20 am we stumble into the hotel and goes directly to sleep.

Tell me about your trip to Tangocamp! Please comment.

Day 0 Sunday

Pino picked me up at Stockholm central station and I test drove the minibus to Pino’s and Natalie’s house. The minibus is the one that is going to take us in the crew around all of Europe. It was really nice to drive it.

Back at Pino’s house we packed stuff into the minibus and later on while I was installing some software , Pino and Natalie was busy checking all the participants registrations and putting them into their proper groups. Quite a complex task.

In order to be fresh for the first day of the ride I retired myself at 00:30 but they stayed up until 03:00.

How late do you stay up the night before going to Tangocamp? Please comment.