Coming home

On Sunday 17th June we stayed at Kerry and Gareth's place and on Monday 18th we left for home.

Round the M25 and down the A303.

By Stonehenge.

Up onto Dartmoor.

And home.

Now I'll be turning my attention to working out how to mow the lawn.

For those of you who are interested, here is a brief summary of the trip as a whole:

Countries visited: France (twice), Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria (at least twice), Germany (at least twice), Luxembourg and Belgium.

Ferries used:

Dover (Britain) to Calais (France) 4th April.
Train through Simplon Tunnel from Switzerland to Italy 11th April
Strait of Messina from mainland Italy to Sicily 24th April
Strait of Messina from Sicily to mainland Italy 30th April
Bari (Italy) to Patras (Greece) 6th/7th May
Dunkerque (France) to Dover (Britain) 16th June

Duration of journey:

Monday 2nd April to Monday 18th June in all 78 days

Distance travelled excluding ferries:

7563 miles (12176 kilometres)

Many thanks to all of you who looked at this blog. Bye for now. Roger.

From Germany through Luxembourg, Belgium and into France - then back to England

On Thursday 14th June we continued west up the Mosel valley and soon crossed into Luxembourg.

We stopped for a while in the Luxembourg town of Ecternach which has some interesting old buildings.

Luxembourg is not a big country and we quite quickly got through it and into Belgium where we stopped for the night at the village of Herbenmont where we explored this ruined castle.

The aire at Herbenmont.

On Friday 15th June the weather was really nasty - high winds and more or less continuous heavy rain so we went quickly on motorways through the rest of Belgium and into France where we parked for the night at Dunkerque Car Ferry terminal. It cleared up a bit then and we had this sunset to look at as well as the Sweden v England match on TV.

Today Saturday 16th June we got a ferry from Dunkirk to Dover. While waiting to get on we chatted to these vanners from near London who had been down to Annecy for a week or so.

We soon got to Dover and went over to Ann's daughter Kerry's place in Kent. It's Kerry's birthday today so she, her partner Gareth and their son Henry were out for lunch when we arrived but Kerry had kindly left a craftily concealed key to the house for us so we quickly helped ourselves to their hospitality.

Gareth has quite a few animals. As well as the chickens and pigs we already knew about her seems to have acquired these four sheep.

Gareth also has a dog named Wilf who is always wanting to play ball. They also have a cat whose name I forget.

Germany

On Thursday 7th June we moved across the border from Austria to Germany and stayed at the village of Bolderswang where we went for a walk in the fields and woods.

Here's a view back to where we were parked from high up in the woods.

Friday 8th June was a vile wet day. We intended to stay by the Bodensee (Lake Constanz) but it was so wet and windy that we moved on to Donaueschin just south of the Black Forest.

On Saturday 9th June we moved north into the Black Forest and stayed in a layby on the "scwarzwaldhochstrasse" (High Black Forest Road) where we had this incredible view from our van.

Continueing north through the Black Forest on Sunday 10th June we got this great view west into the Rhine Valley in France with the city of Strasbourg clearly visible in the distance.

We crossed the Rhine at Karlsruhe and spent the night at the town of Kandal.

The aire at Kandal.

On Monday 11th June we moved on to Rockenhausen where we were greeted by more torrential downpours.

On Tuesday 12th June we moved on to Bacharach on the Rhine between Mainz and Koblenz. It rained almost continuously all day and night. The Rhine here flows through a deep gorge with a railway and road on each side and large boats continually going up and down.

Today Wednesday 13th June was particularly nasty weather wise. It rained heavily all day. We continued down the Rhine to Koblenz and then went up the Mosel as far as Neumagon-Dhon, close to the border with Luxembourg, where we are staying the night. We passed through enormous vinyards the whole way streching up both sides of the Mosel Valley

A bit more Austria

On Wednesday 6th June we continued westwards through Austria with spectacular mountain views. We spent the night in a ski lift car park west of St Anton at about 1700 metres above sea level. There was still quite a lot sof snow about at that level.

There is not enough upload speed here to load any more photos so I'm going to give up for now. Apologies.

More Slovakia, a bit of Czech, Austria, Germany and more Austria

On Thursday 31st May we drove west along the southern side of the High Tatras and got some good views at last!

Later that day we visited Ovransky Castle - very impressive indeed. We spent the night in the castle car park.

On Friday 1st June the weather was very wet so we came quite a long way - west through Slovakia, then north briefly into the Czech Republic and finallly into north east Austria where we found this really beautiful parking spot by a lake at Bernhordstal where the sun finally came out before it got dark and we settled down for the night.

 On Saturday 2nd June we continued west through Austria to Eggenburg which is a nice little town with walls and this interesting town square. There was supposed to be a motocycle museum here but we couldn't find it.

We did however see this very nice 1950's Beemer parked in town!

We stayed the night on the Eggenburg Municipal Aire which was very well equipped for vans.

On Sunday 3rd June we travelled west to the Danube at Brandstatt where we parked for the night. The river is very wide here and flowing very fast with many large boats passing.

Like this one. Sorry for the blurred photo - poor light!

On Monday 4th June we moved over the border into Germany, to Berchtesgaden (where Hitler used to have his holiday cottage). It was another very wet day and we didn't see too much of the mountains.

We went for a walk in the wild, wet woods.

Today Tuesday 5th June was much better weather - we could see the mountains and we travelled south west back into Austria.

Tonight we are staying at the municipal aire at the town of Schwaz just east of Innsbruck. Very nice alpine town as you'll see from this street scene.