A long but pleasant drive up to Calais, a flattish sea, and then the route back to Oxfordshire to have a stopover with family, interspersed with what I can only describe as the horrendous ‘continual parking’ of the M25. Admittedly a Friday afternoon must be the least advisable time to be using the road. It caused me to consume a whole bag of chocolate eclairs, and at one particular stage had to control a very strong claustophobic urge to have a major meltdown and refuse to put up with it any longer. I can laugh now that I’m out of it.
But the traffic eventually flowed past Heathrow, the M4 exit and onto the M40, and I went mad and pushed the speed to 70mph! After the many hours in the driving seat, I decided it was safer to come back down to my cruise controlling 58.
As we came through that significant cut in the hills, looking out on the Berkshire plains? the sun was shining, the traffic on the road had significantly thinned, fantastic sing-along tracks were provided by R2, and the freedom of the road resumed. Now just the drive back up to North Yorkshire.
Blue has done me proud – what a fantastic home from home. Map of my journey to hopefully be added.
This was a pleasant, interesting drive through forested, steep-valleyed high hills to Saarbrucken and into Luxembourg. I hadn’t realised, despite driving through the Moselle valley a few years ago, that it was so close, and the countryside of Luxembourg did look appealing for a visit in the future.
The municipal site, Mont Olympe in Charleville, was as I remembered it, and really good value/place for a stopover, but be warned that the shower blocks were showing end-of-season, or just general severe need of attention.
When I was last here with my sister, brother-in-law and niece, we did a bike ride along the river Meuse, so the countryside is very accessible. We also ended up in a multi-storey car park with my campervan and their higher motorhome which caused their TV aerial to get caught on an overhead concrete beam, and having the embarassing situation (particularly for my teenage niece) of getting the ladders out in situ to remove it under the observation of other motorists, as it was causing something of a blockage. We did manage slowly but surely to navigate the motorhome out of the car park without any further more serious damage to the roof, but this was not a foregone conclusion. That was the trip that on the autoroute on the way back through France, my solar panel flipped off its housing and managed to be held by my tv aerial and the cabling until I could limp off to a service area, which are thankfully very frequent, to remove it. I was extremely lucky that the damage was minimal, including to the panel. The adventures of life.
This is the historic central square 10 minutes walk away surrounded by little streets with independent shops and cafes:
So near and yet so far – approx 30 miles from BB, they completely shut the motorway near Pforzheim, and I was stuck there for 3 hours. Reminded with 2 visits that the onboard loo is why I’v got a campervan. Then the sky went completely dark and grey and the first real rain of the last 3 weeks came down. Rather miserable.
I managed to get off at the junction near the closure, and go somewhere completely in the opposite direction to the diversion. This somewhere is a stellplatz in a small town called Muhlacker and I think I was lucky to get one of the 5 designated bays as 2 other vans have had to go elsewhere. I arrived at about 4pm, vehicled-out having been on the road since 7:30.
What’s interesting about these park-ups is the diversity of tribe membership of the occupants who change daily. Today I have a works van/camper on one side, and on the other 2 young parents in an old duct-taped VW type thing, plus a mini works van, with their two pre-school children. Beyond their pitch, there are the older (than I ??!! 😄) German couple in their well-heeled motorhome with electric bikes on the back. Yesterday, there was a van from Denmark, a German woman who with her van looked like a van-lifer, me, a single elderly man in his significant ‘A’-class van (a caravan with an engine) who helped me out by paying the parking fee with his card in exchange for my cash. These places are located in all sorts of situations, and in many cases in ‘nice’ residential areas. I don’t believe they would be tolerated by home-owners in the UK, and also interesting is that I haven’t come across ‘traveller’ peoples staying there.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is mostly rain, BB is going abit south, and devoid of campsites other than the base of my last failed attempt to reach the town in the company of my sister. That’s a pre-blog trip full of various happenings, which could be the subject of another post sometime. I don’t fancy doing the 24-mile cycle ride in the rain, and I do fancy the more space of a campsite pitch this time, so will head north and west going via Luxembourg, France’s Charleville-Mezieres (of eventful trip fame), and Belgium, ready for reaching Dunkerque Friday.
Buy a campervan, dig your tent out of the loft, or stay in one of their trendy cabins but get yourself down to the Camping Bled site for the best shower you will have anywhere. 16eu a night for my out-of-season, no electricity, single person stay in this gorgeous quiet location despite its proximity to hustle and bustle. Gushing 🤣
Top showerToilet BlockTrendy cabins
I came on this trip for Croatia and feel that justice has not been done to it given the limited time I was there, very much overshadowed by the impending practicalities of working.
But on this trip, Slovenia, and the return journeying is stealing it. All the countries’ motorways have been quiet enough to be able to take in the so impressive countryside of Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia. I hope I can return before too long to all three to do more exploring.
Yesterday afternoon and night was spent on the Stellplatz (motorhome dedicated parking places) of another lovely town in southern Germany on the edge of the Alps called Prien am Chiemsee. One of the great things about driving my van on the continent is the confidence I have from feeling that my stay is welcomed in little places along the way, due to their extensive provision, and therefore you can get to see so much more. Motorhomes/campervans are everywhere, taking for granted their right to be there, and the equally-impressive well-maintained, pretty-much litter-free roads accommodate them.
Vikings also here
Today I am typing this from a McDonalds at a service station just outside the town of Ulm so that I can get decent wifi to upload photos. My companions on the road have been the many, many truckers pounding the concrete at the same speed, annoyingly disrupting my cruise-controlling. We are on our way across southern Germany to Baden-Baden, in contrast with the travelling down on a lorry-absent Sunday. And the radio station Bayern1 providing me such classics as Kylie Minogue’s ‘The Locomotion’, the Carpenters ‘Mr Postman’, and the track which I have on my ‘About Me’ page.
I’m looking forward to just sitting in one place for at least half of tomorrow, whilst driving the van across Austria and into south Germany. Today has seen an extraordinary hive of activity reminiscent of my brother-in-law.
Encouraged by my now-long-gone neighbours from Grimsargh – Gill and Greg – with whom I spent an enjoyable couple of hours last night chatting about the Longridge Aldi and the like, I did indeed get the SUP board out this morning.
That plus the 20 minutes pumping it up could be seen as exercise enough, but I then got on the lake under the blue sky and sun – all perfect for the activity – well before 10:00am. As I gracefully stood up and paddled up to the island, I realised that I was still listening to the R4 Today programme. I suddenly became aware of the incongruity of my happy – in beautiful surroundings, peace and quiet on the lake -pootling, whilst snorting at Nick Robinson’s interview with the latest Russian media mouthpiece, as he danced on a pin re the latest news of significant defeat. Now he insisted that the Russians would potentially need to step up their activity to liberate the Ukrainians from the US & UK occupation – or words/sentiments to that effect.
My age must tell, in that I am always incredulous at the “up is down”, “black is white” varieties of ‘truth’ out there, and how people can be so invested in their conspiracy beliefs, that they prefer not to apply their own brain power but hand it over to those who claim omnipotence. That’s Group a) anyway. Group b) know exactly what they are doing in their support of the omnipotent naked emperors. But how do they live with themselves suspending their consciences, as they continue to peddle lies to Group a), that can and are leading literally to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths. And while all this fiddling goes on, Rome burns.
I switched it off. My mission was to be actively immersed in the surroundings above the board and take a selfie to prove that the prowess happened. This however is no easy task given that I also have to swap my sunglasses for my reading glasses to be able to operate the camera; the phone has to come out of its protective case and risk being lost to the deep, which would be a catastrophe. The photos below do show some limited evidence of me standing up on the board, and then reverting to kayaking position photos as my left knee had had enough by then. I did kayak over to the other side of the lake and back again, and Google timeline calls that 2.9 miles walking.
Revived by a coffee back at the van and having re-packed the sup board, i set off on the bike for the nearby town of Radovljika. This was also recommended for its medieval centre, and it was worth the 15 mile ride still in sunshine under the blue sky.
This beautiful building contained the music school and scales by clarinet were drifting out through the windows.
It is interesting to me that I was so focussed on reaching Croatia that I had no intention of stopping on the way down in Slovenia nor was I considering it for the way back. This was despite journey account articles ripped out of the likes of Motorhome Monthly Mag (MMM) and brought with me, with titles such as ‘Heavenly Pursuits’, ‘Fall in love with Slovenia’, “Why We Love Slovenia”.
Deciding to pursue roughly the same route back, and Lake Bled being more or less on that route, I followed the accounts and latest review recommendations to book 2 nights at Camping Bled. I have just booked a 3rd night given a ‘little rain'(as in not really, but in the mountains can be variable) forecast.
The location ticks all boxes, altho’ the mountain weather is very influential on this, and the site likewise with the exception of a wifi provision which won’t allow me to stream to my firestick for film watching. My mobile data allowance has refreshed again, and altho’ the signal is not great, in a certain positioning of the phone, I managed to get enough signal to do the streaming. EE is also not applying roaming charges, and I can get a month’s worth of 50Gb if needed for £30 ish.
What are my boxes then, after 12 years of this roaming by campervan, with much of the last 5 years of trips alone? A beautiful location; a ‘happening, non-kiss-me-quick (British culture knowledge needed to get the drift of that phrase) town/city’ nearby so I can cycle/public transport to it easily; with peace and quiet though, a short distance from it; cycle ways, and walking easily accessible; clean, functioning toilet block – doesn’t have to be state of the art/renewed; respectful, considerate campsite culture; sufficient internet connection for streaming; pricing recognising that single people use less electricity, hot water etc than 2.
Having hardly seen a british-plated vehicle outside of France up-to-now, there are significant numbers of british motorhomes here – two groups, one british Adria owners group, and a CaMH group, but they are all together in specific parts of the campsite. I was made aware of this by my cross-the-campsite-road neighbours who I saw had a british van, and in conversation with them found out they were from Grimsargh of all places which is near my home town of Preston, and the house of my mum’s partner’s in Longridge.
Here’s my pitch – using my solar panels, and avoiding elec. charges, whilst I write this post.
This morning I have gone out and about, e-biking 12 miles up and down with glee in this area of Slovenia – its only national park called Triglavski Narodni.
Having taken seriously now those articles, I would love to come back and spend more than just 2.5 days in Slovenia. It even has abit of the Adriatic coast. More photos of the lake to come …
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