Reset search
European road tripEuropean road trip
SatelliteEdit route

European road trip

February - April 2024
Finally... we are off again on European Road Trip!
This has always been our dream, so lets go for it! Read more
Currently traveling
  • 57footprints
  • 8countries
  • 83days
  • 472photos
  • 5videos
  • 6.8kkilometers
  • 6.6kkilometers
Follow Calendar Share Bucket list
Date ascending
  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    Day 2

    Day 1 & 2. Home - Dover

    February 6 in England ⋅ 🌬 12 °C

    Day 1 and 2
    After finishing a mountain of washing the day before , we were finally ready to pack the van. We packed our clothes into our packing cubes and tidied the cupboards before giving the van a good clean.
    Surprisingly, this didn't take as long as expected and we made the decision to start making our way to Dover that evening.
    We said goodbye to Jackie , the doggies and Zazu before heading to Leigh's garage to annoy him once last time before leaving.
    Afterwards , we headed to the public weighbridge to check our weight . We were actually 3560 kilos , 60 kilos overweight ! I knew I had eaten way too much over Christmas ! We therefore decided not to do a big food shop before leaving and only get a few essentials .
    We headed to Aldi to get something for our evening meal and stopped off at Harry's to say goodbye .
    We then headed over to Bishampton to see Terry and Sue , James' grandparents . We had a lovely couple of hours there and chatted until it was late .
    We then started to head slowly in the direction of Dover . We stopped off in a little village near Stow- on- the- Wold and parked up for the night in a very quiet lay by .
    James took maddy for a quick walk whilst I cooked a garlic and chilli stir fry for supper .
    After all the washing up was done , we watched some "Traitors" and went to bed.

    Day 2 :
    We had a 3.5 hour drive to Dover , all was fine . First stop was the vets to collect Maddy's health certificate . It was so straightforward , the nurse was there ready with Maddy's paperwork and all she had to do was scan her microchip .
    The British War memorial was only ten mins away , so we stopped off quickly and had a look around . We didn't pay to go inside as we only had twenty minutes before the site shut for the day . We still saw a replica spitfire and hurricane though!
    We headed to our car park for the night , only a 5 min drive away from the ferry port .
    As a treat for our last night in the UK, we treated ourselves to fish and chips for supper, so glad we did as they were delicious !
    Once the washing up was done and everything tidied , we took Maddy on a little walk before settling down for the night, ready for the early start tomorrow!    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    Day 3

    Day 3. Calais - Meersel-Dreef

    February 7 in France ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C

    Today we woke up at the crack of dawn to catch the ferry, all successful no checks apart from passport, nobody even checked Maddy! We made it to Calais as it turned to daylight and it was pouring with rain.
    We headed to Dunkirk first and had a look around to see the evacuation harbour which they used in Ww2, unfortunately we didn't stay long as the weather was awful, we will be back as they have an app to follow key points surrounding the war.
    Next we headed onto Ypres, a significant place during WW1. We went to a memorial and then onto Hill 60 sanctuary woods, here we went to a museum and went around original WW1 trenches, they even have tunnels connecting the trenches together which you can still go down. Felt rather spooky and daunting with Bomb holes surrounding us. We headed onto the Canadian memorial just up the road to have a look. Afterwards, we continued on to Hill 62, which had very close contact fighting during WW1, this involved a huge bomb hole which took 24000 kg of explosives. This was dug underneath enemy lines and the bomb hole itself was ginormous, it's now practically it's own lake. We carried on following the tour which headed through Belgium to the Netherlands border. Today we have been in 4 country's! After getting fuel and some food we headed back to edge of Belgium as the park up in Holland was prohibited for over night staying. After this we made the decision to follow the tour but at leisure as we had missed some places in Belgium, so tomorrow we are back tracking slightly as we got slightly over excited yesterday and heading to Mechelen, hoping we can stay here a few nights and visit the city and also Antwerp and Brussels.

    Successful first day and was good to drive the roads and get used to driving on the wrong side, early night as we are both knackered today!    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    2
    Day 4

    Day 4. Meersel-Dreef - Mechelen

    February 8 in Belgium ⋅ 🌧 8 °C

    Today we got up and headed to Mechelen, another bad weather day so we are going the longer route and enjoying Belgium inside the van🤣, we enjoyed driving through the countryside and seeing all the lovely villages along the way. Belgium seems to have beautiful properties everywhere!
    We stopped to restock water and empty waste. This is the first aire we have stopped at, pretty cool but they never seem to be close to where you want to be so far in Belgium! We found a cool park up next to a sport complex near Mechelen and walking distance to a train station to take us into Antwerp & Brussels over the next few days.

    By the time we had done a food shop, we walked Maddy and cooked periperi chips and Chicken schnitzel whilst enjoying a nice Jupiler (Belgian lager). A chilled early night in the van ready for the city tomorrow.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    2
    Day 5

    Day 5. Mechelen bike ride

    February 9 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    After some lovely fresh Croissants, we got the bikes ready and Maddy loaded in the trailer. Today we are off to explore Mechelen as this is the only dry day for the next few days. We first headed down to Vrijbroekpark following the canal, then we headed into the center and had a look around. Lovely buildings and feels much like Holland. We headed out to Kasteel van Battenbroek which was a good 10 miles ride out, we followed marshland and lots of bridges.

    Maddy was having little runs here and there and then put back into the trailer... when all of a sudden she decided she wasn't going in the trailer at all and was quite awkward to get back in... "Maddy you cannot run 16 miles more"! After finally getting Maddy in, we followed the marshland back to Mechelen. Once in the city centre we stopped for a "Latte Macchiato Speculoos" which was literally the best thing ever.

    Afterwards we headed to Kazern Dossin, which was the Nazi's SS headquarters for Belgium in WW2, they used this as a base to round up all the Jews & Romanies' in Belgium. It is estimated that 28,000 people were sent from here to Auschwitz and only 1000 survived. There was a big memorial museum and a carriage which was used to to transport them, pretty daunting stuff really.

    Afterwards we followed the Canal through more wetland and saw lots of bomb craters also from WW2, here we saw some stalks aswell. We headed back to the van and popped into the local Padel club for a shower, they kindly let us if we brought a drink. We had a beer and headed to Lidl to get some food. Chilled evening in the van whilst deciding which city to head to tomorrow. Great day, but knackered now after towing Maddy such a long way!    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    Day 6

    Day 6. Brussels

    February 10 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    Today we headed to Brussels, we headed down to the train station and managed to miss the first train as we thought it was going in the wrong direction. We had to wait 30 mins for the next one, but this meant we only got into Brussels 5 minutes later than what the first one would of, so not all lost.

    We first headed to the Mont des Arts park which lead us to "Palace de Bruxelles". This was very pretty and the Palace was lovely. Afterwards we headed to the European Parliament, home to the European Union, this was cool to see despite now not being part of it... We headed back to the centre, stopped for a baguette and Belgium Waffle (which James managed to drop on the table...) we luckily saved most of it, they were both delicious.

    Brussels wouldn't be worth going to if you didn't taste the chocolate and Beer. So we headed to a super posh chocolatier called Neuhaus, they were madly expensive at £2.70 each for little chocolates, but the shop threw in some samples so this made it slightly more affordable. We headed to Grand-Place, we can see how this is one of the most beautiful squares in the world, every building was so stunning and lots of gold was on show. We were super impressed by the square. Our last stop was a statue called Manneken Pis, which is basically a baby going for a wee as a fountain.. who famously put out a fuse which ultimately stopped the city from burning down, quite the saviour. He was dressed in Chinese outfits and had quite the crowd.

    Last stop was a belgian beer enroute to the station, we stopped at this quirky little bar and they were loving feeding Maddy crisps. Maddy had alot of attention today and coped well and like always, trooped it all the way to the end. 2 trains to get back and quick easy pizza for tea. Ready to chill as tomorrow we are off to Antwerp.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    2
    Day 7

    7. Mechelen - Holland Marina

    February 11 in the Netherlands ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    After spending three peaceful and undisturbed nights at the padle club , we thought it was probably best to move on to somewhere new today .
    The last couple of days have been quite full on , so decided that we weren't going to spend a day in Antwerp on our feet . Instead , we decided to move onwards and go to Holland for a short while. Both of us are really keen to visit Rotterdam and the Hague , but Holland is very strict about wild overnight camping and you have to pay about 30 euro a night to park up at their motorhome parks .
    Today, we have ended up parking at a motor home stop point just above a place called Breda . It's a great little place at the marina , with electric hook up and water - good job as we were starting to run very low on water and power !
    On the way to the park up , we stopped off at a local supermarket ( Albert Hjein) to get our next few meals . Prices here are even more expensive than Belgium ! 7 euros for two small chicken breasts, for example .
    We noticed that the locals were all walking around in fancy dress - with no common theme to it ! There were smurfs , random Disney characters , zombies , cowboys to name but a few . After a bit of research, turns out that there is a five day carnival in the area , where everyone meets up in the park ,wearing fancy dress ,to get completely smashed .
    After our scenic and entertaining drive to our park up , we have decided to have a bit of a relax this evening . The area is great for walking Maddy , with a few bars dotted around the place too for a cheeky beer.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    Day 9

    8. Rotterdam & 9. Relax day

    February 13 in the Netherlands ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    We made the decision to head to Rotterdam as we didn't feel like doing 2 cities back to back. We quickly did all the van services and headed off. Rotterdam was en route to our next camper site, we stopped at a park and ride outside the emissions zone and got the tram in. We walked out from Central station and realised that Rotterdam is an extremely modern city and only has a few old buildings, as it was absolutely destroyed by bombs by the Germans in WW2.

    We wandered through the city for a couple of hours and enjoyed the modern architecture. It was nothing like what we were expecting but we enjoyed it all the same. We had a nice Latte at a cafe and walked a 1/3rd of the way back to van before catching the tram back.

    Afterwards, we started to head towards our next aire, this was a cheap one for Holland so we are making camp for 3 nights. It is in a great location wetlands national park, just 40 mins bike ride into center of The Hague. We took Maddy on a walk and had a shower and cooked a nice carbonara for tea.

    Day 9 was our first 'relax' day, we enjoyed a nice lie in and took Maddy for her morning walk. We caught up with the laundry as this campsite has a great laundry station. We had a little bike ride in the cold into the local town Zoetermeer. Sadly when we arrived it started to pour with rain so we slowly headed back towards the van.

    Chilled night in the van!    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    Day 11

    10. The Hague 11. Planning day

    February 15 in the Netherlands ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Valentines day
    The weather was awful when we woke up this morning , but seeing as it was valentines day , we thought we would make the effort to cycle to the Hague. Supposedly a nice and leisurely 30 min cycle ride - but ended up being a good hour with the rain blowing in our faces , how romantic !

    Luckily we were super prepared with our waterproof trousers and rain coats ( spot the brits !) , I had to tuck my rain trousers into my socks to avoid ripping them with the bike chain - super cringe .

    Once we arrived in the centre of the Hague, we stopped off for a quick bite to eat and a large coffee to get warmed up again .

    We went to Mauritshuis art gallery and unfortunately we were 10 mins late for their last entry, we think we could of easily walked around it in 1 hour. 😂
    The museum is right next to the Dutch parliament, so there were some pretty impressive buildings to have a look around.

    We took a wet tour of the city and checked out the top things to see, on the way home, we stopped at the royal palace of Netherlands which was cool to see.

    Time for the long cycle ride back to the van ! Wasn't too bad on the way back as we followed a more direct route so seemed much quicker.

    Maddy had been left in the van today so we took her for a long walk straight away before getting too warm and comfy !

    Finally time to get clean and warmed up . We enjoyed the luxury of a hot shower and ordered a takeaway delivered to the campsite as a valentines day treat.

    15th :
    Yet another day of miserable weather , we certainly didn't fancy another hour long bikeride to the Hague today . We have both come down with a cold so we had a lazy morning, drinking coffee and reading / planning for a few hours . We also took the opportunity to give the van a good tidy up.
    When the weather started to improve, we took Maddy for a long walk around the nature reserve just behind our park up , we enjoyed the wildlife and Maddy loved having a good run around .
    Spent the evening planning the next leg of our trip , James has researched a quaint little place called Giethoorn , so we will be slowly heading there over the next couple of days .    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    Day 12

    12. Laren via Gouda 🧀🧀

    February 16 in the Netherlands ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    16th
    Heading to our next stop off at a place called Laren today. Laren is known as one of the most affluent places in North Holland , so definitely only a one night stop there .
    Gouda was on the way to Larens , so we obviously had to stop there and buy some gouda cheese. Gouda was a lovely little place and well worth the visit!
    We had a few little hiccups along the way from Gouda to Larens : I managed to block a road with the van whilst turning left (the dutch drivers weren't very forgiving ) , also managed to leave a can of Fanta on the side and it went flying and soaked 1 of our rugs, and last ,but certainly not least , the laptop went flying and has left a lovely dent in our floor arghh! - the laptop was fine though !

    After all that chaos , we needed to stop off at a supermarket to get our meals for the next few days . First supermarket was not going to happen , barriers to low to enter the car park - thank god we noticed that !
    Luckily there was a big shopping complex not too far and we stopped off at the lidl there and managed to stock up sufficiently.
    Finally arrived in Larens , at another sports complex that allows free parking for a night . We took Maddy on a good walk and we could certainly see why it's one of the most wealthy places in the Netherlands- the houses were huge and beautifully designed, with electric gates and fancy cars parked on their patios, one was priced at 5 million euros.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023European road trip
    2
    1
    Day 13

    13. Giethoorn

    February 17 in the Netherlands ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    Today we headed straight to Giethoorn this morning, it took us about 2 hours as we always try and avoid the motorways as you don't get to see much along the way. We had to go over a huge bridge and through a water national park so was very pretty at times, despite being flat almost everywhere.

    When we arrived we walked down to the village. Giethoorn is a car free village and the houses are connected by waterways or little bridges.
    Some houses didnt even have bridges so only way was to boat home.

    It was a fairly big village so we strolled up and down, stopping for a burger on the way back. Still nothing on Hereford burgers, but it was still really nice. We sat with a coffee for abit and then decided to head on to our next park up. We are finding more free park-ups now. This one tonight has free electic aswell, however has had reviews of young kids knocking the van- we decided to ignore this and have already been knocked on twice...

    We took Maddy for a walk around the park and then heading to bed as we are heading south tomorrow. We think possibly through Belgium to join back up with part of our WW1&2 Tour. Before heading across through the Alps or Germany.    Read more

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English