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European road trip
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European road trip

Finally... we are off again on European Road Trip!
This has always been our dream, so lets go for it! Read more
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  • Trip start
    February 5, 2024
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    Day 1 & 2. Home - Dover

    February 6, 2024 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

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    Day 3. Calais - Meersel-Dreef

    February 7, 2024 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

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    Day 4. Meersel-Dreef - Mechelen

    February 8, 2024 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

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    Day 5. Mechelen bike ride

    February 9, 2024 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

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    Day 6. Brussels

    February 10, 2024 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

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    7. Mechelen - Holland Marina

    February 11, 2024 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

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    8. Rotterdam & 9. Relax day

    February 13, 2024 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

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    10. The Hague 11. Planning day

    February 15, 2024 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

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    12. Laren via Gouda 🧀🧀

    February 16, 2024 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

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    13. Giethoorn

    February 17, 2024 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

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    14. Grave

    February 18, 2024 in the Netherlands ⋅ 🌧 9 °C

    We have made the decision to move south and find better weather, we are going to Hook back up to our WW1 & 2 tour.

    We left our sketchy park up and headed for our next park up at Grave, it was on the map as a strategic point in WW2. The bridge was named after a American soldier who stormed the bridge with just 16 men. The other soldiers jumped to early and landed nearly a mile back. The whole attack was a suprise ambush and was a success.

    The park up had a WW2 bunker next to it aswell which was pretty cool. We took Maddy for an explore in the rain and then had a cosy night in the van.    Read more

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    15. Eiffol National Park

    February 19, 2024 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    Today we headed off after breakfast and started to head south to Valkenburg. We drove in and out of 3 countries heading down. We drove to a van services station and then headed to Valkenburg, unfortunately it was tipping with rain but we did drive through the centre and saw most of the sites anyway as it was very small. In WW2 Valkenburg was where Jews came to hide from the Nazi's. It is said that 3000 local people helped hide Jews in and around the local area, and only 1000 survived when they were caught.

    We headed onto Eiffol National park home to more battles during WW2, enroute we stopped at the American WW2 cementry. Lovely building but it was daunting seeing so many graves. On every headstone was a message about each soldier and out of the 7800 buried here, only 400 are unknown.

    We got to Eupen on the edge of the national park and found a great park up for tonight. We drove over a Dam to get here. We took Maddy on a nice walk through the woodland for a couple of hours (it was raining again though....)

    Looking forward to having a nice chilli for tea.    Read more

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    16. Bastogne 'Battle of the Bulge'

    February 20, 2024 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    We woke up and took Maddy on a walk. Today we had a scenic drive across Belgium, it took us about 1.1/2 hours to get to Bastogne. We are visiting Bastogne as it is home to the 'Battle of the Bulge', one of the biggest battle sites in WW2. Firstly we headed to the another American memorial, which was unfortunately closed, but very magnificent and in the shape of a star.

    The musuem we planned on visiting was just next door to the memorial. We had a look around the musuem and it was very interesting, we saw a couple of tanks, one had been blown all the way through to the other side during the battle, and different vehicles such as the SS beetle. The Museum showed all the figures about the battle and the Allies were completely outnumbered in every way and they still managed to stand and then break through, which eventually lead them bit by bit all the way to liberate Berlin.

    There is a famous story about a Officer called Anthony McAuliffe, who replied to a letter from the Nazi's asking them to Surrender and he replied to the Nazi's "NUTS".

    Tomorrow as part of the Museum they offer multiple tickets so we are heading the the Foxholes tomorrow and to the actual underground base in which that letter was sent. This is another shorter musuem.

    After the musuem we headed to attempt to have a shower at a local pool, who didn't let us in even though had earlier said it would be fine.

    We found a nice park up next to a wood locally and took Maddy on a nice walk around. (sticking to the paths) after learning Mines are still found monthly here.    Read more

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    17. Bastogne to Luxembourg

    February 21, 2024 in Luxembourg ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    Today firstly we headed to Bois Jacques Foxholes, where the American soldiers managed to stand against the Nazis. It was really real life as there was an App to download which made it virtual reality to what the woods would have looked like and the soldiers fighting in the holes which were infront of us. Felt quite humbling to be in a place where some of the finest American soldiers fought over an extremely cold winter.

    Afterwards we headed to the Nuts musuem which was great to look around. We are glad we did the museums over 2 days so you can appreciate it better. This musuem had a story which you followed which really brought back what Bastogne went through, the whole town was bombed and barely standing.

    We then chose a campsite for tonight as we both need to have a shower and headed through Belgium to Luxembourg. It is really nice here and suprisingly cheap, when you consider how wealthy Luxenbourg is, the tiny country has over 260 Billionaires and the average house price is 1.3 million Euros. Nurses are paid nearly £90,000 here. We haven't gone far into the country as not many places to stay, but the drive here was beautiful. Starting to feel a little like the Alps wierdly.

    After giving the inside of the van a deep clean, walking Maddy and having a shower. We had some Turkey snitzels for tea and then watching a film on our recently spotted 'hairline cracked Laptop'... Arghhh!    Read more

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    18. Luxembourg - Baden Baden

    February 22, 2024 in Germany ⋅ 🌧 11 °C

    We woke up to quite possibly our rainiest day yet and that means it's really rainy with the weather we have had so far.. 😂☔

    We decided to head to Luxembourg city to take a look but unfortunately all the parking was a nightmare... After 3 drives around the city attempting to park and then going down a road definitely not designed for a van, we decided to move on as we weren't desperate enough to go to a park and ride into the city. It was still very pretty even in the rain.

    We then decided to slowly meander down to Baden-Baden, which is the start of Germany's Black Forest.
    This route (half motorways) took us through France and Germany on the way down. We arrived just as the sun set in the distance and made camp at a local park up. The next few days we are slowly driving down towards Switzerland, 40 miles of the route is supposedly one of the best roads in Europe to drive so we are looking forward to the adventures to come.

    We took Maddy on a walk through the woods with many signs about the aggressive Wildschwein, (wild boar) They would be with us as we have a got a German frankfurter sausage risotto for tea. We have no instructions on how you cook the sausages and no signal so we are going to attempt to boil them... If no penguins uploaded tomorrow we have both died peacefully of food poisoning or attacked brutally by a wildschwein 😂😂    Read more

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    19. Black Forest's high road

    February 23, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    After a quiet and undisturbed night for our first stop over in Germany , we woke up to sunshine ! First sun we have had so far on our trip .
    We decided to embrace the sun and drive further along the Black forest . The roads were great fun to drive and very scenic .
    Along the way , we spotted a ski slope , so we decided to pull over and have a little look . There was a toboggan run there , but it was sadly closed today , which was gutting.
    We drove through the forest for another 10 miles and spotted another ski slope centre, with a natural history museum on site . There was also a ski jump centre , which looked seriously good fun, but a little daunting
    We decided to take Maddy on a good walk to the top of the slopes and through the woods , we wanted to get to a lake but after seeing it high up and the murky colour we decided to walk the other way.
    James took over the driving as we were already half way on this lovely road and it wasn't fair for me to drive all the fun parts.
    After reaching the end of the black forest Road, we ended up at a campervan service point to top up water etc. We then discovered that this was also a swimming pool car park and decided to go for a swim !
    The swimming pool was very impressive , there was 3 pools it had two really fun slides and a diving pool , with a climbing wall at the end of it . We spent pretty much all of our time on the slides and a while in the 32 degree outdoor pool . The slides were so cool as there was a screen displaying how quick you were going and ranked you compared to all the others that had been on that day. James got 27 kph down one of them!
    The showers there were amazing too , we felt super fresh afterwards.
    The car park wasn't exactly pretty and by the time we left , there were loads of other campers parking up for the night , so we decided to drive 20 mins back towards the forest and park up at a more scenic and private place . We ended up in a village called Rotweill , which , as you can guess by the name , is where the Rotweiller dog breed was bred .
    Once the van was all levelled up , time to cook some supper , but to our disappointment , the gas had run out . On the positive side , at least we now know not to trust our gas meter !
    After a gin, we couldn't drive as Germany has a 0% limit, so James was a beaut and cycled to the nearest village in freezing temperature to pick up some pizza. Finally, time to eat!    Read more

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    20. Triberg

    February 24, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

    Today we woke up to the most glorious crisp morning. We took Maddy on a walk around the woods before getting the van road ready and heading off. First stop was to get some food from Lidl, then we refilled the gas... (this was supposed to cost us about £13 and only cost us £7, so got me worried that we may be having issues somewhere in our gas system).

    We did a rubbish stop and then carried on to our next stop Tilburg, famous for Germany's biggest waterfall and cuckoo clocks. The drive down was super scenic and we drove through some really long tunnels under the mountain. Once we arrived we were greeted with old alpine style German houses and Cuckoo clocks everywhere. Eventually, after driving the town a few times, we found a suitable park up. We headed with Maddy straight to the waterfall, it was absolutely raging due to the rain fall and snow melting recently. We walked up to the top of the waterfall and saw it from all angles, we really enjoyed this.

    With our waterfall ticket , we had access to 3 more attractions around Triberg one was a photo studio with many amusing backgrounds for funny pictures- we had great fun messing about in here for a while. The next attraction was a Museum which was cool to see all the old clocks, Grace loved the museum as they had a huge section on crystals as many are mined here.

    We then decided to miss the last attraction which was a model village and head to some of the Cuckoo clock shops, they had literally thousands, one shop is famous for having 1000 on display. These ranged from £150 to about £20,000.

    Afterwards we headed quickly down to the "worlds biggest cuckoo clock" to chime at 5pm. It cost £1 million to build and has 30,000 uniquely made parts. The engineering behind them is great and massively ahead of the their time when they were originally produced.

    We then headed to our park up, approx 25 mins from Triberg. This took us over a mountain passing through the dark forests which seemed lit up from all the snow surrounding them. It started to snow which made it even more enchanting.

    We checked out the gas tank and had intermittent gas again... we think the regulator has failed but luckily this is a standard cheap item across Europe and should be fairly easy to replace ourselves or pay an engineer to fit.

    Had a nice curry and enjoyed sorting through the numerous photo's we took today.    Read more

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    21. Zweribach-Wasserfalle

    February 25, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    Wow, another amazing morning. We had a bit of a lie in but couldn't bare to waste the lovely weather so we headed off down some pretty awesome roads to another waterfall. The snow and the black trees made a real contrast and was a spectacular route all the way. As it was so clear we could see some of the Alps which was pretty cool. We packed some lunch and headed down, Maddy was loving having a run about. It was about 4.1/2 mile walk to the falls. There was a bridge which passed over the gushing water, and then we climbed down some steep stairs with a metal rope to get to the bottom.

    At the bottom we stopped for an hour and had some lunch before the steep walk back up the hill. All the German people we have met so far, seem so lovely and welcoming. We spoke to a few people on our way down briefly.

    After the walk we headed to our next park up, nearly a km above sea level and on the edge of woodland, quite possibly our most remote park up yet.

    James spent a couple of hours trying to get the WiFi working and Grace cooked a lovely roast with marinated chicken and loads of root vegetables. It was so delicious. We then spent the rest of the evening looking at our next movements, we really need to spend the afternoon in a laundrette as we have SO much washing to do!

    Another great day in sunny Germany, it's amazing what some sun can do!    Read more

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    22. Camping Hochschwarzwald

    February 26, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    Sad to be leaving our park up today , we really felt like we were in the wilderness last night , there were no other vehicles or campers in sight.
    Our washing really needed doing and we both wanted a warm shower , so we decided to stay at a campsite with everything we needed, we just couldn't be bothered with trying to find a laundrette and somewhere close to park the van .
    Luckily, there was (what seemed) a cheap £35 a night campsite about a 40 min drive away in a place called Hochschwarzwald. We drove straight there , admiring the snowy landscape along the way .
    As soon as we arrived , we realised that the area for campervans was literally a gravel car park , but at least there was a cool view of the ski slope opposite. Also, we had to pay extra for each kW-h of electricity we used.The washing machines and tumble driers were also expensive.
    We went back and forth to the washing machines and gave the van a good sort out. Maddy had a good walk too. By the time everything was sorted it was about 2000. We had a hearty spag bowl for tea and went to bed after.    Read more

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    23. Birkendorf

    February 27, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    Today we woke up early so James can fix the split in the water waste tank pipe . We had one last clothes wash to do & we both showered before we had to leave the campsite. After taking Maddy for a walk; we continued along route 500, heading down towards Switzerland. En route, we climbed (more like crawled in the van) up to Black Forest's highest mountain,stopping to look at a huge skii resort along the way, it actually had a fair bit of snow, but still no skiers. We continued our journey and finally reached the top of the mountain at 1300 metres.

    We drove onto our next park up which was ultimately a log storage on a muddy track, so we decided to head on. Luckily, we found another park up about 20 mins up the road. This park up was a hiking car park in the woodland. We got settled and then took Maddy on the woods longest walk. You could buy a wooden ball at the start for a euro, so we did and had great enjoyment following the huge marble run around the woodland , there were little games and features dotted along the way too.

    After the walk we did the daily van chores before cooking tasty gyros chicken wraps for supper. We are planning our next movements and should be in Switzerland tomorrow. We are both extremely excited !    Read more

  • JG TRAVELSEuropean road tripJG TRAVELS
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    24. Rheinfalls Switzerland

    February 28, 2024 in Switzerland ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    We woke up to more sunshine, James went to walk Maddy and had a catch up with Mum at home, which was nice. We had a coffee and headed off to our next stop, Switzerland! It was only a short 40 minute drive to the Rhein falls just across the border.

    After a slightly sketchy drive ,(Swiss drivers on roundabouts, no indicators) 😬. we arrived to a thundering sound and in the distance we could see the Rhein falls, we walked closer and wow they were raging. They are about 23mtrs in height and 143 mtrs across but the sheer volume of water gushing down them was mad. They are the biggest waterfalls in Europe for water volume per mintue. We walked close up and admired for a while before heading to a cafe for a coffee and some WiFi to check out the Nozstock lineup! (Fair to say we are chuffed with that!)

    As Switzerland isn't in the EU we can't roam here so we downloaded all the maps we needed and the park for night app for Switzerland and headed off to our next stop. We drove out of Switzerland and then back in again from Germany. First customs checkpoint which we found strange as Switzerland is Schengen but anyway waved through without any checks today.

    We headed about 2 hours into Switzerland to a place near Lucerne as this is the start of the Alps to explore and a very scenic town to have a look around tomorrow.

    We had a early night and easy tea tonight ready for adventures tomorrow. Switzerland is a park up late and leave early in the morning from parks ups as it's not tolerated as much as the other country's we have visited.
    We hope tomorrow we will find more of the Switzerland we imagined as today it felt abit of a downgrade in scenery compared to the beautiful Black forest in Germany.    Read more

  • JG TRAVELSEuropean road tripJG TRAVELS

    25. Lucerne

    February 29, 2024 in Switzerland ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    Wow, what can I say. We have found the Switzerland we were looking for!!
    We woke up today to a hazy yet warm day and quickly headed to Lucerne to explore. We were struggling a bit as we had no phone sim card sorted to plan the trip,so we followed our P4N app to a recommended car park to get the bus into Lucerne.

    The Short 20 minute drive was so scenic with the Alps peaking through over the beautiful lake next to the city. We drove through the middle of the town, which yet again was slightly stressful, but we arrived safely. We left Maddy in the van today as we weren't sure how dog friendly Switzerland is and she does stop us visiting shops together.

    We got on a very expensive bus (it was a short 10 min ride and cost us £14), we both said the bikes should have come out. Arriving in Lucerne was so exciting after the sneak preview we had earlier. The town is very old and has a 14th century wooden bridge which crosses the river. On the roof of the bridge was original paintings which were mad to see, sadly in 1993 they had a fire and 5 paintings were ruined and you could see where the flames had affected the bridge. In the middle was a tower which was used as a dungeon. This gave us a cool insite into the citys history.

    We had a bit of a wander through the colourfully painted streets and went to a souvenier shop to buy some badges and magnets for our collection. One thing we have learnt is how expensive Switzerland is , you can really tell that the wages are high here when a small sandwich is £10 and a bottle of coke is nearly £5. Mental really, so we headed to a local supermarket and brought some lunch there and headed to the Lake to eat and enjoy the view.
    As the day went on the Alps made more and more of an apperance and the view across the lake was literally amazing, the best view we have seen since our Himalayan trek.

    We got some Swiss sim cards so we can plan our trip and managed to get a fairly good deal, suprisingly. Afterwards, we headed along the lake front passing the Casino and some very posh hotels and resturants. Pasta dishes for £35 was funny to see.

    The last stop was a trip to a famous lion monument which was built for the soldiers who died during the french revolution. The sculpture is cut into the cliff and was very intricately designed. We took some photo's of us stroking him and slowly headed back towards the van.

    After letting Maddy out and sorting recycling out, we headed onto our next free park up and the route there, well we can't explain how scenic it was! This made us both realise that this was the exact reason we built a van, it felt like this was the moment we had been longing for over the last 3 years building the van, cruising through the mountains , music blasting on our soundsystem, sun glasses on. It was such a hype and we loved every second of the journey to the park up. We have found another free gem park up in Switzerland, the view from our windscreen is insane.

    We played basketball and had a kick around with the ball for a bit, Maddy decided to eat some disgusting things and we headed inside when it got dark and cooked a lovely noodle chicken dish.

    Then spent the last 2 hours updating Penguins before chilling and ready for our next day in Switzerland. Weather not looking great tomorrow, Heavy snow at times so that should be entertaining.    Read more

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    25. Lucern Photos

    February 29, 2024 in Switzerland ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C
  • JG TRAVELSEuropean road tripJG TRAVELS

    26. Altdorfe

    March 1, 2024 in Switzerland ⋅ ☁️ 4 °C

    The weather wasn't as great today so
    we made a coffee and sat discussing where we were going to visit next, coming to the conclusion that we should slowly head out of Switzerland and back into Germany . As much as Switzerland is amazing , it isn't great for campervans , unless you want to pay about 60 a night to stay somewhere. We have read that if you accidently park for the night in the wrong place , you can get fined up to £2000 !
    Finally , we set off to a little village called Altdorfe , about two hours east . The roads here are very narrow and no one indicates at all , making it quite nervewracking when you have a long vehicle to manoeuvre on the roundabouts.
    We stopped off at a supermarket near Altdorfe and bought our next few meals for as cheap as possible . Once we arrived at the campsite , we realised that it was basically someone's farm yard . There was hardly any space for us to park, so we quickly left before anyone noticed us .
    There was a little parking circle down the road , so we parked up there and got some cash out. Again, we spent ages trying to find a suitable alternative , but literally no where had all the facilities we needed .
    A really nice local stopped and chatted to us for a while and he had no other suggestions , but we really appreciated that he tried . We ended up going back to the farm yard in the end !
    Luckily, some of the vehicles had left by the time we drove back and once we parked up , we realised there was a barn of cows behind us and a meadow of chickens - it was really cute .
    We played ball with Maddy in the meadow for a while and took advantage of the hot showers .
    Both of us really needed a hair cut ( in case you haven't noticed 🤣) , so we spent the evening cutting each others hair , which was hilarious . Surprisingly, I don't think we look too bad 🤔.
    A quick tea tonight as it was so late by the time we sat down .    Read more

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