Kerry and Gareth have these two photographs on the wall of their new dining room. One is of Kerry when she was about nine and the other is of her son Henry taken many years later when he was about nine. Which is which do you think?

Many thanks to Gareth and Kerry for the excellent hospitality. Today we completed our journey by going back to our house in Devon. We got this nice view of Stonehenge on our way down the A303. I think we got back just in time as it's starting to snow here this evening.

Our journey from our house at Widecombe to the southernmost tip of mainland Italy and back lasted 62 days and we travelled 5240 miles (8436 kilometres) excluding the ferry crossings from Poole to Cherbourg and Dunkerque to Dover.

We have been able to post much more often than on previous trips by using a data sim rather than relying on wifi. Our sim provided by the Three network is quite economical to use at £15 for 3Gb and is useable in most European countries.

Many thanks to everyone who has taken an interest in our travels.

Best wishes, Roger.

On Friday 30th January the wind of the day before had gone down at Dunkerque. We were the only camper van waiting for the 12.00 departure to Dover.

We left Dunkerque and soon the cliffs of Dover came into sight.

After arriving in Dover we went to stay at Ann's daughter Kerry's house in Kent. Kerry and her partner Gareth have just completed a very impressive new kitchen and dining room by building an extension to their house. Here's Ann trying it out.

Kerry lives next to a very large free range chicken farm which makes a good walking venue.

This morning the weather wasn't much better - raining and blowing a gale. However Laon is a right on town - this sign next to the city walls reads - no parking except for camper vans!

We set off north west and soon passed the city of St Quentin - seen here with its fine cathedral.

We journeyed through the Valley of the Somme - the scene of a a first world war battle in which tens of thousands needlessly lost their lives - sent to their deaths by failed politicians. The landscape was littered by cemeteries, containing the graves of countless war dead, which we could not bear to visit or photograph.

By mid afternoon we arrived at today's destination - Dunkerque Ferry Terminal.

We have been here so many times that it feels like home from home.

The French and the British fly their flags here and their agents diligently search all the vehicles for "illegal immigrants" presumably on Prime Minister Cameron's orders to try to shore up his prospects and ward off the UKIP threat in the forthcoming General Election.

Is is quite interesting here - watching the ferries come and go, unloading and then loading many huge trucks together with a handful of cars and at this time of year very few camper vans. It's very wet and windy this evening.

As we were having breakfast at our parking place next to the Marne-Saone Canal this morning we saw this Great White Egret on the other side of the canal. We saw this same species of bird at Equi Terme in Tuscany on 22nd December and erroneously referred to it as a White Heron. Many thanks to Tony Marchese for putting us right as to its identity.

Our overnight parking place at Joinville is really very nice with facilities for camper vans and for boats on the Canal.

We travelled north west through St Dizier and Reims (seen here with its famous two towered Cathedral) and on to Laon where we had visited previously in April 2012 (see blog archive if you're interested).

Laon is set high on an isolated hill, with plains all around, offering magnificent views. Today however it is blowing a gale and pouring with rain and the low cloud is blotting out the views. We are parked overnight in the same car park we stayed in in April 2012.

It had rained all afternoon the day before but when we got up on Tuesday 27th January Ann took a few pics. Our overnight stop at Besancon was pleasantly situated by the river Doubs.

However between us and the river was the tram line. The trams made a very strange noise as they went by - no engine noise at all - just the noise of the wheels on the rails.

We left Besancon and travelled north over the Plateau de Haute Saone mainly on minor roads passing through many small snowy villages.

The roads however were clear of snow all along the way.

We stopped at the village of Goncourt and had a wander round

Goncourt has this nice parking place by the river but we decided to move on.

We parked for the night next to the Marne-Saone Canal in the town of Joinville between Chaumont and St Dizier.

It was a very cold night at our parking place near Brig in the Rhone Valley. Before turning the heating on in our camper van this morning it was 0 degrees C inside the vehicle! You know what they say about red sky in the morning! It was time to move on.

We followed the Rhone Valley west to Martigny. All the time the sky was becoming darker and more threatening. This is a major wine producing area with vines growing on every possible ledge on the south facing side of the valley.

At Martigny the Rhone Valley turns northwards and flows into Lake Geneva near to the town of Montreaux. We stopped by this lakeside castle for a cup of tea. Snow flakes were starting to fall.

 
We followed the lake shore until we reached the city of Lausanne when  we turned northwards and crossed the border of Switzerland into France. By this time it was snowing very heavily but the roads had been cleared and we were able to make good progress through the Jura hills at altitudes of up to 1100 metres.

After what seemed a very long journey the road finally started going down hill and when we reached the City of Besancon which is at about 200 metres above sea level the snow turned to rain. We were very pleased in retrospect that we had pressed on yesterday and crossed the main chain of the Alps at the Simplon Pass as it would almost certainly have been impossible to cross if we had waited till today.

We are parked tonight in the aire at Besancon.

(In the unlikely event that we have any new readers - an aire is a dedicated parking area for camper vans which has facilities for taking on fresh water and disposing of waste water and sewage. Sometimes they have mains electricity supply. They are usually free to use but sometimes - particularly by the coast or in big cities - a small charge is levied.)

On Sunday 25th January we made a longish journey.  From Bergamo we began by travelling west, south of Lake Como, and then north up the west side of Lake Maggiore. Here's one of our views looking from the lakeside towards the Alps.

As the weather was nice we decided to press on before it changed and we crossed the Simplon pass into Switzerland. Very high (2000 metres), very snowy and very cold.

We stopped briefly at the top.

We descended through snowy pine forests down into the deep valley of the river Rhone near to the town of Brig. We stopped for the night a little further west at a small car park in the snow free valley bottom..

It was a lovely sunny morning at Peschiera del Garda. We took a walk along the lakeside.

There were great views over Lake Garda towards the Pre-Alps.

We moved on westwards to the city of Bergamo where we are staying in the Camper Area which is a little out of town. We got a bus into the city centre.

We walked up towards the Citta Alta - the old walled town which is perched on a hill top.

We got up to the old town on the Funicolare. Here's the view from half way up looking down.

This is the main square - Piazza Vecchia.

There are several churches nearby. This is Cappella Colleoni.

This is Bergamo Cathedral - The Duomo.

Inside the Duomo.

As it was getting dark we made our way back to the Funicolare, down it and back to where we had got off the bus into town.

We waited here for a bus of the right number to come along. After about an hour we walked around the corner and caught the appropriate bus immediately! Back at the Area Camper we discovered that we were once again in range of British TV and we have been watching it avidly all evening. Sad eh?

The weather was looking up this morning in Verona. There were quite a few vans in the aire including one from Germany which was the first foreign van we had seen since we were in Calabria.

We took a walk into town past the Castelvecchio.

We soon arrived in the main square - Piazza Bra.

The Roman Arena is here.

We went inside. It is in a remarkably good state of preservation after 2000 years and can seat 20,000 people.

You get some great views of the city from the top tier.

Stadium construction design doesn't change much over the millennia - under the stand it is not dissimilar to Old Trafford Manchester but minus the overpriced meat pie outlets!

We moved on to another Piazza.

This square is bordered on one side by the Pallazzo del Regione - County Hall ?

Through an arch is the Palazzo del Capitano.

Nearby are the very fancy tombs of the former lords of Verona. None of them seems to have lasted for very long as they were prone to poisoning or stabbing each other to gain ascendancy. They gave themselves nicknames such as Congande (Big Dog died 1329) and Consignorio (Top Dog died 1375).

 We wandered down to the bank of the River Adige which runs through the City.

Nearby we found the restaurant Alcova del Frate which had been recommended to us by Andreas a man we met at the aire the night before. We had lunch - Ann had cheese and Taramisu. I had scallops and spaghetti with sardines, capers, tomato and pine nuts. Really nice, the first meal out on this journey so far.

Close to the restaurant is the Roman Bridge Ponta Pietra.

Also close by is Verona Cathedral - the Duomo.

Around the Cathedral are the remains of several earlier churches - some with ancient frescos.

We walked along the banks of the Adige to Arce di Gave - a Roman triumphal arch.

From here we had a great view of Ponto Scaligero. This bridge was blown up by the Germans in 1945 after the Italians had changed sides. Subsequently the remains of the bridge were recovered from the bottom of the Adige and put back together!

We had a look inside the courtyard of Castelvacchio which we had passed on the way into town

Then we packed up and left Verona moving just a few kilometres west to Peschiera del Gardo on the southern shore of Lake Garda where we are staying tonight on another very posh aire.