While we were in Kutna Hora Matthew asked if we had decided on our route home. Our plan - drive towards Ceske Krumlov then back home through the middle of Bavaria, mainly retracing our steps but with one small detour. I explained that I was hankering to take a look at the Danube, partly out of simple curiosity, but also I had decided I needed to pay my respects to my Yanmaya forebears.
Civilisation arrived in Europe through a series of migrations from the near east, in the south spreading across the Mediterranean from Anatolia and the fertile crescent and to the north from the Eurasian steppes. The Danube valley was a crucial northern conduit, particularly in the late Neolithic period when metallurgy was introduced into the West during the so-called 'copper age'. The Yanmaya people were critical to this development. We all learned about them in primary school as 'the Beaker People' so called because of their characteristically beaker shaped pottery.
A few years ago Matthew and Sarah bought me a genetic test as a Christmas present. On the face of it didn't reveal any big surprises. I may be English by birth, but genetically I am pre-ordinately of Scottish and Irish extraction. However there were intriguing details. My paternal profile included relatively rare genetic trace associated with people who lived on the Atlantic fringes of Europe in the pre-Celtic era. My paternal grandmother, Elizabeth McLeod was born in Caithness. However, her father haled from the Isle of Harris, as her surname indicates. She died before I was born and my Dad did not speak about her much, but he did mention she could speak some Gaelic. From this it would be reasonable to regard her as having a Celtic heritage, but that is not quite the whole story. Though she may have spoken a Celtic language what her genes revealed is that her forbears predated the arrival of the Celts. My grandmother's ancestors were already living in the Western Isles when the first Celtic people migrated there over 2000 years ago.
My maternal line revealed even older roots. My mother carried a gene shared by fewer than 3% of people in Western Europe. However, it is commonplace in northern Iraq, northeastern Turkey and Iran. It reveals a present day link to the westward migration of Yamaya peoples between 3000 - 2000 BCE. As the MP Jo Cox famously asserted, "We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us". What genetics reveals is the notion of common humanity is not some kind of left-leaning sociological aspiration but rooted in biological fact. So my desire to view the Danube was a nod towards a common Indo-European heritage and a moment to remember my mother who gifted me some steppe people's genes.
Matthew made the point that we must have crossed the Danube in 2000 when we drove to Croatia via Germany and Austria. I can't fault his logic, but I have no recollection of the river whatsoever. It raises the question can you claim to have experienced something if you can't remember it?
In truth, faced with plotting a route homewards there were also more practical matters on our mind than the history of human migration in Europe. We were still trapped in the middle of a heatwave with temperatures in the upper thirties across Germany and France. Meteo France hinted at the possibility of slightly cooler conditions on the Channel coast in four days time. In sweltering temperatures the coolest place is in the cab with the Aircon on max. Driving is a lot more comfortable than being parked in a stellplatz without shade. So we planned to get from the southern Bohemia to a campsite near Dieppe with three stops, then stay there for four nights until it was time to catch the ferry home.
The quickest way from Camping Olsina to the motorway was to head south towards Linz in Austria. That wasn't really an option as it required an Austrian motorway pass. The alternative was more picturesque, northwest on smaller roads through the forested hills that form the old border between Bohemia and Bavaria.
It looked all a bit Hansel and Gretel with ancient villages nestled in forested valleys and lonely cottages deep in the woods which might we well have once harboured a kindly seeming crone with murderous intent.
As we approached Passau we hit a busier dual carriageway. There are lots of roadworks on German autobahns and sometimes the signage is ambiguous. We missed the Passau bypass and ended up on a road running along the northern bank of the Danube.
The ancient centre was on the opposite bank, very grand and Baroque looking as befits one of Central Europe's most historic small cities.
The road followed the Danube for a few kilometres. It definitely looks like a river that fully deserves 'mighty' as a prefix, having served as a major east/west conduit for people and goods for millennia. And it still does, enormous cargo barges and even larger river cruise boats plying its languid waters.
We took the '3' autobahn northwest towards Nuremberg, the road follows the Danube valley but you rarely get a glimpse of it, apart from the couple of times it crosses the river on a tall concrete viaduct. Given the heat we decided that my somewhat romantic notion of finding a stellplatz by the Danube actually made no sense whatsoever and what we really needed to do was to press on as far as possible enabling us to cross southern Germany with just one stop.
The north of Bavaria around Nuremberg used to form a part of the ancient kingdom of Frankonia - a separate Germanic tribe who moved westward during the dark ages settling among other places in the north of France - hence its name. Frankonia still has a distinctive dialect and local culture, but given the lack of Stellplatz in the countryside west of Nuremberg, it doesn't seem to attract many visitors.
The stellplatz at Wolframs Eschenbach maybe an attempt to attract more people to the area. It is well designed with a contactless pay point. There is a cycle path connecting the village to some leisure lakes to the south and information boards about birdwatching. All we wanted was somewhere to stay, anyway any desire to sightsee would have been curtailed by the arrival of thundery showers that had been threatening all day.
Next day we drove 350kms from Wolframs- Eschenbach to the Campingcar Park in Saint Avold in France. Each European motorway network presents unique challenges. In Germany, away from conurbations, long stretches remain as dual carriageways.
This, combined with the fact that not all autobahns have an upper speed limit, makes driving on them a peculiar experience. The inner lane is often occupied by an endless convoy of trucks with their satnav's set to 90kph. The second lane is owned by rocket propelled Mercedes. I opted to trundle along with the trucks, it makes for a very tedious drive. It feels safe enough until you hit roadworks with contraflows and there are many.
Here the lanes are narrower than in the UK and separated by concrete barriers. Usually I'm not phased by being in a right hand drive vehicle in Europe, I drive more miles per annum in Europe than I do at home. Most of the time driving on busy autobahns is much less eventful than navigating the M25 or M1. however the traffic management around roadworks is stressful and unavoidable, some autobahns are almost 90 years old and many are being upgraded.
We made it from the Czech Republic to Haut Normandy with only three overnight stops, using Campingcar Park Aires in France which we booked on-line using their app.
We were pleased to reach the campsite near Dieppe where we could chill-out, both literally and figuratively, for the next few days before our ferry.
Our plan - to find a campsite close to the Avenue Vert cycleway. We have stayed at two previously - Camping Sainte-Claire at Neufchatel-en-Bray and Camping Des 2 Rivières near Arques-la-Bataille. Each has its charms and both have minor irritations. The first has a beautiful garden-like ambiance but is a tad prissy and over-managed, the second is centred on a big fishing lake and surrounded by lovely wooded chalk downs, however the facilities are quite old. We opted for the latter, but ended up on a small, uneven, very shady pitch and spent the next few days grumbling about the site's minor inconveniences.
However it was good to stop. The weather remained very hot, but not intolerably so, and nights were more comfortable with temperatures dropping into the mid-teens. We managed to get out on the Avenue Vert twice, a couple of 20km rides which seemed quite enough in the heat of the afternoon.
The old railway follows the valley of the Bethune. One of the loveliest things about France is its bucolic river valleys, some epic like the Dordogne or Lot, others more modest in scale, like the Bethune, but idyllic all the same.
In the stillness of the first days of July the landscape is hauntingly beautiful. More so because the trail was quiet, it's peacefulness only momentarily broken by the brief appearance of mini-peletons of lycra clad men - the Tour de France had kicked-off that morning. The moment is marked nationally by every male with a road bike in the country cosplaying the event in day-glo solidarity. Mass parallel participation doesn't guarantee national success, the last time a Frenchman won the Tour de France was in 1986.
Otherwise we just mooched about. The campsite has commercial size washing machines, so we laundered our bed linen and towels, saving us a job when we got home.
A nearby food truck on the Via Verde sells crepes and coffee to passing cyclists. We decided to have lunch there. The crepes were by far the worst we have ever eaten.
France still has Sunday trading laws. Shops shut around 1.00pm. So we exited the campsite mid-morning, bought some things in the Auchun on the outskirts of Dieppe, then parked in the aire next to the ferry port to wait for boarding in the mid-afternoon.
Whenever we use a cross channel ferry we send telepathic messages of sympathy to the poor sod who gets randomly checked at customs. This time it was our turn, except it was security, not customs that decided to pounce on us. Ever since Brexit physical checks of the van have ramped up, what was once a desultory glance around checking for migrants has become an in-depth scrutiny of the van's nooks and crannies searching for goodness knows what.
At least the people this time were not carrying machine guns. However they pounced upon the small blue Camping Gaz cylinder in the rear garage which we use with our Cadac BBQ and two ring stove. We were directed to a building to the side where a senior gruppenfuhrer claimed we were unable to board as regulations did not allow the carriage loose LPG cylinders and we must return to Dieppe to dispose of the item safely at an approved Camping Gaz outlet.
Gill is impressive in these circumstances, firstly enquiring how we might do that on a Sunday afternoon, then handing the cylinder to 'Monsieur l' Emploi-Valeur' - pointing out that the cylinder was almost empty anyway and presented little risk. After a bit more ritualised bureaucratic harassment the safety officer relented and said he would allow aboard 'on this occasion'.
We concluded that the French border officials must have a harassment quota to maintain and we just happened to fall victim to it. We have carried Camping Gaz cylinders of all kinds over the Channel for almost half a century, small disposable ones in Karrimore panniers on the back of our touring bikes in the 1980s, bigger ones stashed in the boot the car over two decades 'camping with the kids' and in our motorhome garage since 2013. Nobody has ever questioned it, and in fact when I checked later DFDS regulations specifically state that Motorhomes and Caravans can carry up to three GPL cylinders with to a total weight of 47kg and refillable gas systems such as Alugaz or Gaslow are regarded as 'integral equipment' so are not covered by the limit. In the end I think the experience was simply an example of post-Brexit harassment.
It's a four hour crossing from Dieppe to Newhaven. We departed at 6pm, but the time difference meant it was 9pm. BST when we docked. As usual we headed straight to the car park by the dock gates. It's not particularly big and used as a staff car park by the port workers, but so far we've always managed to find a place to stay overnight. The area is next to the port's lorry park, so it's not the most peaceful place to sleep. This time the potential for a broken night's sleep was ramped up by the fact the England were playing Mexico in the World Cup. The kick-off was at 3am. and pubs had been given special dispensation to open until five in the morning. How rowdy might it get?
Very, we suspected ten minutes after we had turned- in. A group of lads waiting at Newhaven station, a few yards away, decided to amuse themselves by throwing things at some metal object - maybe bricks at a skip we suspected. This was accompanied by a lot of yelling and screaming and the sound of breaking glass. We probably use motorhome parking places instead of campsites about 20% of the time, mostly it feels safe enough, but occasionally you can feel vulnerable. Only once have we felt truly worried about our personal safety and that was in Bantry in Ireland. Happily the small mob at the station caught the last train and the rest of the night passed without incident apart from trucks revving in the small hours. We woke to the news that England had beaten Mexico in a close match and consoled ourselves with the thought that we were probably feeling much perkier than the people who had stayed-up to witness the victory live.
Still, we had a long drive ahead of us. Plenty of time to moan about the disfunctional state of service areas on the M1, the intensity of the traffic and needlessly aggressive driving. Welcome home! And we were welcomed home because Sarah, Rob and Nico had arrived a few hours earlier, planning to stay for a week in Buxton to see the carnival.
The weather was fabulous and it was great not to descend into a post trip slump, with just the pair of us rattling around a four bedroomed house.
My usual antidote to a post trip slump is to book a ferry for the next one. That's not possible at the moment. Next week I'm booked-in ror a small op as a day case. The result of the biopsy might be consequential or not, but until I get the results we can't really make firm plans for the autumn. If we are good to go the plan is to do something fairly straightforward - a trip to the Languedoc, Catalonia, Rioja and the Basque Country maybe - we shall see.