Tuesday 9^th of April.

We are on a camp site for a couple of days in a place called Bad Mergenthein, it is overlooking a nice country scene and is very rural, the site reminds us of “Carry on camping” with Peter Butterworth as the camp site owner who looks very shifty and keeps saying “that will be a pound” or in this guy “ that will be a Euro” as it appears everything is an extra.. Lol....

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Monday 15^th April

On our way to Innsbruck after our stay in Fussen at the end of the Romantic Road, which wasn't very romantic, and I shall re name it the not very exciting but very stressful road, especially when the tom tom decided to roll over and die.

Luckily I have the old Garmin which I use on the scooter but it is a good ten years old and state of art when bought but is very Mickey Mouse compared to a tom tom.. So having fought my way out of a large city using the old Garmin I spied en route what I thought was a German equivalence of a Curry's, so I swung a hard through the oncoming traffic and managed to get in their entrance gate, inside I asked if anybody spoke English to which a young lad said he did, I showed him my tom tom and asked if he had one like it, he took us to a display that had more navigators than you could shake a stick at, and low and behold they had the new version of my old tom tom which would accept the card with all the maps of Europe on, so a quick swap and we were once again in business. That's 270 Euros we didn't count on spending but worth every penny, I mean cent..

So we are sat in a stellplatz in a little one horse town on the German border called Ravensburgh or that is what we thought, actually when we had a walk round it was a very nice place.

After a day down the side of Lake Constance. While parked up in a car park while we had a brew and sorted where we were going next , a car pulled up and a guy started

unloading dive gear, I went over to talk to him if he spoke English, (they all do) it turned out he was an underwater photographer, he gave me a DVD he made of fish and stuff he sees while diving the lake, we will watch it later, he said he has ton's of stuff on u tube.

So tomorrow off into Austria along the Alpine Road the same road JC and co in Top Gear drove the 3 Ferrari's along, should be fun if I can get round the hairpin bends.

The best bit so far by a mile was Fussen, we spent two night on a stellplatz there, got the scooter out of the garage and went on two long rides in the very warm and sunny

mountain roads, we both liked that.

Wed 17^th April.

We pulled into a very nice spot on the way to Salzburg it was a ski resort, obviously empty now as the ski season has ended in this part of the Alps as the snow has just about gone except on the highest mountains, even so the snow around the resort was still piled high where they have cleared the parking lot and there is some snow where it has been packed down by the skiers, there is snow on an outbuilding on a nearby house that is still a good 2ft 6 deep even after all the melting..

I fired up the genny so we could watch Mrs Thatchers funeral on the telly, I was surprised at the amount of stations that was available on the free view, it must have been because it was a beautiful cloudless sky.

Thurs 18^th April.

Now in Salzburg and Sandra has decided we will push the boat out and spend some money so we are booked on a camp site for a couple of days, just so she can do some laundry. We are both showered the laundry's done and it is now 10pm and we are overlooking the city which is all lit up and the mountains have flashing lights on to stop the planes flying into them. Not many stations left there are plenty of news stations but BBC and ITV have now gone

.

In a couple of days we will be making our way into Czechoslovakia, should be fun so lets see what turns up there.  

Sat 20th April.

In Czechoslovakia parked up at the side of a small park and play ground, it seem's a poor country and very dull so we will not be staying but passing through on our way to Poland which we should be in tomorrow Sunday. I can't post any pictures at the moment as I am on a tethered phone and it would cost a fortune to load them, I will wait until we get a free wifi.

12 month European trip.

2^nd April 2013 at the start of our European trip, we set off from home on our way down to Dover to catch the 1 o'clock ferry to Dunkirk on Wednesday the 3^rd of April, all was fine until we tried to get on the M25 orbital round London, only to find it was closed between junction 29 – 30 after an accident, and this was the situation until after 8 o'clock at night. We tried different routes but everything was grid locked and no matter what we tried we were stuffed, so I ended going back the way we came until we found a service station to wait it out, we finally got that fed up waiting we just set off and was prepared to sit it out in the traffic jam on the M25, there were lorries pulled over on the hard shoulder all drivers run out of driving time and couldn't go anywhere.

As we arrived on the M25 a long way from the actual accident and made our way towards it, the message on the overhead gantry changed to the motorway was now open, so we actually got to the Dartford crossing which was now chock a block with traffic pushing and shoving to get through the toll, but at least we were finally on our way to Dover again, arriving at 10 pm much to our relief and us parking up on the Marine Parade for the night.

Wed morning up early to drive into Maplins to buy a 12 volt charger for the lap top, Sandra went into Sainsburys for a final shop and then on to the Ferry only to find we had missed our sailing as we thought we were on the 1 o'clock ferry only to have pointed out that is the time we arrive in Dunkirk, Doh!.. So the guy just booked us on to the next ferry at 12 noon arriving at 3 30pm.

We travelled on into Belgium and went straight to a stellaplatz without any problems and settled down and spent a couple of days chilling out and walking round the town before setting off for Germany and a stellaplatz in a town called Blankenstein which had a nice stop over, and the telly reception was quite good even though it was very cold and snowing, from here we set off for the Black Forest area driving all over looking for a stellaplatz or camp site, the tom tom gave us a couple which we went

only to find they didn't allow dogs, it was then we noticed the French border sign and all the street names and signs had suddenly become French.. Doh! again, getting lost is part of the fun but losing a country..

So we just wild camped in a nice rural spot and stopped for the night, in the morning we set off for the Romantic Road but on the way I noticed a sign for a museum in a city called Sinsheim that included the aeroplane Concord so we diverted to find it and what a place it was it was an enormous museum and it had two Concords, loads of different planes, cars motorbikes and war stuff, we also noticed there was a sister museum in a city called Speyer which turned out to be about 35 kilometres down the road and that's is where we are now as I write this, they have their own stellaplatz where you can stay the night, but it costs 22 Euros a night ouch..but it says you can get in cheaper to the exhibition of space flight, there was a Russian space shuttle and absolutely tons of space memorabilia and different planes you can walk round...We stopped here for the night in their own camp site, but it was expensive at 22 Euros for the night.

A few pictures.

Hi.

Well it's just a couple of days off  Christmas 2012 and we are planning our next trip which will start in April 2013... We will be away for a good eleven months touring Europe, We have a start destination and an end at home in Aldbrough, everything that happens and countries we will visit, well who knows?.

So we Start in Germany then travel to either Greece or Italy to over winter, then over to Spain and we have to go to Portugal as we love that country..

It will be so much better in the new van as it has a fixed bed at the back, so no messing about putting beds up and down, it also has a big garage at the back which swallows all the gubbins we take with us on the long trips, It is also big enough to fit a scooter in which we are going to buy in March, this will allow us to go into the various cities towns and villages en route, ones we can't get into with the motor home.

Here are a few pic's we took last time we went.

 

New Blog.

Well we are back in the UK and it's freezing raining with snow forecast.. Eh!..

We had a great time in France thanks to Bill and Bonny letting us leave the car and trailer at their place, which meant we could let the Tom Tom loose to take us down the small back roads through France, enabling us to see all the little villages that are tucked away, and obscure out of the way Aires to stay on instead of boring motorways we use when towing the trailer on the back of the van..

We spent most of the time in the (excuse the spelling) Dordogne? area, it was very good and picturesque with lots of things to see and places to visit, and all it took was a visit to the local tourist office wherever we ended up at, we collected some brochures of interest around the particular area we were at, then off on another adventure..

I think what we will do is tot up how much the 4 months have cost us in fuel, tolls, gas and camp site fees.. Cost of food will not feature as this is a cost we have where ever we are.  I will let Sandra work that one out!..

I have taken quite a few photos of where we visited but they are on the lap top, when I have a bit of time I will sort some out and put them on the blog..

Ok here's to the next trip which might be to the Farnes in Northumberland, or back to France to Help Bill dig his lake deeper....

New Blog..

We have left Bill and Bonny's place and have moved on to “Future Scope” near Limoges, we will spend a night here on their Aire and will have a look round tomorrow Sunday, it is open 19 am till 20.30 so it will be a long day.

We will then go down to the Dordogne for a couple of weeks touring round, as we have left the trailer and car at Bills to collect the week before we set off to the UK..

Bill & Bonny's pad..

New Blog......

Well we have left Mequinenza and Spain for the luxury of Bill and Bonny's pad in France, we have been here two days and have the luxury of sleeping in a proper bed with en-suite facility's.

It was made obvious in Mequinenza we were not wanted when the Guardia Civil civil threw us out of our pitch and told us to vamoose!... We sent a text to Bill and he just laughed and said come down to our place in France, so we have..

We will be on our way on Saturday morning but we will leave the car and trailer at Bills place so we can explore France more easily as we still have a month until we come home, so it will be good to have a look round, and Bills place is still not too far from Dunkirk and the ferry about a ten hour drive..

We are not to bothered about leaving Mequinenza as I have two PB's with the big carp and this catfish!!!!....

New Blog.

Well we moved on. We went further North to N.V.Cerveisa at the top of Portugal on the Portuguese Spanish border to visit “Coto Chris” off Yorkshire Divers forum..

We arrived on the 15^th of Feb at about 7 pm.. I t was a very nice ride up but the tolls were very expensive. We had a brilliant time on our stay, the weather was perfect, the town was perfect and to top it all Chris and his family were the most welcoming and easy going folk and made our stay one we will always remember and I hope we can welcome them to the UK as Sandra and I feel we have known them always....

Monday the 20^th Feb we set off again for Spain and had a good two day trip with one stop off for the night in the mountains, all was well but for one thing the silly buggers who do the Spanish road works had cut a slot in the road surface, maybe to put a cable across the road but just left it open the full width of the road, there was just a sign for road works but nothing else!. We hit it with a bang, the upshot being the Carver water heater shook itself to bits and started leaking water all over the place, the carpet was wet through, I didn't notice it until I stopped for some fuel and found water streaming down the outside of the van. A jar of coffee in the cupboard spilled its contents all over and the car door on the trailer popped open so you can tell the force of it all..

Tuesday 21^st Feb we arrived in Mequinenza and tried to get onto the camp site along with Bill and Bonny, it was not very good so we made a quick exit and came down to our usual spot on the lay by under the castle which is on top of a large hill just behind us.. Bill and Bonny left the camp site and came down to park with us and stayed until Friday when they left to get back to France to their home there, they say they will be going back to the UK at the beginning of march as they have to sort out the car tax and stuff!..

I have fished every day but have only managed one fish so far a carp of 24lbs 7 oz which is one more fish than anybody else has managed. There was a couple of English lads who called round asking if I had caught anything as they hadn't had a bite all the time they had been in Mequinenza, and guess what Keith comes from Hull and the other Paul lived in Aldbrough for a few years, they both fish the lakes at home, small world..

The weather at the moment is brilliant and very hot, but today Sunday the 26^th of Feb it is windy and if it stays like this we will not be able to put up the dish for Sky.. I have been watching the weather forecasts for home and it seems to be warming up nicely for our return at the end of March..

Steve can you go over the caravan before we get home and turn on the water and check there is nothing amiss? .. You can put the heating on by turning the thermostat in our bedroom on the end wall to the “on” position and check the boiler is set to heating and hot water and the small lever on the clock is set to constant, if everything is OK then put the lever on the clock to timed and everything should be OK for our return.. I do not know if the gas bottle outside is still full but if not there should be two full bottles. You can turn off the empty one and turn on the next bottle and switch over the outside valve for the other bottle that is connected..

We are going into Fragga tomorrow to the Vodafone shop to get some phone credit on our Spanish sim card, so you will have to use the Spanish number again instead of the Portuguese one, I will also get a Spanish dongle so I can get on the internet as the free signal in the town is too iffy and keeps coming and going, cutting out at every opportunity...