Sadly our mission to embrace the delights of Belgium got off to a somewhat shaky start. What we discovered is that Belgian road repairers have a habit of simply closing-off roads without prior warning so we found ourselves following signs for our destination, Spa, but on exiting the motorway the only way open to us was in the opposite direction. After following a picturesque narrow lane for five kilometres or so, I finally found a junction big enough to do a U turn, and headed back towards where we should have been going in the first place. This route took right past Francochamps, the Belgian F1 circuit - an odd area of down-market hotels called things like 'Pitstop' and 'Chequered Flag'. The next challenge was a large sign hanging across the main road into Spa. It said 2.7m in large friendly letters in a nice big red circle. Since Maisy is 3.1 metres tall we would not be going that way. So, about turn, and we merrily trundled back to the motorway, past the road works which stymied us to begin with, up one stop to the west of Spa and reset to Satnav to the campsite coordinates.
We did arrive eventually, after wandering our way down single track roads, through villages, each one attempting to outdo the next in extreme traffic calming measures. Camping Parc de La Source is OK, like most more out of the way places, mainly statics with a fee touring pitches. The guy on reception was proud of his hard standing pitches for motorhomes. These must have been designed when a Bedford Dormabile was the apogee of luxury, as the tarmac patch was about 5 metres long. The only way Maisy could squeeze on without her rear end jutting into the road was diagonally.
The up-side to the place is its in a nice wooded area on the outskirts of Spa and the lane accessible from the rear of the site leads down into town - a mile or so - using quiet roads. So, we headed into Spa to see what Belgium's most famous watering place had to offer.
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