Our first point of order after crossing from Austria, through Italy, and into Slovenia, was to get a vignette in order to use their major roads. €15 for seven days capped our time in the country, but it didn’t matter as we had such a great time there.

We went straight to the huge (and only) campsite at Lake Bled, one day ahead of the renewed ACSI low-season rates. The emerald green lake is home to a tiny island with a church at its centre, dozens of wooden rowing boats slowly creep across the surface, along with paddleboarders, people swimming the kilometre from shore to the island and back (I had a go on our final afternoon). The camp was also home to the most nationalities in one place we’d encountered so far, almost every country was represented.

We stayed five nights and spent the first day ambling around the perimeter of the lake, about 8km in total, visiting the town of Bled, and sampling the local delicacy, Bled Cake, which was a sweet tooths dream.

Top: The church at the centre of Lake Bled.
Bottom: Nom-nom Bled Cake; Neelix at the Dog Bar; the lakefront ‘beach’; Neelix navigates

Fortunately, the sun returned with a vengeance the following day (after a fair bit of rain and mud), and we rented one of the row boats for an hour to paddle to the island, captained by Neelix, and relaxed on the little beach in front of the camp.

We walked 5km to Vintgar Gorge, taking us through tiny Slovenian hamlets, up farm tracks, through 30 degree heat and, ready to collapse on arrival, discovered the gorge was another 1.6km from one end to the other, plus the 5km return journey. But it’s beauty trumped the aching legs and gallons of sweat, I proclaimed it to be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, like something edited out of a Lord of the Rings scene, just pure serenity, the clearest water yet seen (I know we keep saying that), roaring waterfalls, and not yet marred by the presence of a Starbucks.

The stunning Vintgar Gorge. Scatter my ashes here.

Though the huge trek to the gorge wore us out, with so little time available in the country, we wasted none of it in driving 30 minutes to Vogel, for the cable car trip we’d had to skip in Switzerland. Quite the connoisseur of various modes of transport by now, Neelix was nonplussed with the cable car itself, but gazed in a perplexed manner from the top of the mountain at the minute features below. Against the €435 odd it was going to cost the three of us at Jungfrau, Vogel’s cable car journey came for the comparably ample cost of €31.

We were sad to leave Bled in the end, but with one day left on the vignette, we were Croatia bound the next day, stopping off to explore the Slovenian capital of Ljubjana, sampling delicious local ice cream and wandering through a medieval market, before going on to a camp at Pivka Jama, deep in the woods, and also deep in the 80s, highly reminiscent of my Yugoslav accommodations from a family holiday in 1985. But it only served to add character.

No sooner had we passed border control, we said we’d definitely revisit Slovenia in the future. It’s awesome

Above: Our row to Church Island
Beneath: The Vogel cable car, loads cheaper than Switzerland

After leaving the muggy Stuttgart, we headed south west through the Black Forest and crossed back into France to pick up some LPG (easier to come by) in the Alsace Region and then journeyed back to a free Aire halfway down towards Switzerland.

In the morning we drove the rest of the way, forking out a costly €42 for the privilege of using Swiss roads. The vignette costs the same regardless of when you buy it, but only runs to the end of the year! Helluva cost for our planned seven days there!

The country’s natural beauty soon won us over and we drove first to Zug, where we found a sizeable lay-by next to the lake, which would become our wild spot for the night. Pretty as it was, Switzerland has so few roads that it was only quiet for about two hours in the middle of the night, seems the commuters started by car/train/bike around 4am!

 

Our wild camping spot at Zug

Unrested, we continued on towards Lake Lucerne, even more stunning than Zug but in a sexy-and-it-knows kinda way. We paid just shy of €50 for one night in a lakeside camp and trekked through the 30 degree heat 5km into town, watching the paddle steamers ferry tourists across the lake, people and dogs swimming, and hordes of Chinese tourists pointing their iPads at everything.

Around Lucerne

Andy had been to the region several times as a preteen and was prepared for the price shock: The smallest tub of ice cream (thinking cinema sizes here) was €4.50; a bottle of water €3; a cuckoo clock €700! We sprung only for the ice cream, and a steamer ferry back across the lake. Neelix, by now, was over his sunbathing quota for the day and hid beneath the benches on deck.

In the morning we forged on in the direction of Lauterbrunnen and Jungfrau (the ‘Top of Europe’) where, again, a night’s camping costs a good €50. More shocking was that the discounted price of a train/cable car up the mountain was €175 each, plus half again to take Neelix. A little web research informed us we could do a similar trip in Slovenia for about €20 each. Sold.

This setback would not ruin our time at Lauterbrunnen, miraculously it was free to hike up to the mountain waterfall (partially inside the mountain). Nevertheless, we cut our planned two nights at Camp Jungfrau in half before we went broke and drove up a huge mountain pass beside a glacier on route to the Italian Lakes…

Lucerne by night from across the lake

 

The chalets, cows, and postcard shots began to wane after we drove through the 17km Gotthard Tunnel towards Lugano, and the Italian speaking region blurred ever more confusingly to the point we couldn’t remember if we’d crossed the border. This has been a common occurrence the more we’ve moved around; architecture and vistas resemble other nation’s archetypes: the southernmost swath of Germany looks Swiss, northern Spain and southern France are similar etc.

What was most telling that we’d reached Italy was the sudden change in driving style: Cars began pulling out in front where there was little to no gap in traffic, overtaking on blind bends, and generally seeming very impatient with pedestrians, mopeds, slow moving camper vans. Yup, we’d reached Italy!

Neelix deciding whether it’s worth a swim

 

With the driving manners, so too went the quality of roads around the lakes Como and Lugano. Scooby rattled and shook as we headed down cow-paths in search of our first night’s stop at a dilapidated (but free!) Aire in Voldomino. That out of the 20 or 30 spots, only one other camper turned up should’ve been telling, and the power didn’t work either. But free is free!

As in France, if you’re avoiding toll roads in Italy, going relatively short distances takes forever. The secondary routes wind and twist and have roundabouts almost every kilometre. We’d moved from one side of the lake to the other in about three hours. The second night in Italy was spent at a pay-per-hour Aire by a lake in Gavirate, behind a cafe blaring the rather awesome local radio station.

 

Lauterbrunnen: The waterfall – a little timid at the height of summer – and the giant glacier visible through the clouds

 

From Gavirate we drove to another pricey Aire by Lake Lugano. The area was a lot nicer, far more in keeping with our predictions of Italy (having only visited Venice and Rome before); crumbling Roman ruins, lush mini-castles, lots of pizzerias, chic looking people on Vespa’s. We were also treated to free fireworks across the lake.

Baveno, looking like textbook Italy

The financial and mental tolls of moving from Aire to Aire had been driving us a little mad for a while but as mid-August passed, the ACSI discounts began to recommence, and we opted to drive back into Switzerland, to a camp in Locarno.

Five days of rest were what we were in need of and Camp Riarena supplied this with perfect efficiency: Nice bathrooms, a warm-enough pool, good WiFi, and plenty of uninterrupted slumber. The only drawback was, initially, bad weather, which turned the soily ground into sludge.

Some of Switzerland’s insane amount of amazing views

 

After resting up it was back on the road to carry on toward Slovenia. For the sake of available mileage, we chose to go via Italy rather than Austria and instantly regretted it with more of the terrible backroads and roundabout after roundabout. We were very close to punching the Nav system as it declared “at the roundabout…” every ninety seconds.

Fortunately, the roads began to improve as we left the lakes and tunnels around Como (which was no more impressive than Lugano or Maggiore, for all the attention it gets). We stopped for the night short of the Stelvio Pass at Tirano, a functional but expensive Aire in a pretty little town nestled between looming hills.

In the morning we tackled the Stelvio Pass, as popularised by Top Gear, and so now M25-levels of manic with everyone and their grandma wanting to say they’ve driven it. I merrily gave up driving duties to Andy, which entailed some three-pointers to get Scooby around some of the tight bends, but we saw several double-our-size campers and even a coach! From sunny high 20s at the bottom, the temperature dropped to just 9 degrees at the summit.

Our next designated stop was one of two free Aires in Bolzano, both of which ended up looking like we’d get murdered if we stayed, so we opted for a lakeside Aire about 10km south, which ended up costing 25% more than advertised, but at least we woke up intact.

The rest of the day was spent driving out of Italy and back into Austria, where we found a wild camping spot at a viewpoint halfway up a winding mountain road, complete with geckos on the trees and a breathtaking view of the valley below.

From the sophistication of Berlin, we travelled south to Bach’s stomping ground of Leipzig for a couple of nights, and then on to Dresden, where we joined a line of wild-camping MH’s along the riverbank and meandered through the architecturally-rich centre of town, and bought some Czech Crowns for our next sector.

The following day we drove across the border and down to Prague, drenched in heavy rain, and successfully found a parking spot near the centre. As we walked in, the clouds gave way to blistering sunshine while we took in the gothic buildings, a guy on a stag-do dressed as a baby trying to get hugs off strangers (British, naturally), and sampled a weird tubular concoction of sweet-bread.

Our attempts to camp in the Czech Republic were less successful and our Nav system took us along a gravel trail a couple of km’s into the forest, which we eventually had to reverse out of, but were thankful of having a van rather than a coachbuilt motorhome, which surely would’ve gotten stranded. When we eventually did find the camp, it was a timewarp back to an era before Hymers and Dethleffs’ – where there were only tents and everyone stared at the strange alien object cruising in. Somewhat mercifully, there were no spaces available and we drove back over the border and found a quiet parking space in the woods for the night. The creepy, dark woods.

 

 

 

 

 

Prague

Morning came and we weren’t slain by backwoods psychos, so continued on to Saxon Switzerland (nowhere near actual Switzerland), an exceptionally pretty area of lush greens, waterfalls, streams, and the tallest trees imaginable. We strolled through the forest into town, unable to take Neelix aboard the tram, and hobbled back to the camp after a good 10k roundtrip.

Two days later (one restricted largely to the van due to heavy rain), we ventured further south to the towns of Freiburg and Marktleuthen, via the huge Bastei bridge, a stone monolith of yore that boasts vertigo-inducing views of the valley below. Unfortunately all the history was in German. Soon after we found ourselves venturing back across the border for a second crack at the Czech Republic. Our desired camp, much like our last attempt, was almost impossible to find. Several earthquake-sensation roads later, Camp Karolina appeared on some signs. I admired its initial similarity to Camp Crystal Lake, sans hockey masked lunatic, but we got a good night’s sleep there and spent the remainder of our currency on Sprite, a Mars bar and a heave-inducing local sweet bar called ‘Margot’, which was like sculpting clay covered in chocolate.

 

 

 

 

 

Top row: Our camp at Saxon Switzerland; Neelix with the German ‘Mika’ poo-bag dispenser; around the Bavarian towns of South Germany

Lower row: The Bastei bridge in Saxon Switzerland; one of the Schlosses viewed from the top; the vile Czech excuse for chocolate; a much-hyped but ultimately drab waterfall

 

From Czech, it was back into Germany in a general southerly direction, via the super cute city of Bamberg. We spent a night at a free Aire in Cadolzburg, serenaded by the sounds of a musical at the local Schloss. The next day we stopped off at Nuremburg, where we happened on another music festival, plus a small gay pride event. We stopped for the night just outside Munich, at Sulzemoos, another free Aire, in the blistering heat, and for the first time five months, we ate a McDonalds. (Neelix sampled a couple of fries and a bit of the burger patty).

The McDonalds dinner proved a mistake as we both felt like crap the next morning and ended up staying at the Aire all day in a haze of fatigue and too much heat.

After our much needed day of rest, we continued south into the postcard landscapes of the Alps, looping around the Austrian border into Sound of Music city Salzburg, and stopping for the night at Bischofsweisen, a free parking area at the foot of a ski resort and stomping ground for cow-bell clad bovine, who just pass through munching on the grass and, if you get close enough, will make an attempt on your clothes too. The chiming of their cowbells provided a soundtrack for much of the evening.

Enjoy the ballad of the ding-dong cows for yourself…

The following day we headed to Berchtsgaden intent on seeing the famous Eagle’s Nest, but were thwarted by the ridiculous prices for the bus ride to the peak (€17 each plus half again for the dog). Weighing it up, we decided against the expenditure, hoping for better vistas over the coming weeks.

We drove slightly disappointedly from the area back into Austria, along the central route towards Innsbruck, where we’d visited a few years earlier, and found an Aire at Schwaz, which turned out to be free due to dysfunctional service machines. It was still in the thirties when we arrived, but the weather had other ideas and ushered in a huge thunderstorm as night fell.

Wild camping alongside a crystal clear, emerald green lake in Austria

 

From Schwaz, we re-entered Germany at Füssen to visit the fairytale castle from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Nauschwanstein, as well as the manor house at Linderhof. Dogs were, of course, not allowed in the castle, so we settled for the 40-minute uphill hike to see it up close. Aires in this tourist-heavy area were rammed, so we drove back into Austria to wild camp on the shores of Lake Plansee, where we’d passed earlier in the day. The crystal clear water was too inviting to pass up and we both had a dip to cool off as well as another in the morning.

Linderhof Schloss; the enchanting Nauschwanstein castle; and one of many chalets on the road from Germany to Austria

 

It was almost time to meet up with our friends Sergei and Kevin in Stuttgart, so we headed up the Romantic Road, but found it to be almost anything but. Some cute vistas and chalets, a traffic diversion as well, but the castle was clearly the peak, so we ended up (forced by the diversion) back to our old friend Sulzemoos for the night.

On Friday, we drove a few hours west to Stuttgart where we’d reserved a pitch in a city campsite, just 4km from the centre. The temperature was still roasting, 39 degrees when we arrived. We met up with the boys on Saturday, had steins of beer and Raddler in the park, during yet another of Europe’s let’s-celebrate-anything festival, a picnic by the lake where a wedding was being conducted, and took in some music after dark.

 

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Roasted sweet bread in Prague; the inside of Nauschwanstein Castle; Dresden’s ornate palacy thing; off-season chairlifts at the ding-dong cow Aire; beautiful Bamberg; Sergei and Kevin doting on a demure looking Neelix during the festival of randomness in Stuttgart

 

As with seeing our other friends and family back in June, it always makes me a tad homesick, although their description of the British summer put paid to that!

Our final day at the camp was spent trying not to move in the mugginess and fantasising of that frosty Austrian lake. Eventually, Mother Nature bestowed upon us an almighty cooling thunderstorm to take the edge off.

Since leaving Germany, we’ve ‘done’ Switzerland, some of Italy – including the Stelvio Pass!, and are now in at Lake Bled in Slovenia, where we rowed a boat around the lake earlier.

 

Days away:	179
Trip Miles:	8,013
Trip Kilometers:	12,924

We left our beloved camp at Oropesa Del Mar and began the drive south to meet up with Los Amigos Part 1.

The first stop was an overnighter at an Aire in the little town of Segorbe, which didn’t have much going on, but was free, free, free! Next, we intended to wild camp somewhere in the city of Valencia, which entailed compromising with some mental road layouts (5-lane roundabouts!?) and, as it turned out, no spaces fit for a 6.5m camper, despite best efforts.

Still, we saw a lot of the city this way, its beautiful lilac trees, the idyllic mini-parks, and the less-so rush hour. After about two hours of demented navigation suggestions from the route computer, we headed out for the free Aire at Turis.

Turis proved to be a non-starter due to the fact the Aire is located in an industrial estate, with low hedges and no shade on a very hot afternoon.

Another couple of hours’ driving brought us to the small resort town of Cullera, where we stopped for the night on the side of a quiet road, with a little tilt (fun for showering in!). In the morning we hiked up to the castle that overlooks the town, steep but worthwhile. It was €3 entrance but ye olde ‘no perros’ sign prevented us from going in, so Neelix protested by peeing on the wall.

The next morning we drove out to a free Aire, which sits in the shadow of a creepy old monastery, to utilise the facilities and drove on to Oliva, for a couple of nights at Rio Mar campsite, which had a clunky, disorganised charm, underscored by the bizarre aviary at the entrance, home to budgies, fat cuckoo things, and three ducks (plus an unhatched egg!). The day’s best achievement was that we managed to finally put up the hammock we bought in 2007.

Finally, the day came to journey on to the place where we would meet our good friends from home, Shona and Karla: Benidorm. As a pre-‘Dorm excursion, we stopped by Moraira and Calpe on route, wowing ourselves at their azure water, which Neelix even swam in without coercion.

Neither of us had ever been to Benidorm (nor seen the show) and had mixed expectations at best. Andy said it was supposed to be Spain’s answer to Blackpool, elsewhere it was referred to as the Manhattan of the Algarve. I’ve been to both of those and they weren’t so bad… right?

No.

The upside of the jaunt, other than seeing our friends, was that our choice of camp, Armanello, is really well done out, with two pools, more aviaries (less weird menagerie) and lots of space.

We’d intended to wait for our friends before experiencing the town but, as there was a birthday to celebrate, we took a walk in to buy a cake. The sight of Union Jack bunting everywhere and numerous mobility scooter rental notwithstanding, the first thing we saw was a rather portly chap wearing nothing but a mankini and attempting to grope a shopgirl. Eyebrow raising.

After Shona and Karla arrived the next afternoon (with the heavenly elixir of Dr Pepper), we took another walk in to find some good Tapas and, thankfully, much of the previous day’s horror was likely still hungover in the various highrises that blot the skyline. We found a decent Spanish-run outlet for food, and sauntered up and down the front, dodging the scooters and drunken revellers.

After four days, the girls flew home and we spent one extra night at Armanello and the daily temperature seemed to soar. Neelix spent all day panting, but we were heading futher south for our next meet near Almeria for Los Amigos Part 2.

With a 355km drive ahead of us over a three day period, we planned to split the journey into three, wild camp or go for free Aires on two nights, and a campsite on the third for the demanding power-suck of the fridge.

The first Aire was in the small town of Lorqui, shoved alongside a disused park, and a roasting 33°C (the van thermometer peaked at 43°!) It wasn’t yet 2pm, so we decided to go further, and headed to Mazarron, a journey so hot that the route computer simply gave in and had to have its own little igloo built around it with one of the thermo-shades and air-con pumped in. Note: Air-con = essential.

The next day we drove further down to the town of Vera, replete with the first Bullring we’d seen and tooled around a little by the adjacent coast before heading to a commercial Aire a few miles from town. A curious endeavour – the Aire surrounds a Tennis Academy and stretches up the side of a steep hill overlooking The Hills Have Eyes-like desert plains. But it was nicely done out, cooler from the breeze higher up, and provided a great starry night sky. In the morning we made the final leg down past Almeria to Aguadulce.

Sunday gave us an early start to meet Andy’s sister Lizzie, and bro-in-law Chris, in Aguadulce town. Unfortunately their off-cruise excursion only gave us a couple of hours to catch up over a sandwich and a drink before they had to head back to their ship in Almeria. We headed back north, away from the arid landscape and searing heat, eventually stopping back at Camp Rio Mar in Oliva for food, Maxibons, and a long sleep followed by a resting day.

After the second night at Rio Mar, we drove again for three hours north past Valencia back to Oropesa, rounding the trip off nicely where this blog post started. We setup and took Neelix to the beach for some swimming practice. He still tends to assume anyone in the water is drowning and claws madly to lead you back to shore, but it cooled us all off hugely and we got an uninterrupted 10-11 hour sleep to refuel.

On the 13th, we took a drive in nearby Castellon so Chrys could indulge his Jurassic World demands: Negotiating a ticket to the right movie, calling on a kind local to work out which seat I’d been assigned, and then trying to follow the plot in dubbed Spanish was all worth it as the film was awesome.

After a few more days at Oropesa, which saw the heat gradually crank upwards to panting levels (Neelix, not us) we started to think about the next sector, and so drove north back to Torredembarra for one night, and again the next day into Sitges to meet Andy’s friend Rus (Los Amigos Part 3), who is working in Barcelona for a few months.

A day ambling around the town was marred by the discovery that somebody had, somehow, broken into Scooby, ransacked their way through our stuff and made off with Andy’s camera, Chrys’s UK wallet, a little tin box full of random bits n’ bobs (probably mistaken for a cash box), and, crucially, the Nav computer. A tad distressed, we abandoned the plans to wild camp on the street and went instead to El Garrofer just outside Sitges where we cancelled cards and licked our wounds.

As El Garrofer was a high-end camp(€€€), we rapidly resolved to continue making our way north to cooler climes, soon discovering we were pretty much just accompanying a Europe-wide heatwave, and stopped for a night at Platja D’Aro, then, on June 29th, crossed the border back into France and headed for a low-cost camp at Cap D’Adge to wangle a fax from the DVLA to temporarily replace Chrys’s stolen driver’s license. Stress.

It’s the last day of June now and, sadly, things have been affected by the robbery, though we were thankful the fiend completely missed some more crucial kit, we were both mourning the loss of ‘stuff’. Rationalising that stuff can be replaced, but worrying about things we may have missed, and the loss of photos from the camera, has made it hard.

Over the next week or so, the current plan is to gradually move north towards the Alps, where we hope it’ll be just a little cooler, then weave up through Germany to northern Europe throughout the month to let the worst of the heat pass, so Neelix can run down hillsides once again without fear of collapse.

There’d be better photos this month if the reprobate hadn’t made off with the camera also : (

Days away:	121
Trip Miles:	3,598
Trip Kilometers:	5,803