Road trip: 36 European countries

THE JOURNEY

14/2/2021

This is the diary of my my solo campervan journey through 36 European countries during the first half of 2015.

There is an entry every day ,beginning at the end of February 2015 and finishing back in the UK at the end of June.
Day 0 Depart Portsmouth ,UK
Day 1       Arrival in SPAIN-Santander to Burgos
Day 2     Burgos to Salamanca
Day 3      Salamanca to Almeira,PORTUGAL
Day 4    Almeida to Braganca
Day 5     Braganca to Avila,SPAIN,then on to El Escorial
Day 6     El Escorial to Segovia, then Riaza
Day 7      Riaza, to the ancient city of Albarracin
Day 8       Albarracin to Zaragoza,via Teruel
Day 9       Zaragoza to Ripoll,Catalonia
Day 10       Ripoll, to ANDORRA
Day 11 Into FRANCE En panne á Carcassonne !
Day 12   On the road again    Sur le pont ..Carcassonne to Avignon
Day 13      Avignon to Arles, and then the Camargue
Day 14       Provence to the Cote d'Azur
Day 15 Frejus to Monaco, then San Remo, ITALY
Day 16       San Remo to Genoa
Day 17      Genoa to the Cinque Terre
Day 18        Cinque Terre to Siena, via San Gimignano
Day 19     Siena,to Montalcino,Pienza and Montepulciano
Day 20    Tuscany to Rome
Day 21     Rome,and VATICAN CITY
Day 22     Rome to Tivoli,then Urbania(the Marche)
Day 23    Urbania ,to Urbino ,then on to the Republic of San Marino
Day 24      San Marino to Ferrara
Day 25      Ferrara to Mantua
Day 26       Mantua to Lake Garda and Verona
Day 27      Lake Garda to Vincenza
Day 28       Vincenza to Pienza,and Chioggia,then Venice
Day 29      Venice
Day 30    Venice to Treviso
Day 31 Flight from Treviso to UK for Easter break
Day 32 Back on the road again in ITALY …. Treviso to Trieste
Day 33   Trieste to Istria, CROATIA (Porec and Rovinj ) ,via SLOVENIA
Day 34    Rovinj to the Plitvika Lakes national park
Day 35     Plitvika to the North Dalmatian coast (Zadar and Sibenik)
Day 36      Sibenik to Trogir, then Mostar ,BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
Day 37    Mostar to Dubrovnik ,CROATIA
Day 38     Orthodox Easter day-Dubrovnik to Kotor, MONTENEGRO
Day 39   Lake Skadar and Ulcinj
Day 40 Ulcinj , MONTENGRO to Shkoder, ALBANIA
Day 41 Lake Skhodra, ALBANIA, to Lake Ohrid , NORTH MACEDONIA (FYROM)
Day 42    Lake Ohrid, FYROM, to Vergina, GREECE
Day 43    Vergina to Thessaloniki
Day 44   Thessaloniki to Kavala
Day 45    Kavala to Alexandroupoli
Day 46 Alexandroupoli, GREECE, to Biser, South East BULGARIA
Day 47 Biser to Veliko Tarnovo
Day48 Veliko Tarnovo, BULGARIA to Bucharest ,RUMANIA
Day49 Bucharest to Transylvania (Brasov and Bran)
Day 50 Bran to Sighisoara
Day 51 Sighisoara to Sibiu
Day 52 Sibiu to Minis,near Arad
Day 53 Minis, ROMANIA to Palic,SERBIA
Day 54 Palic,SERBIA to Sikonda,near Pecs,HUNGARY
Day 55 Sikonda to Lake Balaton
Day 56 Lake Balaton,HUNGARY to Rust (The Neusiedlersee),AUSTRIA
Day 57 Rust to Vienna
Day 58 Vienna
Day 59 Vienna AUSTRIA to Budapest HUNGARY
Day 60 Budapest
Day 61 Budapest to Estztergom
Day 62 Estztergom HUNGARY to BankSa Stiavnica and Bojnice,SLOVAKIA
Day 63 Bojnice to Trencin,SLOVAKIA then Kromeriz, CZECH REPUBLIC
Day 64 Kromeriz to Olomouc ,CZECH REPUBLIC then Krakow, POLAND
Day 65 Krakow
Day 66 Krakow to Auschwitz-Birkenau, then Wroclaw
Day 67 Wroclaw
Day 68 Wroclaw to Posnan
Day 69 Posnan to Torun
Day 70 Torun to Gizycko, Masurian Lakes region
Day 71 Gizycko,POLAND to Vilnius,LITHUANIA
Day 72 Vilnius
Day 73 Vilnius to Pajiesmeniai
Day 74 Pajiesmeniai LITHUANIA to Bauska,LATVIA
Day 75 Bauska to Jurmala
Day 76 Jurmala to Riga
Day 77 Riga
Day 78 Riga Latvia to Tallinn ESTONIA
Day 79 Tallinn
Day 80 Tallinn ESTONIA to Naantali FINLAND
Day 81 Naantali FINLAND to Stockholm SWEDEN
Day 82 Stockholm
Day 83 Stockholm to Karlstad
Day 84 Karlstad SWEDEN to Oslo NORWAY
Day 85 Oslo to Halden
Day 86 Halden NORWAY to Frederikshavn ,DENMARK
Day 87 Frederikshavn DENMARK to Lubeck GERMANY
Day 88 Lubeck GERMANY to Arnhem HOLLAND via Bremen
Day 89 Arnhem HOLLAND to City of LUXEMBOURG
Day 90 LUXEMBOURG to Ulm,GERMANY via Trier
Day 91 Ulm GERMANY to Lucerne,SWITZERLAND via LIECTENSTEIN
Day 92 Lucerne SWITZERLAND to Besancon FRANCE
Day 92 Besancon to Versailles
Day 93 Versailles to Honfleur
Day 94 Honfleur to Le Havre FRANCE,then Portsmouth UK

The debrief

30/6/2015

Final thoughts on my 18830 km,(11700 miles)journey

This was a country-bagging challenge rather than a leisurely soaking-up of regional cultures and I found that travelling through 36 countries in three and a half months didn’t leave a great deal of time for detailed assessment of a country or provide too many chances to interact with the locals. I did see a huge number of interesting sites and sights,and the journey has opened my eyes to further travel potential in Europe,in which travel could be slower and remain more local.

Many of my opinions are based on anecdotal findings or an impression gained from viewing a country as I passed through it over just a day or two. The challenge itself became the most important aspect, as opposed to immersing myself in a culture, but that was always the intention: I needed a spur to ensure that I kept going. What provided the incentive to visit interesting places along the route was firstly the usual tourist’s one of curiosity, but having established a secondary challenge of amassing visits to Unesco World Heritage sites ,I had further motivation to make appropriate detours(whether you can regard the Unesco list as a true league ranking of man’s cultural achievements is a matter of opinion}Finally, I found the keeping of a daily blog one of the biggest drives to look for something new each day, in order to be able to write about something interesting each evening.

I had two trips home mid-journey, leaving the van at Treviso and Budapest airports.This divided my trip neatly into three chunks.For various reasons at home I had to hurry my final third , which was the longest distance, and while earlier in the trip drives between destinations had sometimes been as little as 30km,in the final two weeks I was managing up to 500 km per day, and no doubt missing much of interest in between stops.

I have divided my debrief into three main areas, firstly the tourism interest value of each country, which hopefully might be useful for anyone wishing to visit some of the places themselves, and secondly the cultural aspect particularly in relation to the different nations’ perspective on the EU-both for those already within the EU and those hoping to join. (Or leave !) Maybe this is of some interest in relation to the UK’s promised referendum on leaving the EU. This, by nature of my relatively few detailed conversations with locals, has to be very unrepresentative opinion.

Finally I have added a few notes regarding issues relating to the van, which held up remarkably well, and also the practical points of camping in it, and this I have added to the separate “The Van" blog.

Biggest culture shocks

Albania

This was always going to be an interesting part of the trip, but I wasn’t prepared for the appalling driving with complete lack of road rules, and often bad state of the roads(although some stretches of road in other countries were worse-some of the Albanian roads are quite good following recent modernisation)This ramped my defensive driving skills up to a finally honed razor-sharp state in the course of 24 hours.

The culture shock was cushioned by staying in an excellent campsite run by British people

Despite this I got the feeling that Albania is a safe and friendly country and I would recommend people to pay a visit before this country changes from the really unique place it currently is ,to become less distinguishable from other Balkan counties: there is some fantastic scenery and already a small but well established tourist itinerary.

Albania also provided my most scary moment, when I was taken aside by the border police and had my van examined for illicit drugs and firearms, after I had distinctly seen someone come round from the back of my unlocked van while I was standing at the passport booth.

Bulgaria

Despite Bulgaria being in the EU, some areas of the countryside especially in the south are staggeringly poor, with crumbling home-made houses and dirt roads through the villages. The main road infrastructure is however very good and the countryside, despite the lack of spectacular scenery, is open and attractive. There is a surprisingly large British expat community, one of the largest in evidence in Eastern Europe. I do not recommend visiting the cheap tourist resorts on the Black sea coast, from what I heard.

Biggest disappointments

Budapest

Despite Budapest having long been a popular city break destination, rather surprisingly it didn’t seem to have as much as I expected on offer. The old town of Buda on the hill over the Danube is attractive, and there are some good views over the Danube, but a visit takes an hour or two. The larger, busy, city of Pest, while apparently having an edgy cultural scene, did not appear to me to be very attractive, but I didn’t try and immerse myself in it.

Monaco and the Cote d’Azur.

Admittedly I visited when the weather was bad here but there seems little to detain the average tourist. It’s very overcrowded, and difficult to get around
Mostar, Bosnia.

This is widely touted as a major Balkan destination. You can’t take away the photogenic setting of the restored bridge, but the tourist area is in fact very small, and one can “do” the whole thing in 30 minutes. Probably not worth a coach trip up from your holiday on the Croatian coast unless you have time to kill, although it is of interest to see the cultural difference between this majority Moslem region and the predominantly Catholic and Italian-like Croatia.

Biggest pleasant surprises-regions

Transylvania.

After a rather unpleasant arrival in Romania via Buccarest it was a real pleasure to find that Transylvania was not the area of dark forests that I had imagined, but rather a combination of spectacular alpine scenery of the Carpathians, and a rolling bucolic countryside which I imagined might have been what the UK looked like 100 years ago. The triangular area bounded by the 3 cities of Brasov, Sighisoara, and Sibiu, with its old Saxon villages and fortified churches is beautiful and culturally and historically interesting (and very cheap) .Prince Charles owns property here for a reason!
The Spanish Interior in March. This is an area relatively under visited by the British, yet has spectacular scenery- including mountains and extensive beautiful arid regions. March is the time to go. The snow on the mountains adds to the scenery, the place is very quiet, and the weather when I was there was very pleasantly warm-any later in the year and it would be intolerably hot.
Poland

There is a huge amount of interesting cultural history, yet the country is an advanced European nation, with good infrastructure, and the people are friendly, with English widely spoken

Biggest pleasant surprises-cities

1)Stockholm.

Although fairly expensive ,and having bit of a bad traffic problem in the city, there is much to see and do in this city and its spectacular setting of islands and waterways .If I’d had more time I should have liked to have visited the outer islands

2)Tallinn

Although Riga and Vilnius are both very interesting, Tallinn has just a bit more, but pays the penalty by being also much more touristy. Take your choice!

3)Ohrid ,Macedonia. Seeming to be a breath of fresh air after Albania, It is both very scenic and has a rich cultural history

4)Vienna

The city centre is striking in its unified architecture within the RingStrasse, which is all walkable.

Places or regions I’d go to again, other than those mentioned above.

Germany

I breezed through Germany quite quickly: those cities I did stop at were rewarding, with lots of history, even though many had been reconstructed since WW2.Germany seems to have as high as concentration of Unesco World Heritage sites as Italy, and there is much to explore: not only that, Germany is ultra campervan-friendly.
Croatia

This was the second time I have visited Croatia, and I would go to the coastal region and islands again: the scenery is fabulous, the history rich. I would just make sure to go out of season for in July and August it is packed with those nationalities long in the know(especially Italians),and it’s very hot(up to 40 degrees)

So the major question –should Britain stay in the EU?

I feel that the answer is yes.While many in Britain moan about the EU, its interference with national governance, its labyrinthine regulations, and its cost, I heard very similar complaints in other countries, including in some of the poorest. The EU has provided generous investment to infrastructure projects, but of course the money doesn’t always end up where the majority would have wanted it. In Romania I heard that the EU’s drive to bring drinkable water supplies and mains sewerage to the rural towns and villages had met resistance as the new facilities were going to mean increased cost for the consumers when many felt they could carry on with their old (free)wells and septic tanks.

Interestingly,when I spoke with a young couple in Slovakia,whom I felt would be natural supporters of the EU’s incoming investment and EU-wide working rights,they turned out to be vehemently anti EU,feeling that their country put more in than it got out,and that foreign policy was wrong, both in being anti-Russian and allowing incoming migrants to spread out over the continent.Their only stated alternative would be to go it alone,which I do not think is realistic.They were also very keen to make it clear to me that they were anti-Muslim.Eastern European countries have somewhat of a reputation having racist elements(especially evident at some football clubs)but in some ways I can understand how this attitude has been allowed to linger,these countries having no history of ethnic mixing and no history of a colonial past.Since my arrival home I saw that the Slovakian government has formally stated that they will decline to accept non-Christian migrants,so it would seem these attitudes may not be confined to a few.

Subsequent responses of the former Eastern European countries to the Syrian refugee crisis escalates came as no surprise to me,with countries such as Hungary,Slovakia and the Czech Republic refusing to allow settlement of refugees,or to accept any imposed quotas.Also the legacy of WW2 ,which I have recounted through my blog as I have felt it to be still an abiding influence,has shown itself clearly,with Germany falling over itself to distance itself from its racist past and accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees with apparently open arms. As well as that,the countries such as Slovakia.and Hungary,have shown themselves very hostile to what they regard as German bullying,again a legacy of Germanic hegemony across Eastern Europe,not just in WW",but in also previous centuries .

Britain is almost alone in the EU in having had permanent borders for hundreds of years (created by its geography).With the exception of just a few countries(e.g. Portugal) most countries in central and Eastern Europe,have had very fluid borders over history,which are not necessarily representative of ethnic populations, which spill across borders. I think the EU is playing an important role in keeping these states and ethnic populations knitted together, and if countries such as Britain decide to leave, others may well do so, which would risk a Europe fragmenting and allowing regional inter-ethnic grievances to come to the fore. Currently there are still considerable tensions in the Balkans, and between Greece and Balkan states, together with a fear in some Balkan states that Albanian accession to the EU would heighten the nationalist ambitions of Albanian ethnic minorities in surrounding countries.Finally,the EU plays an important role in motivating governments to maintain proper legal systems,outlaw ethnic , minority and gender discrimination(which still flourishes in some parts of their populations)and reduce corruption.Firstly ,accession to the EU necessitates demonstration of certain standards in a nation’s governments,which provides a powerful incentive,and then provision of ongoing grants is also dependent on preservation of those standards. For example,Bulgaria is denied some funding as corruption is still considered too endemic.In terms of foreign policy,I found particularly in the Balkan states ,and in Poland,a real fear of Russia and the risk of the loss of hard won independence.

The EU is facing a massive pressure from incoming migrants and this pressure is primarily on the poorest southern European countries.Hungary especially ,as one of the entry points to the Schengen area,is under enormous pressure and the border facilities I saw are just not adequate.The EU needs to get its finger out and create a properly funded international border force,and Northern EU counties need to actively help in policing the southern borders,or tensions between north and south EU countries over this issue will quickly escalate.

While we in the UK worry about inward migration from the EU’s poorer countries ,those poorer countries are just as worried about this, in terms of the brain-drain of talented youth which it creates, exacerbating a heightened demographic time-bomb of an aging population. I heard about this in Lithuania, where the emigrating young are not expected to return.I believe they are returning to Poland, now the economy is vibrant, but I learned that even Poland has had to strike an immigration deal with India to allow immigration from there to replace those Polish workers lost to Western Europe.

Day 95 The return home

18/6/2015

The Route home ( 125 km)

Today I completed the short hop from Honfleur to Le Havre and boarded the overnight ferry to Portsmouth.In the process I managed to add one more Unesco World Heritage site to the list, the town of Le Havre itself.

Le Havre centre

the Unesco citation for Le Havre reads as follows :"The city was severely bombed during the Second World War. The destroyed area was rebuilt according to the plan of a team headed by Auguste Perret, from 1945 to 1964. The site forms the administrative, commercial and cultural centre of Le Havre. Le Havre is exceptional among many reconstructed cities for its unity and integrity. It combines a reflection of the earlier pattern of the town and its extant historic structures with the new ideas of town planning and construction technology. It is an outstanding post-war example of urban planning and architecture based on the unity of methodology and the use of prefabrication, the systematic utilization of a modular grid, and the innovative exploitation of the potential of concrete".

I suspect that this architecture is not to everyone's taste now and probably it should be severely bombed again !

Arrival into Portsmouth ,0500 hrs

Day 94 Versailles to Honfleur

17/6/2015

today's route ( 200 km )

I made sure I was up early this morning as all indications were that Versailles was going to be very busy.Despite starting from the campsite only a mile from the palace ,it took half an hour to find parking:my original plan to go into the carpark in the palace park collapsed as I was turned away at the gate because only cars are allowed.In the streets around ,typical French car parking was taking place ,double parking,no place for a van,and very bust traffic.Eventually I headed back to the forecourt right in front of the palace (Place des Armes)and parked there:luckily,at 2metre 45, I just squeezed under the 2.5 metre height barrier.It was 3 euro per hour which in the end worked out costing more than getting into the palace,once I’d been there six hours.This is where an early start did come in handy ,as I found a spot where I wasn’t going to get hemmed in by what looked like was going to be very chaotic and tight parking.When I eventually returned the carpark was full,but there was only one other van of any description there.This is one advantage of “stealth mode” as full blown campervans have nowhere to go in this situation.

I was in the end rather unimpressed with the palace of Versailles.Clearly marketed as one of Paris’s must-see tourist spots judging by the crowds ,on what was not one of the busiest days,the building itself is a shadow of what it must have been in Louis XIV’s reign.For a start it now has Paris suburbs right up to it,and motorways on 3 sides.It was stripped bare during the French Revolution,and although a certain amount of material was returned to form a museum,even Napoleon baulked at the cost of restoring it.Future monachs preferred central Paris locations so it became a backwater other than for occasionally hosting major state events.It is really the sheer size of the building itself which is the amazing feature but this is difficult to appreciate from the angles you can view it from.

The Palace of Versailles

The Hall of Mirrors

On offer for viewing are about 15 state rooms.These include the hall of mirrors,quite fine but not outstanding in my view(surprisingly small):and the rooms generally are really quite small.For example,Louis XIV’s throne room is about 10 metres squared,and other than the halls,nothing is bigger than this:there are just lots and lots of rooms,most not on display and probably bare.There is no notable furniture or art.What I was most struck by was the room with 3 massive Napoleonic wall pictures by David.and his pupil Gros.Two are well known,the Battle of Aboukir,and Napoleon crowning Josephine,but I hadn’t realised how huge they are (about 10 metres by 8)

Murat at the Battle of Aboukir,by Gros

The Coronation of Napoleon,by David

The gardens too were a disappointment.I had heard great things about the fountains and lakes etc.In fact the parterre gardens finish just 200 metres from the palace,to be replaced by walks through avenues of very high hedges(20 feet) and in the middle of the hedges there is overgrown scrub woodland to 40 feet tall.I’m not sure if it was always like this:Looking at a map it seems to show masses of parterres and walkways.In effect they don’t exist now,because of the infill by trees, and the tall trees also mean that there is nowhere where you can get a view back to the whole palace.The lawns are not well kept,and those flowerbeds that exist(very few)are in shocking condition.

Due to some perverse logic only the French can conjure up ,the Grand and Petit Trianons-the additional palaces at the end of the gardens-both only open at 12.Thus,if you follow the advice and get to Versailles when the main Palace opens at 9 am,to try to avoid the main crowds,you are through the Palace by 10 and have to kick your heels if you then want to see the Trianons .No-one seems to have realised that if they opened everything at the same time it would be immediately less busy as the crowds would split.I heard someone with a party arguing the toss with a door-woman at the closed Petit Trianon but she was just met with a Gallic shrug and told “its been like this for years”.

The stark gardens at Versailles.I'm sure the hedges weren't as overgrown as this when it was a royal residence.

The Trianons were perhaps as interesting as the main Palace , and I also visited Mary-Antoinette’s little fake hamlet and farm.Here,being generous, I think the air of gentle neglect in evidence may even be historically authentic and “rustic”.

The Petit Trianon

One of the cottages in Marie Antoinette's hamlet

Honfleur harbour -Campervans everywhere

Climbing back aboard the van at 2pm,I slipped very easily onto the A13 motorway that runs past the Palace ,and headed for the channel coast.The 200 km to Honfleur sped by smoothly,and I pitched up on the section of Honfleur docks reserved for campervans.There have been places where I have seen what I thought was the most campervans I had ever seen in one place.Honfleur surpasses that.Probably more than 200 vans are here,each paying 11 euro for no facilities.

There is only one thing to do in Honfleur of an evening and that is to find which of the 40 or 50 or so seafood restaurants you think is the real deal. This would be a disaster area for anyone who has no patience with my menu browsing strolls. In the end I opted for a place that advertised 3 different varieties of Oyster from different local ports, and recommending their special features.The ones I ate(I had plumped for the mid-priced variety)were certainly good,and the rest of the meal ,with a view of the fishing boats intermittently leaving the port basin ,couldn’t be beaten.I set off for the restaurant circuit quite early,seeing the heaving crowds during the late afternoon ,but such is Honfleur’s restaurant capacity that a lot of them were nearly empty. It seems that a large proportion of the visitors come on a day trip by coach, and are gone by the afternoon. Returning to the campervan host, I could see that their normal routine was in operation: even though you are in in a delightful location for an evening’s entertainment in the town ,the majority seem to prefer just to get their satellite dish up ,watch TV, and cook in the van.

Honfleur-the central harbour basin and the iconic thin, tall quayside houses

I feel now is the right time to finish the journey as it is now getting ridiculously busy, certainly in the main tourist hotspots.July and August can only be worse.No doubt there are quiet corners to be found if you go off the beaten track,but I think back with fondness to the earlier days of this trip when it was very common for me to be virtually the only person on a campsite, and be 'the only tourist in the village'.

Day 93 Besançon to Versailles

16/6/2015

today's route ( 450 km )

I have not yet visited the Palace of Versailles,but plan to do so tomorrow.

My intention today was to get as far as Paris, a 450km trip.I was able to stop half way, and deviate 30km off the motorway to visit Fontenay Abbey,in the depths of Burgundy, near Montbard. It is a Unesco world heritage site,and is a Cistercian monastery founded in 1118.Unlike the Cistercian monasteries in Britain,such as Tintern ,and Rievaux in Yorkshire ,it is not ruined, there having been no dissolution of the monasteries.It is in a typically beautiful and remote site that the Cistercians used to chose, by a river to run their mill,in a beautiful sheltered valley. Use as a monastery had faded out after the French Revolution, when the state eventually sold it. It was turned into a paper mill by one of the Montgolfier family (of ballooning fame), but was bought by a banker in 1906 who had all the factory removed and had the monastery fully restored. It also has very pleasant gardens, and has the peaceful beauty that you associate with the best National Trust places in the UK.Some of the buildings have been added in two or three hundred years ago,but all look smart.

Fontenay Abbey.The Abbey church is to the left.

Fontenay Abbey.The gardens .

Fontenay Abbey .The cloisters

Fontenay Abbey. The abbey church

The motorway trip was incredibly easy. The French motorways seem to be some of the best, and are very empty, excepting around the fringes of Paris(where there are no tolls). But it has cost me 50 Euros to travel from the French border near Mulhouse to Paris. If you want to move quickly this is the way, but if I’d had the time I would have meandered more slowly on the lesser roads. At the campsite in a wood just a mile from Versailles palace("Huttopia"), I have found by far the largest collection of British people I’ve seen for quite a time.The campsite is pleasant,well equipped and even has a pool, but as it's in a wood,some careful manoeuvring around the trees was necessary to get into my allotted pitch. Some of the pitches would be almost impossible to get into with my van, let alone a larger van. One new arrival was left scratching his head for some considerable time planning a tortuous route into his pitch.

Day 92 Lucerne,Switzerland to Besancon,France

15/6/2015

today's route ( 280 km )

Besançon is a convenient stop off the motorway from Switzerland to Paris, but it has significant attractions, particularly its 17th century citadel, one of the fortifications designed around the peripheries of France by Louis XIV’s military engineer the Marquis de Vauban, which together make up a Unesco world heritage site. The Old Town is contained in a loop of the river Doubs ( quite a big river here already, but a tributary of the Saone), and Vauban’s citadel is on a steep hilltop at the neck of the loop.

The sultry weather of yesterday broke last night, with heavy rain, which continued most of today. Switzerland is not nearly so scenic in the pouring rain, a phenomenon which anyone who has holidayed in the Lake District will appreciate.The drive was easy, however, despite heavy spray. Swiss motorways are in good condition, with no roadworks to be seen. Switzerland, even though not being in the EU,is part of Schengen, but there still seems to be a customs issue at the border ,as there was a long queue of lorries, and small vehicles had to slow down through a chicane past a group of Police ,who looked ready to stop someone they didn’t like the look of. The French motorway on the onwards route was even better, although I did have to pay at intervals, presumably one of the reasons the traffic is relatively light.

Once in Besancon,I tried getting into a dedicated campervan section of a carpark on the quay across the river from the old town but all the large official camper places were taken at 2pm.There were ,however,plenty of normal spaces in the rest of the car park ,which also allowed 24 hour parking ,but I had to pick my spot carefully to be able to get out if any cars parked next to me-always a consideration with a 6 metre van.7 Euros for 24 hours seemed very reasonable, compared to the extortionate Swiss campsite I stayed in last night, which cost £24.In fact ,forget about a cheap holiday if you travel to Switzerland ,as the prices generally are at least twice that of Germany. Diesel was not quite so inflated but cost £1-20 per litre. France is about £1 per litre but across most of Europe I have been enjoying about 80p per litre.

I walked through the Old Town of Besançon which had to my way of thinking a really tangible French atmosphere, which is a clear contrast to the Nordic and Germanic towns I have been travelling through of late, including Lucerne(local name Luzern),which is in the German part of Switzerland. The architecture in the town is very unified, everything built of the same attractive stone, which is bi-coloured yellow and grey (even individual stones can be half grey, half yellow) and this gives a pleasant randomness to the stonework.

I climbed up to Vauban's citadel. At the foot of the hill on which it sits is a Roman gateway, erected in 175 AD in honour of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Through this is Besançon’s cathedral of Saint-Jean de Besançon, which has a Romanesque 11th century nave with later additions. It was a stiff climb from there up to the citadel, which is vast (6 acres).There is a lot to do inside, and one ticket buys you access to several museums and a significant zoo, whose inmates include big cats and primates. As a sign of its impregnability, there is a baboon colony down in the moat between the inner and outer fortresses and no fences are necessary to keep them in. I didn’t approve of the combined ticket, as the animals become just a curiosity on the side, but apparently it is fully signed up with other European zoos. Included in the price was a museum of Vauban and his fortification engineering, one about the province of Franche-Comté of which Besancon is the capital, and a museum of the Resistance and Occupation, which took one through the whole thing from the rise of Nazism to the end of WW2, and dwelt quite a bit on the collaboration in Vichy France, including French SS regiments recruited here, and the Milice, an unpleasant paramilitary Nazi French police force which hunted down patriots and resistance fighters. The citadel’s least patriotic moment was its period as a Gestapo prison and execution place. The exhibits brought back to me a film I remember, ”Lacombe Lucien”(Dir.Louis Malle) about someone sucked into this ambivalent and unpleasant world, with awful consequences.

The riverfront of Besancon's old town

Of medical interest, Besançon was the home of Louis Pasteur

The Roman gateway,erected in 175 AD in honour of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and beyond ,the Cathedral,originating from the 11th century

A view of Besançon and the loop of the river Doubs ,from the citadel ramparts

A borrowed aerial shot which shows how vast Vauban's citadel is.

The rain had abated by the evening and the sun briefly returned, allowing me a pleasant French pavement café experience for a drink and meal in one of Besançon’s squares, but rain has resumed again tonight at 10pm. Besançon’s Rugby heritage is in evidence ,as France are playing a friendly against Paraguay tomorrow night at the stadium here.

Day 91 Ulm, Germany to Lucerne,Switzerland, via Liechtenstein

14/6/2015

today's route (305 km)

Today produced a massive sense of achievement: I drove south from Ulm into Switzerland(via a little bit of Austria at Bregenz on the end of Lake Constance) and then shortly thereafter reached Liechtenstein, thus marking the completion of the challenge I had set myself. 37 countries(including England) now visited in three and a half month’s travelling!

I started the day by making use of my location in Ulm park-and-ride to catch the tram into the city centre, which was nearly empty at 9 am on Sunday morning.

Ulm’s biggest sight, in both senses of the word is its Minster church( Münster).This is in the middle of a large square in the centre of the town. It has the tallest spire of any church in the world at 162 metres(Salisbury cathedral, the UK’s tallest, is 123 metres).It was built steadily from the late 14th century and the spires were only completed in the 19th century. Miraculously it survived WW2 virtually unscathed, while 80% of the city centre was destroyed by bombing. Some other historic buildings have been nicely restored but about 50% of the city centre is modern. I am uncertain as to why some German cities restored their war damage completely ,and made almost exact copies of the previous buildings ,the new now indistinguishable from the old ones, and why some other cities like Ulm seemed to have filled bomb sites with modern buildings .

Leigh-Fermor describes the medieval atmosphere of the city in the thirties, much of it now vanished: "A late medieval atmosphere filled the historic town. The vigorous Teutonic interpretation of the Renaissance burst out in the corbels and the mullions of jutting windows and proliferated round thresholds....a market day was ending..dark dialect shouts criss-crossed through the snorts and the neighs. Villagers with flat wide hats and red waistcoats and cart whips hobnobbed in the colonnades..they gathered round the braziers and stamped... and the vaults that these pillars upheld were the floors of medieval halls as big as tithe barns.."

He goes on to comment on the destruction that was going to soon be inflicted on the old city he was witnessing from the top of his climb up the Minster tower(writing his book, of course, in retrospect ,after WW2).....

"Looking down, I could see a scarlet banner with the swastika on its white disc fluttering in one of the lanes, hinting that there was still trouble ahead. Seeing it, someone skilled in prophecy and the meaning of symbols could have foretold that three-quarters of the old city below would go up in explosion and flame a few years later: to rise again in a geometry of skyscraping concrete blocks"

Of the restored buildings the Rathaus in particular is still a striking and magnificently painted place. The bells in the Minster are powerful things; as they set to ringing before Sunday service,the whole city centre seemed to reverberate and even amplify the sound. Annoyingly I missed my tram back (they’re every half an hour on Sunday) so I walked back to the van park, but it was not far and only took 15 minutes, so Ulm is not a big place!

A pub quiz fact: Ulm is the birthplace of Albert Einstein.

Ulm Münster

Ulm Rathaus

I headed south ,away from Ulm,on the A7 motorway: not a bad road, but only two lanes and a long section of contraflow through roadworks. I would suggest ,if you are planning a drive through Germany ,to not treat the autobahn network as any more reliable than the UK motorways. At the border into Austria at the eastern end of Lake Constance I stopped to buy motorway vignettes.I could have avoided the 10km that I had to travel on Austrian motorways if I’d tried a bit harder, but forked out the minimum £5 for a week nonetheless, even though I would be in the country just 20 minutes .I did definitely need a Swiss one though. You can only buy these valid for the whole year, at £28,but I guessed that it would make life much much easier for rapid travelling through the length of Switzerland if I could avoid winding mountain roads and stick to the major routes..

30km further on,having briefly been in Switzerland,I crossed the river that marks the border between Switzerland and Liechtenstein(and ,further downstream,Austria) and drove 1km into Liechtenstein to reach the capital,Vaduz.There is only about 2km of flat land in this country before the lofty heights of very steep and high mountains.Frankly,there is not much to do in Vaduz apart from taking souvenir photos,unless you are trying to set up a tax haven(and you can’t do that on a Sunday!).I found parking in the empty car park of a financial institution and wandered along the small main street.There was a Marilyn Monroe exhibition for some reason,or an Art Museum to see,or lunch in some uninspiring restaurants.Several coachloads of foreign tourists who had been deposited here on some sort of tour,were also quickly finding out this place has somewhat of a lack of excitement .

The heart of power:Liechtenstein's parliament

Celebrations on achieving a tally of 37 countries

Schloss Vaduz on the cliff above town

I moved swiftly on and set a course 130km west towards Lucerne where I planned to spend the night. I had always wanted to visit this city since it featured in “Asterix goes to Switzerland”(!)The landscape was stereotypical of Switzerland:the Alps,which first came into sight when I was about 15km north of Bregenz,are still snow-capped,and alpine houses dot the lower slopes. I passed three more lakes after lake Constance(Bodensee),The Walensee,the Zurichzee,and the Zugersee before arriving at Lake Lucerne, and moving into the rather expensive campsite set back from the attractive lawned edge of the lakeshore a few miles down the lake from the town. Next to it is the Swiss Museum of Transport: I decided I had no appetite to go in here so caught the bus back to town.

Lucerne town’s trademark is the wooden roofed footbridges crossing the river leaving the lake.There is one particularly splendid one. All the gables supporting the roof have paintings depicting historical scenes and legends from the town’s past.It is 'tourist central' here,but the lake also seems popular with locals.Despite this there are some attractive old buildings in the town, a typical feature being the extensive Germanic mural painting on the building fronts.The setting on Lake Lucerne(easier to say than its local name of Viewaldstattersee)is extremely pretty,the lakeside and streets are heaving with people ,and boats are heading in all directions.

The iconic covered footbridge in Lucerne's Old Town

Interior of one of the bridges

These are legends, and historical tales from the town's past.I'm not sure who's on their deathbed here.

Lake Lucerne

Day 90 Luxembourg to Ulm, Germany, via Trier

13/6/2015

today's route ( 420 km )

The campsite in the little town of Alzingen,a suburb of Luxembourg,was very pleasant and well equipped-and a reasonable price at £10(unlike the going rate in Norway and Sweden which is about £25).It was clearly just a transit camp,and busy,as very shortly after I arrived at 4pm the sign went up saying “Camping Complet”.And then most of the campers had already left by the time I got going in the morning.I think that sums up my experience of Luxembourg city-it has history but seemed a rather grey and dour place and is a crossroads of major European routes which people for centuries have passed by on a journey elsewhere(maybe my judgement was coloured by the fact that I was there just when everyone was rushing home at 5pm on Friday evening?).The Luxembourg countryside I would rate more highly, though.It is open hilly countryside,partially wooded,and scenic,running into the Moselle wine region.It is on a similar scale as Gloucestershire, and looks good for walking.

I did my sightseeing early today, and drove just the 50km to Trier, over the border into Germany again. Trier (French name: Treves) has a huge amount of history and altogether seems a much brighter and more interesting place than Luxembourg. It is on the river Moselle, and is capital of the Rhineland-Palatinate. It has a gingerbread-house Germanic centre(although a fair amount has been restored after WW2 damage)and today it was heavy with crowds and there were busy fruit and vegetable markets in several of the squares. Trier’s history goes back to the Romans, for whom it was an important city. There are several impressive Roman remains. The original Roman grid street plan remains and the northern city gate remains as a huge intact edifice, the Porta Nigra. One of the bridges over the Moselle is Roman, and is the oldest bridge north of the Alps still carrying traffic. The Emperor Constantine had a palace here ,and his throne–room, called Constantine’s Basilica,or Aula Palatina,is intact(and dates from the early 4th century)This huge hall is the largest single-roomed Roman structure remaining anywhere, and is now used as a Protestant church. There are remains of three Roman baths, and a reasonably impressive Roman amphitheatre. The amphitheatre has had its stage floor authentically restored by building a wooden floor on top of the basement ruins, and then gravelling it over. You could go down into the cellars, under the arena, and pop up by steps in the middle of the arena, or come in from side doors.

Houses that look so good you could eat them !

...but destroyed in WW2 and built again in the 60's

The Porta Negra : the Roman gate to Trier

The Emperor Constantine's bath house

Trier's Roman amphitheatre.Some idiotic Germans were dressed in Roman tunics and doing gladiator boot camp,which involved running round the arena and up and down the steps in the heat being shouted at.It looks as though,if they haven't collapsed by then ,they get to train with the weapons.

Constantine's Basilica, early 4th Century

Trier also has an important Christian history, dating from the same late Roman period. Again, it is the seat of the earliest Christian Bishopric north of the Alps. Trier cathedral (Catholic) was founded in 314, in an existing Roman building (and the foundations of that remain under the present cathedral)The bulk of the existing cathedral was built in the early 11th century and is Romanesque in style with later Gothic additions. In the 13th to 15th centuries a second cathedral building was built adjoining the first in a Gothic style.

Trier’s later history is tied up in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate ,and the Elector built a splendid baroque palace adjoining Constantine’s Basilica. There are other baroque buildings dotted through the town, amongst the medieval ones.

Trier cathedral. To the left, early 11th century,to the right ,an extra church added in the13th-15th centuries

Thd Elector's Baroque palace, dwarfed by Constantine's basilica, which it adjoins.

After a sandwich for lunch I re-joined the autobahn network, heading for my next target, Lichtenstein. I got as far as Ulm before deciding to stop for the day at 6-30 pm,after about five hours driving.My experience of the roads was better today.I had a much more scenic route, starting with the Moselle region,and hilly attractive scenery continued all the way onwards.The roads were free flowing,and often 3 lanes and tarmac although there were an awful lot of roadworks. I stopped at the Ulm park-and-ride just short of the city centre(in German: ‘Park & Ride’)This advertises itself as a camper stop(Wohnmobilstellplatz),which is free,with water supply and waste disposal,with a maximum 3 days stay! I suppose the logic is it that it stops campervans from parking randomly on any spot all over town. It is busy ,with about 70 vans here. It borders the city park where there are a number of popular biergartens and the zoo.A tram comes past every 20 minutes into the city. This is the first time I have knowingly needed my German emissions sticker on the van. Many German cities have low emission zones and you have to display a sticker demonstrating the emissions standard of your vehicle. This costs about £5 and lasts the lifetime of the vehicle, and I had ordered one in advance(although you can buy them at petrol stations).Ulm had signs up stating you needed an emissions sticker to enter(although entry is free)

I saw signs for the “Donau” and I suddenly realised that after 4 weeks I had come full-circle and was back on the banks of the Danube.In the process I have crossed a whole list of famous central European rivers, the Vistula,the Oder,the Trave,the Elbe,the Weser,the Rhine,and the Moselle.

Ulm was the place where Patrick Leigh Fermor, on his walk from Holland to Constantinople, first came across the Danube .It was in the middle of winter, in the snow: "When I was dropped ..(by his lift ).. on the icy cobbles of Ulm, I knew I had reached an important landmark on my journey. For there, in the lee of the battlements, dark under the tumbling flakes and already discoloured with silt, flowed the Danube. It was a momentous encounter..."

In the evening I wandered through the park, past the zoo, and walked for a while along the Danube towpath, here quite a small river. On the way back I stopped at a couple of biergartens. One had a very loud oompah band playing, and then eventually I strolled on and found huge and bustling outdoor Italian Pizza restaurant where I ate.

Day 89 Arnhem ,Netherlands,to the city of Luxembourg

12/6/2015

today's route ( 350 km )

When I pulled back the blind this morning a huge great river cruiser had just docked right in front of the campervan spaces, so rather than be the focus of attention for everyone on board while having their breakfast on deck ,I drove down the quay 500 yards to a quiet spot and regained my river view for my own peaceful breakfast.

The Arnhem Quay camping spot : the Rhine cruisers are strongly in evidence here, spoiling some other camper's breakfast

Setting off later, I trundled my imaginary Sherman tank over Arnhem Bridge and headed for Nijmegen. I timed it and it took just 12 minutes to drive between bridges: you can see why Arnhem was not thought to be "a bridge too far" by the Operation Market Garden planners in WW2.

I had more ordeal by motorways today, about 360km journey in all ,although the final 90km was through the Luxembourg countryside by a lesser road. This time it was the Dutch roads that were very congested, but once past some huge roadworks near Maastrict, things flowed a lot better. They seem from the signs to be building a huge Euro project of a two deck underground motorway under the city, presumably to alleviate some of this congestion It’s not just British motorways that are congested, then. I’ve been lucky so far and very rarely encountered hold-ups, either in countries without so much traffic, or where motorway tolls keep the motorways clear. The landscape is not much to look at all the way across northern Germany and Holland: very flat and nondescript and you could be anywhere. The temperature touched 30 degrees at midday-too hot for a vehicle with a failed aircon. Driving down a motorway with both windows open is a windy experience.

The scenery changed after Liege as I did a drive-by through Belgium.The Ardennes are very scenic: quite hilly,with huge forests,opening at times to reveal farmland and villages.This landscape continued all the way to Luxembourg city,which I first drove all the way through,then,after having dropped the van at a campsite just south of the city,went back in by bus for more of a look.

Luxembourg is a Unesco World heritage city, particularly noted for its extensive medieval fortifications. Apparently, being at the crossroads for hundreds of years it has been one of the most fortified sites from the 16th century until 1857.Being in such an important location it changed hands between the Holy Roman Empire,the Burgundians,the Hapsburgs,the French and Spanish,and the Prussians.

It is built on a surprisingly hilly site, with the old town on a bluff above a river gorge. The medieval Duke’s castle was on a spur of rock (the Bock promontory) projecting out above the gorge. Below this,in the gorge ,an old lower town grew up. The current Ducal palace ,moved back into the city a bit from the medieval castle ,is 16th century. The old city centre is a busy place , but is just 600metres across ,constrained by geography, and the suburbs begin the other side of a dip. A fair bit of the central city is pedestrianised. Great swathes of fortification remain all along the edge of the city which overlooks the gorge, and paths lead diagonally downwards in many places.

Luxembourg.The old city is on the top of the bluff,defended by fortifications.The old lower town is down by the small river below the cliff.The long buff-coloured building at the centre -top of the picture is the Luxembourg parliament

The 'Bock Promontory'.The old medieval Ducal castle was on the spur of rock centre -left. Not much remains, although the little bridge below survives from the 15th century.

The current Ducal palace(16th century).It has a military sentry marching up and down outside.

I wasn’t sure what language I should try speaking in Luxembourg,there being a fairly equal number of signs for businesses,and various notices, in both French and German, so I stuck to English which seemed to work.But listening to the people talk,I was not sure what I was hearing.As a tourist,you will be spoken to in French,if not in English, but I heard what was either French with a very strong dialect,but then it kept sounding like German,or even Dutch.Was I hearing Wallonian,or Flemish ? I had to look it up and was surprised to find that the language is ……..Luxembourgish ! This is a Germanic language with some French elements,but wouldn’t be understood by a German. My linguistic guide tells me that “it belongs to the west Central German group of High German languages and is a primary example of a Moselle Franconian language”.A similar,although slightly different dialect is spoken in a same-sized area of territory over the German border.Interestingly, apparently,a Moselle Franconian dialect is spoken by those ethnic Germans in the Siebenburgen in Transylvania.And most amazing of all,there are at least 5 dialects of Luxembourgish,all of which I find hard to believe in these multimedia times without borders, which mirrors what I was told in Lithuania, that there are at least three dialects there, and the speakers of one may not understand the others.

Waiting at the same bus stop to head out of the city, there was a German couple in their 70’s,as brown as pickled walnuts, holding a guide to Luxembourg. My diagnosis was that they were archetypal campervan folk and must be heading my way: and so it proved: they are in the VW camper next to mine on the site. So this is what happens, once you get bitten by the campervan bug ;you end up travelling Europe in a pair of shorts , chasing the sun,till the end of your days.

,

Day 88 Lübeck,Germany to Arnhem,Netherlands , via Bremen

11/6/2015

today's route ( 470 km )

Another long day on the road today (475 km as opposed to yesterday’s 530)took me from Germany into Holland.At around lunchtime I paid a visit into Bremen city centre, to see the historic Unesco listed Rathaus(town hall) square. Bremen was another Hanseatic trading port(although not quite as wealthy or powerful as Lubeck ),and is on the river Weser, linking it to the North sea at Bremerhaven. A lot of Bremen was destroyed in the war but the historic square survived. Although it seemed a busy and mostly modern city, getting into the centre was relatively painless, as was finding central parking: I think I’m getting more expert at finding likely spots. In this case I set the sat-nav for the river bank just across the main bridge from the city centre where in similar situations I had found parking to be possible,and it was fortunately the case here.I heard a few new swear words in German from cyclists, though. Cycle lanes are everywhere, and in this case run between the parked cars by the side of the road and the pavement.When turning into a side street,the cyclists running at speed parallel to you, hidden behind the parked vehicles, seem to have(or think they have) right of way to shoot straight across the side streets without looking.Unfortunately my German for “Try ******* slowing down and looking where you’re going” is not advanced enough manage a reply.

Bremen Rathaus was built around 1405, as was the statue of Roland in the square.I read that statues of Roland appear in many cities of the former Holy Roman Empire, as emblems of city liberties. The one in Bremen is the oldest of them all. The town square is cobbled, quite attractive and lined with old buildings,but today was not very photogenic as it was being rigged up for some kind of fair. Next to the square is the Romanesque (Norman) cathedral of St Peter’s. The main part was built between 1035 and 1100, and a further gothic addition was placed on top of the Romanesque base around 1500.I wandered in various directions away from the medieval centre but found more modern city all around, and there was nothing I'd spotted in the guidebook to make me look further so returned quite quickly to the square.There I had a lunch of a mini-tureen of pea soup and a hunk of bread ,sat on an appropriately rustic table outside a little café.

Bremen Rathaus,built 1401-5

"The Musicians of Bremen" from the Brothers Grimm story

Statue of Roland,1405,Bremen marketplace

St Peter's cathedral, Bremen. the majority of it early 11th century

Leaving Bremen, I joined the autobahns again and headed onwards for Arnhem, in Holland, as good a stopping-off point as any in the country,I thought.My experience of driving on the much vaunted German autobahns is not very positive.Many of the motorways are outdated two lane highways made of concrete slabs,which give a very bumpy ride.The roads are congested and there are a lot of roadworks.As well as this they are quite dangerous as on most there is no speed limit.The lorries clog the slow lane moving at about 65mph,and any attempt to move into the fast lane is tricky with many vehicles there coming up on you at 100mph or so,much faster than one is used to.The roads noticeably improved on reaching Holland,a better ,smooth,tarmac surface ,wider lanes ,and three lanes.

At Arnhem I found what I was looking for, a dedicated camper overnight stop on the Rhine quay almost directly under what is now called John Frost Bridge, famous for the battle that raged here during Operation Market Garden, portrayed in the film A Bridge Too Far(in which Anthony Hopkins played Lt Col John Frost).It took me quite a while driving up and down past the satnav's quoted destination before I worked out where the actual campervan area was, down on the quay, and that I could drive down there.There is a flood protection wall alongside the road, which hides the quay from the road,and finally by getting out and walking I spotted that at a couple of places you could drive up a ramp,over the wall and down a longer ramp onto the long quayside.The half-dozen spaces where overnight camping is permitted had a rather challenging method of paying.You have to download an app to your mobile phone using the QR code on a sign, then set up an account quoting the unique code for your parking bay.(Very important to go back on the app the next morning to disconnect your stay when leaving) I gave up on this when I initially tried, but later the harbourmaster came along: he could see on his mobile device if each slot was paid for .* He was highly sympathetic that I had failed to work out the system , but suggested that I continue to try, and later on I finally mastered it , which must have saved him a return trip.

(* Addendum Dec. 2015:I have just received an invoice by email ,6 months later,for the payment of 9 Euros)There is quite a bit of river traffic which I can watch from the van's open rear doors. Each big barge going past has the skipper’s car on the foredeck. Unfortunately the quay also seems to be used as a speedway track by boy racers, as it stretches for 2 or 3 km,but I hope they have a bed time.

Later, walking past the bridge, I found a small memorial area with 3 small field guns and some interpretation boards showing the wartime destruction. Apparently, after failing to capture it, the allies eventually bombed the bridge and town to prevent German reinforcements using it and the bridge had to be re-built after the war. A little further along the road above the quay was a pleasant pedestrianised area which was home to a large international assortment of cafes and restaurants each with its own outside eating area, with crowds strolling up and down. After considerable prevarication ,as there was so much choice of different cuisines, I eventually settled for an Indian restaurant, and a curry. It was a beautiful and very hot evening and I had seek shade under one of the umbrellas, as the sun was still strong.