travel – Page 3 – turnrightoutofportsmouth

Travelling during the Coronavirus Outbreak – Our experience so far

By ‘so far’ I actually mean join us from the beginning of our trip! We left the UK yesterday on a pretty empty ferry out of Newhaven, bound for Dieppe. To all intents and purposes it would appear we left in the nick of time, as much of Europe is now beginning to close their borders.

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Now before I go any further I do feel the need to defend ourselves for going ahead with our trip. It’s not a decision we made lightly, but we don’t regret it for a second. Even though we are fully aware that we are unlikely to be able to visit all the places that we were hoping to (mainly Croatia, but this entails a trip through Italy so fairly unlikely – although we do have 5 months, so you never know…), we are currently heading down towards the South of France – where would you rather be stuck? Continue reading “Travelling during the Coronavirus Outbreak – Our experience so far”

Coronavirus and Travel Plans – To Go or Not To Go…..?

So here we are at the end of February with a planned date to leave for Europe of 5th March… Our plans? Head down through France to Italy, take in Rome and Venice on our way through Italy to visit Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany and Belgium.
Hmm – little spanner in the works now called CoronaVirus means our plans are up in the air – what to do?

Do you ever get that feeling that you should be more excited for your upcoming plans than you are? And then something happens that suggests you were right not to be excited – you’re pshycic – you knew all along that this might happen (or not, as the case may be). Ever been there?

Well, I suspect that we’re not the only people in this position currently. Only perhaps we are slightly more fortunate in that we have nothing booked and we can just do what we want, when we want – to a certain degreee anyway.

What am I talking about? Well our plans for our next trip were well underway – in sofaras we ever plan. This time the plan was catch a ferry, possibly on 5th March (we haven’t booked it yet), pootle down through France, finally crossing the Millau Viaduct on the way; head into Italy and down Continue reading “Coronavirus and Travel Plans – To Go or Not To Go…..?”

Campsite Reviews aimed at motorhomers.

Honest 1st hand campsite reviews from the perspective of motorhomers with a fairly large unit (and often towing a small car). Currently covers sites in the UK, Spain, France and Portugal – hopefully in the future we will be adding sites in Germany, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Switzerland and beyond!

Hi to all you motorhomers out there (and caravaners, but being motorhomers ourselves we know what they need :); well we know what we want/need and suspect many will have similar wants)…

We have, so far, visited sites throughout Spain, France and the UK. This spring/summer, coronovirus allowing, we are hoping to add Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Germany and Belgium to that list (and perhaps Switzerland, Lichenstein and Luxembourg…)

Within each review will be contact details, location details (ie. GPS co-ordinates), access issues and anything that’s particularly good or bad about the site. We will also include links to blogs giving you ideas of where to visit during your stay (this might be on foot, by car or bike).

Every site for which there is a review has been visited by us. Many of them have been found via the ACSI card book, but we are now starting to branch out and there are reviews for the free overnight stops that we have found (some of them just amazing and not limited to 1 night – Algodonales springs to mind; we stayed 4 nights with electricity provided…)

Knowing what’s important to us we are going to use a set format to complete, with key questions (access, pitch, facilities etc.) + the description set up under ‘The good, The bad and The ugly’.

Please do comment with your own views of any campsites I review that you have also visited – it’s quite possible we’ll have differing views! Any suggestions for other campsites or parking areas are also very welcome 🙂

Just a bit of background information on our set-up then:-

We are Mandi and Calvin and we have a 2012 Bessacarr E769, 8.56m long and 2.3m wide. We have been using the ACSI book for our travels on our last 2 European trips, and have found it invaluable (although we have had to resort to the internet a couple of times).

We have also invested in an Aguri SatNav for this trip (the one we had previously, from a different manufacturer, proved to be completely useless!!)

And, of course, if you find the campsite reviews helpful you might enjoy our blog cataloguing our travels!

I will be adding to these whenever we travel 🙂

Happy travelling 🙂

Jump straight to relevant reviews below – separate pages created for each country – simply click below for relevant list (most recent trip is shown first):-

SPAIN

FRANCE

France Roadtrip, May 2016 – It’s brightening up over there…. (errr, no it’s not :( )

Our 1st coastal stop in France. Good for cycling and relaxing 🙂

So I lost a lot of what I wrote yesterday (twice – I’ve only just realised I lost the re-write).

Let’s continue with yesterday (we did a lot more than today for a start). We went back to the castle in Talmont St Hilaire boys (I wonder if you recognise it?)

We didn’t go in though as we arrived at 12.30. Just as it closed for a couple of hours. Most places close for a couple of hours for lunch – except hairdressers and bakeries we’ve noticed. That’s going to take a bit of getting used to!

We then decided to visit Les Sables d’Olonne (somewhere else I’ve been before with the boys). I was a bit disappointed as it was a bit of a dump and it took an age to find the seafront (French signage doesn’t seem to be designed to help you find where you’re wanting to go…)

Here I had a crepe. After ordering I told Calv that I believed I might have just ordered a pancake with cream. I was right – I don’t know why I did it; I knew that Chantilly means whipped cream! It was okay, but I won’t make the same mistake a 2nd time 🙂

We drove back to the van on the coast road (why didn’t we just go that way in the 1st place?!

Once back we decided to get a wash done, so off we set to the laundry, set the wash going and decided to head to the bar for 20 minutes until it was done. 3 1/2 hours, 3 wines/beers and an impromptu dinner in the restaurant later we were just about to head out for a bike ride (trust me it sobered me up!) when I remembered the washing! Lucky I did or it would probably still be in the machine now!

The bike ride in the evening took us halfway back to Les Sables d’olonne to Chateau d’Olonne (the 1st sandy beach following an amazing rocky coastline) – 9 miles there and back (and no, I didn’t use the motor for most of the time – Debbie & Paul…)

Today (Day 5 – I think it’s Saturday..) has been a lazy day apart from a visit to Lidl (won’t be going back..)

I’ve finished my book (Jamaica Inn) and started a new one (Make Me – Lee Child). Calv has given 1 side of the van a polish and I’ve done the ironing. Rock & roll!!

Tomorrow we’re off again, this time to Lege Cap Ferret near Bordeaux and we have high hopes of finally seeing some sun!

I hope everyone’s well and am fairly sure your weather is currently better than ours 🙂

May 2016 French Roadtrip – No! The other right….

Travelling from St Malo to French West Coast at Talmont – mainly avoiding the motorway! Was that the best decision? Well yes and no…. Read on for more detail 🙂

It was a long day yesterday. Travelling. We opted to take the scenic route…. I would say big mistake, BUT, we did see some lovely little towns and villages which, of course, we would never have done from the motorway. Maybe we should just have got onto the motorway a little earlier though? Instead of waiting until there was a road closure barring our way, a SatNav that couldn’t deal with that and a Calvin going the ‘other right’ when I said go right…. We stopped at a little town called Rouge (just before Chateaubriant) which had a massive church. This seems to be a theme – small town/village, big, big church. Very impressive I have to say.

Then we were tootling along a back road and came upon this little cemetery with a small chapel in a village called Maumusson. Like I said, we wouldn’t have seen these had we taken the motorway. But we would have got here a lot quicker!

Anyway we made it, finally. Again another lovely site. Great swimming complex (the sun’s rumoured to be making an appearance tomorrow so we might get the chance to use it as well..)

The moment the pail tipped 🙂

Again a lot of Brits here (and a fair few from the Channel Islands – though not as many as were at the last site)

May 2016 – Cycling into Combourg & a wander around old St Malo

A lovely stop not too far from the ferry at St Malo. Lovely site near to an interesting town. Also within striking distance of St Malo, where the Old Town is a must see

We’re staying just down the road from Combourg – the nearest town to La Chapelle aux Filtzmeens. In keeping with most towns in this area it is mainly medieval in style with so many ancient buildings. We kept forgetting to look up though, and probably missed loads of it.

We cycled there! Into a headwind and uphill most of the way (very grateful for the extra power!) The next challenge was to make the bikes safe – which we managed to do outside the tourist office – unlike any tourist office we might see at home! If you look carefully at the picture below you can see our bikes chained up under the tree 🙂

There’s a beautiful chateau here, but we tried to visit at 12.30pm, just after they’d closed for an hour and a half. Then whilst staring through the bars that were keeping us out we noticed the long list of things that weren’t allowed in the chateau – including backpacks. That was us excluded then!

We went off to cycle round the lake and have our packed lunch by it’s shores, before heading back to the site. 11 1/2 miles complete we were done in and needed to sit with a nice cuppa before even thinking about anymore activity!

At this point Calv announced that he was craving fat chips – yes already! I said he’d have to make do with a curry, and decided to get on with making it ready for later.

Having finally agreed to go to St Malo old town rather than Dinan we set off (we also gave the SatNav another chance, even though we knew the way, to see if it actually does work – it does!)

We parked outside of the old town because the bridge was closed when we got there, and walked in (by which time the bridge was, of course, open). When leaving we watched it open to let a few yachts into harbour. So we wandered in and spend a good couple of hours walking around the ramparts and the old lanes and alleyways. I’ve got to be honest, the cathedral with no lighting bar a couple of small electric lamps, is quite possibly one of the loveliest I’ve been in, very tranquil.

Another 3 1/2 miles walked and we really are jiggered now, and hungry. That’s why we ate a whole French stick with (and before) our curry (as well as rice). Oops….

Successes:-

Found the camera charger (which we thought was lost)
Found Calv’s wet jacket (I’d put it in the inside pocket of mine for ‘safe’ keeping – we’ve spent the last 2 days thinking it was lost…)
11 1/2 miles cycled
Didn’t get lost once all day….
Found the right satellite 1st time – so could get English news

Fails:-

Leaving my FitBit behind on charge when we went to St Malo – Calv refused to come back for it!

Weather – overcast (I think we saw the sun for about 5 minutes all day), and cold. Never mind we trek further south tomorrow when we set off for Talmont St Hilaire which is just south of Les Sables d’Olonne.