The bits in-between - where next?

Our plan for next year's big trip is to head for the Peloponnese during October and November, fly home for Christmas, get back on the road in early February and tour around Southern Italy and Sicily. We are toying wth the idea of flying back at Easter, then driving the van home during May and early June. Family commitments mean we can't really be out of the country for more than 12 weeks or so, so the hopping back home every so often is a compromise. Thanks to easyJet and Ryanair the cost of flying from Southern Europe to Manchester is often considerably less than our children pay to get the train home from London.

So far I've come up with a plan to speed us to Greece by mid October in order to get some warm autumn sunshine and a chance to swim in the Med without the need of a trisuit. This involves using the Ancona Ferry to Patras rather than the shorter Brindisi route which will save a couple of days travelling, and almost 400 miles of diesel which almost pays for the additional cost of the longer sea crossing.

Plan A...

So, one of the ways I keep myself sane in-between trips is to plan the next one - this is not a result of owning a motorhome, I have always travelled in my head, even when my feet were firmly  stuck under a desk.

The first 'big trip' that Gill and I ever planned was an extended cycle tour around Brittany and Belle Isle back in 1982. When we were students we were always too skint to travel for any length of time. Afterwards, in my mid-twenties, I worked in various dead-end office jobs, and though Gill had a six week summer break as a teacher, I was limited to two weeks. When I was 27 I decided to train as a teacher too, so before start of the PGCE we were able to spend six weeks cycle camping in France. I remember buying IGN maps and carpeting the floor of our small flat in Manchester with them - the sheets joined-up so the entire living room was taken up with a giant image of  Western France. I carefully annotated each one with details of campsites from the Michelin Guide.

Belle Isle, August 1982

Seville, March 2015 - mystery...where did the intervening 33 years go?

Even in these days of Apps and Google maps, I still enjoy annotating printed maps with places to stay and points of interest. I spent hours transferring information from the ACSI book and Camperstops into our Italian road atlas. Even better! When the Freytag & Berndt map of the Peloponnese arrived from Amazon I was delighted to find the large scale map covered both sides of a giant fold-out sheet. I soon had it spread across the dining room floor and was marking it up with ACSI sites and wild camping spots gleaned from Peejays Greek stopovers and Camperstops. Somehow, for all their advantages of scaleability, streetview and POIs, I still can't get as excited about Google Maps as I do over a printed map. A well designed map is a thing of beauty as well as utility. Maybe I am just the wrong generation to appreciate the beauty of an App. For me, they never progress beyond the utilitarian. I use them, but  can't say I am fond of them.

The Peloponnese map - too big for the table - excellent!

So, a few plans in hand, but still ferries to book, flights to arrange, storage to sort - and the van is still in Lincoln being repaired. But in four days time it will be August, then we will be able to say, "We're headed for Greece next month." That sounds great, especially as the temperature here right now is a miserable 13 degrees and it's tipping down, of course it is, it's the first Monday of the school holidays. Someone pasted this on my Facebook timeline this morning. I can sympathise....