In 2014 we swapped a working life for a travelling one. Since then we have travelled in Europe by motorhome for around five months each year. This is our story.
The flakiest croissants ever having been duly scoffed, the local aire de camping car having been visited and Maisy fed and watered, Gill having bruised her thumb on the spring-loaded white water hose,to add to the catalogue of minor injury she has sustained since leaving dear old Blighty - we were now ready to head home.
Jaulny has a great Aire de Camping next to the Salle de Reunion - one to mark for the future.
As Gill filled up the water tank I wandered off to photograph the river Mad
The original plan had been to camp just north of Reims, but we just decided to head west and wait to see how far we got. The rolling wheat fields full of combines and attendant tractors gathering in the harvest seemed to last forever.
La Champagne - not the most visually exciting region of France!
We made steady progress along the 'N' roads but every four or five miles we had to slow to 30 kph as we crawled through village after village, each looking the same, one long street of drab shuttered houses with not a soul to be seen. I tried to characterise each one just to relieve the boredom: St Martin of the giant white silo, Ste Marie of the suicidal black cat, Les Champs de rusty locomotive, La Tour de lampposts rouge, La Grange de la bone shaking speed bumps......On and on we went.
Even though it was Sunday the Reims one way system was horrible and the drivers aggressive and inconsiderate. We thew in the towel just west of Soisson and found ourselves a lovely small campsite with big pitches and a lively duck pond. I don't actually remember too much of the evening. I was really tired; Gill and I reclined the folding chairs to watch the stars come out, by the time Venus had appeared followed by one or two others I went in and fell asleep straightaway.
Big pitches
The duck pond
Simple food, nice wine, evening sunshine - the joys of travel!
Next day, our final day in France, we stopped at St Valery sur Somme. We've visited the pretty little harbour town many times, either as a final stop-off on longer trips, or a nice place for lunch if we are making a short winter break to Pas de Calais to stock up on some decent wine. The little Breton style Creperie is a particular favorite of ours.
The Somme estuary
St Valery
The riverside promenade, St Valery
Creperie Sel et Sucre, St Valery, best crepes outside of Brittany?
Evening sunlight on the old convent buildings
This time though it was not quite the same. Firstly, we did not realise just how crowded and trippery the place got in August. In the past we've stayed at the campsite at Chateau de Drancourt in some woods a couple of miles out of town. With Maisy to park we decided to use Camping Walric on the edge of town so we could walk into the centre and have a meal. At 34 Euros per night you might expect a bit of quality, but the place was poor, the facilities tired and none too clean. It was noisy and very much the preserve of extended French families en vacance, which is fair enough of course, but not what we wanted. Laura was not happy either and really fed up with the long days travelling. In retrospect we should have planned some days towards the end of the trip which would have appealed more to an 18 year old. Maybe a city visit. It's easy to be wise after the event, but as novice motorhomers we did not even know what was feasible as a daily journey and it was only part way through the trip where I got somewhere close to the level of confidence I have driving a car abroad, though maybe Maisy and I are not quite ready just yet to negotiate the Naples inner ring road at rush hour. Next year perhaps.
Today we spent shopping in Boulogne Auchan and Cite Europe before crossing to Dover later in the afternoon. Tonight we're parked up on the motorhome area next to Canterbury, New Dover Road Park and Ride. At £3.00 for 24 hrs and unlimited bus trips into the city it's great value. Though the free Park and Ride bus stops running at 7.30pm service buses no.16 and 17 continue later, so we' just popped into the centre to eat at Wagamama.
Where all trips to Europe conclude - the ferry queue at Calais
Wagamamas Canterbury
Christ Church Gatehouse and the old Butter Market
This modern statue was placed here in 1937. The original was destroyed in the Civil War
Playwright, spy, atheist or closet catholic - the mysterious Christopher Marlowe
Wagamamas - after all this recent Teutonic stuff some good old fashioned British multi-cultural fusion was oddly reassuring. No way can Britain compete with the kind of economic miracle the Germans have created. The vibrancy and cultural ferment that you get in Britain happens precisely because there is no consensus or cohesion. Irreconcilable angst, national self doubt and warring tribalism maybe destined to become our most endearing characteristics. Judging by the acreage of tatooed, but sun tanned flesh on show by returning Brits on the ferry I wonder how much have we actually progressed since Caesar's legions surveyed the welcome committee of woad daubed natives waving spears from the cliff tops in 55BC.
Its been a fascinating trip. Much to think about and absorb. Maybe when I get home tomorrow I'll be able to draw together some concluding thoughts. Right now my priority is helping Gill polish off the Cotes du Roussillon that we cracked open last night.
Welcome back
Maisy amongst the big boys at Donnington Services - almost home.
Next day was Saturday. With our ferry booked for Tuesday and Maisy's somewhat matronly turn of speed we decided sadly that we' d have to leave Germany and head back to France. Over coffee we pored over our road maps and camp site books. The choice was to head up the free German motorways towards Luxembourg or cut back across Alsace and Lorraine on Route Nationale retracing our outward journey, but thirty miles or so to the north. We opted for the latter route and in the end that proved to be a good choice. It was a slow start though. Our plan had been to drop into Horb am Neckar which reputedly is just as picturesque as Rottenburg. Indeed it is, situated in a narrow, wooded part of the Neckar valley its colourful old houses clustering around an old abbey church are reflected prettily in the slow flowing river.
Parking Maisy proved impossible, the town's car parks are divided by low railway bridges which made most of them inaccessible. In order to escape the maze I had to drive 50 yards up a one way street the wrong way. There was no one about, and playing the stupid foreigner, a role that I am naturally cut out for anyway, helps you get out of most tight corners. So we ended up admiring Horb from afar from the car park of a retail area across the river and eating brunch in a fast food 'bakerie'.
As near as we got to Horb
Good pie!
Once you climb out of the steep sided Neckar valley the countryside of this part of Baden Wurttenburg is a rolling plateau of forest and farmland which becomes steadily more wooded as you approach the northern edge of the Black Forest. Perched high up on the plateau is the town of Freudenstadt. It looks stately and certainly worthwhile spending an hour or two wandering around. We needed to press on so drove straight through. Another time we promised ourselves.
Just beyond the town the road forks; Muriel said go right, the map told us the most direct road to the Rhine Valley was the left hand turn. There were lots of signs warning of a steep descent but we took it anyway.
I'm glad we did. The road snaked down the western side of the Black Forest in a series of looping hairpin bends. Near the summit the trees were uniformly tall dark conifers; occasionally as you rounded a bend the thick curtain of trees would thin and you would glimpse a vista of forested hills stretching out into the hazy distance. Soon the forest changed and birches mixed with the firs. We passed through geranium decked villages straight out of Hansel and Gretel. As we reached the foothills the villages became more sedate, each housing large late Nineteenth Century Spas advertising all kinds of treatments. In no time at all we had reached the Rhine valley passing through a series of rich looking but workaday wine villages. As we approached the river crossing the area became more industrialised, lots of shiny new electronic factories, modern and stylish, each trying to out-Bauhaus the next. The river arrived, we crossed over a series of huge sluice gates and barrages and passed a big hydro electric plant. No Lorelei here! A tiny rusting sign read 'Alsace Lorraine' the verges immediately become more litter strewn and with no ado whatsoever you realised you had entered France.
Skirting Strasbourg, we still had some distance to travel. The Northern part of Alsace and Lorraine is much more attractive when viewed sedately from a Route Nationale rather than on previous visits to this part of France bowling along the Autoroute at 90mph eager to reach Italy as soon as possible.
We had identified a campsite at Jaulny, Southeast of Metz as a stop-off, one of the few in an area characterised by bland agro-business villages and down at heel, declining small industrial towns. We had lots of fun spotting signs as the area we were staying in was the valley of the river 'Mad'. I 'm sure the local primary school offers a wonderful education, but any English incomers would think twice before sending sending little Estelle and Imogen to l'Eole de Val Du Mad!
Camping Jaulny
The campsite, when we finally did find it, negotiating some dodgy low railway bridges and narrow wooden single track bridges across The Mad, was beautifully situated amongst wooded hills.
Indeed it would have been idyllic but for the proximity on TGV Est less than half a mile away. Every ten minutes peace was shattered by the jumbo jet roar which announced the arrival of yet another train, which moments later streaked through the trees, a blue, arrow-like blur. Thankfully the TGV does not seem to run at night. We woke next day to sunshine and the flakiest scrummy croissants I've tasted in a long while. Vive la difference!
As we packed up to leave Camping Zugspitz the weather closed in. The surrounding mountains were wreathed by low cloud. We abandoned our planned route via Garmish Partenkirken since the views promised by the green lines on the road in the map atlas would be hidden in mist. Instead we headed back to Fussen to restock at Aldi and empty the waste water at the next door stelplatz. By this time the drizzle had become a steady downpour. Half an hour later in the petrol station on the autobahn, the rain was now so heavy that people were sprinting from pumps to cash desk like Usain Bolt.
Gill switched on data roaming on her phone so we could see a weather forecast. It did not look promising. Our planned destination, the ancient university city of Ulm, was forecast for heavy rain but west of Stuttgart looked more promising,
We drove towards Tubingen. It was bigger than we thought and the outskirts quite industrialised, though we knew the centre itself was ancient and hosts one of the most renowned universities in the country whose alumni included Goethe. You would have thought somewhere like this would be cosmopolitan, but as we drove through the sight of a British motorhome turned quite a few heads and drivers gave us a nod and a wave. The fact that Gill was sitting on the left but not driving a lady bus passenger found utterly hilarious. She laughed and waved and generally made silly gestures to mime 'where's your steering wheel?'
We decided to drive on and stayed in a stelplatz a few miles south at Rottenburg am Neckar. At only 5 euros per night it was a real bargain. We soon parked up, unhitched our bikes and rode the mile or so into town.
The centre is old with many bright painted ancient buildings and nice squares. It's not a prettified tourist trap like its more famous namesake on the Tauber. This Rottenburg was a vibrant lively place. It had lots of modern sculpture dotted around, I was not certain if they were permanent features or part of a summer exhibition.
We stopped for a coffee at an Italian cafe hoping we 'd get a cappucino that would pass the Gill test. It did, she recorded the fact for posterity.
The waitress was quite chatty and proud to show off her excellent English 'Why are lots of women wearing sunflowers in their hair and dressed up like hippies?' Gill enquired. The girl explained that a local composer was holding an open air concert tonight and sunflowers were on the town's heraldic shield, so had asked all the women to dress up like this. We cycled over to see the stage. This was not some amateur affair, but a black fully rigged outdoor stage the size of one of the smaller ones you see at Glastonbury. The town was buzzing with anticipation. We left them to their sunflower moment and returned to the van. It was great to see a town using its streets like that and everybody joining in so enthusiastically.
Part of our work escape plan has always involved buying both of us an e-bike. Back in the day, before the children were born we did a lot of cycle camping and we still have two top end touring bikes, now in need of a total rebuild, slowly rusting in the garage back home. The last time we did any serious cycling was almost thirty years ago. Being realistic there is no way we will get back to the either the weight or fitness of our twentysomething selves. The answer - electric bikes- which have the advantage of assisting the portly uphill. Well that's the theory, but since neither of us has actually used one this could be an expensive stab in the dark.
Camping Zugpitz rented e-bikes for a very reasonable price. So here was our opportunity to see how our plan might work out in practice. It did not take too long to grasp how to synchronise the boost you got from the electric motor with the seven speed gears to make the the best progress with the least effort. We did experience a couple of problems though.
The e-bike experiment
It took us half of the four hour hire period to work out that Gill's bike had a big frame with seat at minimum height whereas my bike had a small frame with the seat stem set at maximum. That was Ok for me but Gill wobbled along precariously as If perched on a penny farthing. It was only after falling in a heap right in front of a chap innocently walking his miniature terrier that we came up with the solution of swapping bikes. Judging from the traumatised reaction of the small pooch I assume the distressed owner is right now checking the small print of his pet insurance to ascertain if it covers canine psychological support services.
Another alarming aspect of e-bikes is their capacity to pick up speed going down hill due to the additional weight of the battery, motor and other additional gubbins. Gill and I know the perils of this of old from our days of riding fast touring bikes fully laden with camping gear, but Laura was unaware of the risk and had to be discouraged from attempting to plummet down the three mile precipitous descent from the campsite to the village of Ehrwald on the valley floor. Once we had got used to the bikes we had good fun riding from Ehrwald to Lermoos along the bike track well away from the busy main road. We managed time for a quick lunch stop at one of the many restaurants and sat supping our goulash soup happily listening to Freddy belting out Bohemian Rhapsody. This seemed an appropriate accompaniment as at times being in Austria does have a 'Life on Mars' quality. Momentarily you sense you have woken up unexpectedly in 1974. No more so than in this particular restaurant where the decor in the corridor outside the toilets consisting of twee ceramic wheelbarrows containing garish silk flowers and the paintings on the wall featured a small boy fiddling with his fly and a little girl dressed up in mummy's best frock and high heeled shoes, not to mention the sage green bathroom fittings, all this served to remind you just how eccentric the Seventies were, at least in terms of decor, before we all became thoroughly brainwashed by Ikea.
Ehrwald and the Zugspitz
Nice bike, good hat....
The cycle track between Ehrwald and Lermoos
Now for the tricky bit, the long, steep ascent back to the campsite. Laura demonstrated just what short shrift an electric bike makes of even the steepest hill by zipping home in no time at all. We followed on behind not quite so zipful. I was about to mention to Gill that it seemed surprising that even during the early afternoon 'quiet time' foresters were still working in the woods when I realised what I had taken as the sound of a distant chain saw was in fact my dearest respiring. Add to this her loony toon level of perspiring, I did become worried that an imminent expiring was about to put the kibosh on our carefully made plans for retiring. Happily after a short rest she appeared to get a second wind and pulled away steadily as we slowly laboured up the slope.
Now being male there was no way I was going to accept that Gill was simply fitter than I was so I invented a complicated explanation involving the weight of my snazzy Fossil rucksack which looks really cool and outdoorish when slung laconically over one shoulder waiting to order brunch in The Boston Tea Party, but is utterly impractical in the actual outdoors. My theory was that cycling with this on my back was affecting my centre of balance and it was this rather than any incipient lack of stamina that was impeding my progress. A few minutes fiddling with fitting the rucksack to the top of my rear pannier rack and I had got my breath back without ever having to admit I'd become breathless in the first place.
'You OK?' Gill enquiried as I wobbled towards her as she waited by the campsite entrance. 'Great,' I assured her, then proceeded to tumble from the bike even more acrobatically than even she had . As the bike slipped from under me it fell sideways, its not inconsiderable weight concentrated at the end of the handlebar grip which bounced on the top of Gill's foot before hitting the ground. 'Ouch!' She said. 'Oops, sorry,' I replied. Gill seemed fine, and joined Laura for a swim when we arrived back at the van while I kept Maisy company and fiddled about with the blog.
By the time we went to eat at the hotel restaurant Gill was limping a little, by half way through our chicken curry and wok style vegetables (not very Tyrollean but yummy) Gill had loosened her sandal and was rummaging through her bag to check on her supply of of paracetamol. By the time we came to pay the bill her foot had swollen to the point where the sandal she had just removed would not fit back on. I provided a human crutch to enable her to hobble back to the van. Fellow diners must have been puzzled as to what could have occurred during the time it took to consume an innocuous chicken curry to reduce an apparently hale and hearty English woman to a condition needing the support of a Zimmer frame simply to exit the dining room.
My attempts at reception to get some first aid - at least a couple of more paracetamol and a 'tubigrip' - produced a an underwhelming response from our friendly frauleins. The best they could come up with was an Elastoplast. A little concerning for a resort which billed itself as 'activ'. Happily we found some more painkillers stashed in the van and by the next day the swelling and pain in Gill's foot had subsided somewhat.
Our verdict on the e-bikes? Well we both managed to ride up the side of an alpine valley; no way could we have done that on conventional mountain bikes. So yes they would make good companions to the motorhome so long as it is possible to recharge them using the van's limited electrics. A question for 'Motorhome Facts' when I get back home methinks
It's fair to say that now we were in a quandary about where to go next. The original plan to stay three nights around Bodensee, then four in the Fussen area had been somewhat screwed. Somehow I'd managed to pre-book only two nights in Camping Gohren am Bodensee, which left us hopping from one stelplatz to another. By the time we got back to the van after the Neuschwanstein visit it was early evening, the town was swimming in motorhomes all looking for a pitch. All three stelplatz were full, the campsite up the road was full, eventually we found a little stelplatz in the car park of a motorhome service company in Roßhaupten with a couple of places free.
A good option a few miles from Fussen if places there are full.
With elections pending I think Dr Wengert is in need of a new PR team!
Perhaps it's a two week treatment....
The storm was followed by the appearance of unusual mammatus clouds.
Very much parked up on asphalt in the middle of nowhere, but as the thunderstorm which threatened in Neuschwanstein arrived with all the noise and drama of a Wagnerian finale, we were simply happy having somewhere to put our heads down. In fact the facilities were excellent, and next to us the Swiss pastry chef who had learned her excellent English in Canada, was really friendly and helped us communicate with the place's owner about the whereabouts of the grey water sluice. My initial impression that the owner was none too bright was reinforced on discovering that they had situated the sluice so close to a geranium festooned balcony that a any van with an over cab bed, like Maisy, could not access the drain. She'd just have to cross her headlights and have a widdle later!
Sitting in the van with torrential rain drumming on the roof and strum und drang crashing all around us we chatted about options. Gill connected to the Internet on her phone and the forecast for Innsbruck looked much better than on the German side of the Alps so that decided it - Austria here we come. Where we eventually ended up was on a small place above Ehrwald on a campsite next to the cable car station for Zugspitz, the highest mountain in Germany. You might be thinking hikerish austerity here, but the opposite was the case. Situated within an upmarket Alpine resort, the campers could share all the beautifully designed spa and swimming pool facilities; the restaurant was excellent and the services run by the friendly, multilingual fräuleins in Tyrolean dress first class. Not cheap at 50 Euros per night but after the complications of the past few days we all felt the need for a bit of pampering.
Not your average campsite reception
Gill in the campsite shop with Tyrolean Fraulein at the till
The campsite restaurant - Laura chooses Wienerschnitzel
The bathroom facilities included an individual toilet, shower and dressing room suite.
The Bauhaus Badehaus, - well actually it was more Alvar Aalto really...
Within two hours of arriving Laura and I were standing 3000 metres up, admiring the view from the balcony of the cable car station at the top of Zugspitz. It is a spectacular prospect; you can see the peaks of four countries,Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. What looks like a tiny hut from below is in fact a four storey complex sprouting antennae and satellite dishes like something out of a Bond movie.
The Zugspitz cable car station
Looking towards Switzerland
Erewohl, from the summit
Oddly enough despite the technology I could not get a mobile signal!
The summit complex has a small exhibition charting the history of mountaineering on Zugspitz starting with the first recorded ascent by an Austrian army officer in 1820 through to the building of a cable car in 1926 and subsequent development to the point today where the gondolas now whisk 100 passengers at a time to the summit in less than eight minutes. We both had fun defying gravity by standing on the glass tiled floor suspended from over the sheer drop, took loads of photos then headed back down as the weather closed in. The temperature in the valley was 35 Celsius, on the summit less than 10 degrees. I was glad to have had the foresight to pack a light jacket.
Laura defies gravity
From below the mountain looks equally beautiful. Unlike the mountains surrounding it which have sharp, Matterhorn style peaks, Zugspitz is a massive lump of grey limestone topped by three small peaks resembling petrified wavelets.
Zugspitz from the campsite
The dream pitch
The dream view
It is the mountain's colour rather than shape which gives it beauty. The pale limestone is wrinkled like the hide of a white rhino. In the sunlight it shines with a translucent, pewter-grey brilliance. In gloomy weather the colours become dark and menacing. In the evening most of the mountain is overshadowed by its neighbours, so loses the sun quickly, its broad expanse darkening except for the highest peak which catches the sun' s last rays and takes on a rosy glow.
Zugspitz shining momentarily
moments later wreathed in cloud
Morning mist
Light and mountains, I could spend hours just watching clouds scud across them, it's fascinating and curiously calming like watching waves crashing ashore.
