Places

22
May
2023

JB’s On The Road Again ….

Each year I have to make the decision to renew the hosting of this blog and domain name, so having spent the money, use must be made and writing therefore continue. Each year I have to make the decision to continue to pay for my campervanning to support the writing, and enable other things. I’m still paying, while life still allows this to happen.

To this end, in February I finally made the decision after a year and a half to end the contract mid-May with the best work of my career. My first week of freedom last week was spent sorting stuff out and preparing, and Saturday saw me set off for the continent and warmth, via Plymouth. I wanted to do some travelling before squaring up at last to nana-hood which is due to begin around the end of July.

It’s alot of money to spend for the high-risk of sea-sickness hell, so much trust was placed in a weather forecast a week out for Plymouth, Bordeaux (Bay of Biscay) and Santander indicating only minor breezes, and drugs. It was 1.5 days of driving in British spring sunshine and an everything to plan departure on the Pont Aven ship yesterday. I was amazed at the number of cars, motorhomes/caravans and motorbikes driving onto it, and someone told me it was supposed to be the largest ferry in the world – holding around 600 or so vehicles. I’m glad I decided to splash out on a cabin, as I ended up going to bed at around 8pm absolutely shattered, and sleeping more or less through until 7 this morning. This is something of a first, as was my decision to join in the offered Tai Chi session. I would thoroughly recommend this ship and its facilities altho’ my bed was narrow and could have done with my own pillow. Best of all, the sea was flat.

Did you know there are around 25 species of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises to you) to be found in the Bay of Biscay. I learnt that from a presentation given by a rep of the Orca charity, which partners with Brittany Ferries to monitor this marine life on its routes. I didn’t spend much time on deck today scouring the horizon for these creatures, given the very overcast and low visibility weather, but am told they can be seen regularly.

We arrived into Santander after about 23 hours to grey and rain – not what I had been hoping for 🙂 But never mind – empty roads, beautiful countryside along the N623 to Burgos, where I am now on a campsite for 2 nights. The rain cleared as I travelled the 126km further south and the temperature rose from 10! (- went over 1000m) to 20. Tomorrow I will explore this city, with next stop aiming for Segovia, north east of Madrid.

I’m doing a towns and cities road trip for the next 10-12 days, before heading to the coast around Javea/Denia. Happy days.

Posted by admin in Spain, The Good
17
Sep
2022

Route to Charleville-Mezieres

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:

Posted by admin in France, Places
14
Sep
2022

Excelled Myself Today

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.

Posted by admin in Cities-Towns, Equipment, Places, Slovenia
11
Sep
2022

Lake Bled & Slovenia – ticking the boxes

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 …

Posted by admin in Slovenia, The Good
08
Sep
2022

Digital Nomadery & Trogir

3 days work has been completed from the inside of my over-heated metal box, given temperatures of late 20s to 30 degrees outside. I have taken the suggestion of a friend to do some paddle-boarding before! work given that we are an hour ahead of the UK, the sea is beautiful and calm and the beaches empty, so no-one needs to see my unsteady attempts to do the stand-up thing rather than reverting to kayak mode.

I have also taken the opportunity of cooling off at lunchtime by diving off the rocks at the beach, spending 20 minutes or so there, before returning back to my desk.

After work yesterday I cycled to Trogir and the medieval walled centre was worth the visit. Full of restaurants and cafes in amongst the narrow little streets, and very slippy, shiny paving stones, worn down by so many feet over the years.

It is a beautiful spot, and the weather is perfect for being outside, but working?…. As this same friend commented about possible difficulties with focussing on work from such a holiday setting, tbh I am finding combining the two abit of a challenge. I can focus on the work, it’s more the fact that I can’t enjoy this location in the way I thought I would be able to. Consequently I am now contemplating heading home sooner than I had intended. My next task will be to decide on the route back, whether I will stay somewhere halfway for a few days, and to not combine work with driving slowly but surely north. Fortunately the project I am contracted to is in a bit of a waiting for decisions from elsewhere phase, so deadlines are not in place. From the employer’s perspective, if I don’t work, they don’t pay me, so given these two factors, I have flexibility.

Posted by admin in Croatia, Musings
04
Sep
2022

Labadusa/Duga Beaches via SUP Board

I must recommend my new toy and the beaches and inlets round this spot are perfect for it. It is a 500m walk from my pitch which doesn’t seem far, but it is quite a load to carry. The model I selected is great – it has a kayak seat, paddle holders, bottle holder and waterproof bag for the mobile, and also a shoulder strap, and I have used all of these. In fact will be taking some ibuprofen shortly for overuse of my shoulders and arms. The only negative was the oar which came with the board, with a plastic joining piece snapping on the first use back in the UK. So got an easy refund from the supplier, and bought another, which is holding up so far, but will need some electrical taping for the standup handle to fit more tightly. The reviews indicated that this would be the case, but it seemed the best one for the price, so at least no surprise, and I think I will end up using it in kayaking mode more anyway which is fine. The board is fantastic for kayaking on these calm sea waters, and today I tried the stand-up bit, which will take abit more practice, but I did manage to get from kneeling to standing and paddle back to shore without falling in.

Two kayakers came paddling by today, and in our on-the-water conversation I found out that they were young British women, one of whom had cycled from the UK to Croatia with her boyfriend – took them 4 months – gauntlet there for my Folkestone to Rome cycling buddies – being visited by her friend, as the boyfriend had flown back to the UK for a wedding. They were doing a 4-day kayaking tour of the coasts and islands from Split, using the company ‘Red Adventures’, wild-camping along the way. I love such meetings. 🙂

There they go into the distance, on their 17km day’s sailing

Tomorrow is back to work Monday, following the lovely beach day I’ve had today. It’s a very laid-back relaxed place here – only the campsite + some lovely beach bars and restaurant or two. Mostly German holiday-makers, but other nationalities and their languages come and go, including Belgian, Dutch, Slovenian, Polish, Italian, French. A variety of ages, with still a few German school-age children. Apologies if my subject intermingling annoys. I am aware I’m doing it, but quite like recording other bits and pieces through minor meanderings back to the main paragraph topic ……… The internet connection via the campsite’s wifi is enabling me to stream stuff to my firestick, and I’ve done a test with a Messenger video call, so fingers crossed and tonight’s activity is setting up my work desk with my large monitor etc.

But I must include my hunted-down dessert which it’s now time for – the Croatian equivalent of a custard slice/bienenstick/milles-feuilles, with a layer of marshmallow underneath the pastry. I found one in a Zagreb cafe, then saw 2-days worth in Lidl. It’s called a ‘KremÅ¡nite’.

The weather forecast is warm all week, with rain from Thursday, so after work activities will be paddling, and a cycle ride to Trogir which is about 7 kms – hilly, but not a problem on my e-bike.

Posted by admin in Croatia, Equipment, Meetings - the non-work sort