Where in the world are... Kris and Julie?

England Statistics

2008-08-24T09:42:00.001-07:00

Km traveled by car: 2929
Km traveled by foot: 280
£ spent on fuel, oil, propane: 460.24
£ spent on camping: 414.81
£ spent on groceries: 138.65
£ spent on takeout/Restaurant: 183.70
£ spent on misc. items: 562.73
£ spent on tourist sites: 143.86
# of showers had: 15
# of days spent in England: 35
Total Spent in £: 1903.99
Average Daily Costs in £: 54.40

Ireland Statistics

2008-08-24T09:41:00.002-07:00

Km traveled by car: 1,326
Km traveled by foot: 60
€ spent on fuel, oil, propane: 256.87
€ spent on camping: 164.50
€ spent on groceries: 43.18
€ spent on takeout/Restaurant: 95.50
€ spent on misc. items: 190.17
€ spent on tourist sites: 100.00
# of showers had: 2
# of days spent in Ireland: 7
Total Spent in €: 850.22
Average Daily Costs in €: 121.46

Northern Ireland Statistics

2008-08-24T09:41:00.001-07:00

Km traveled by car: 296
Km traveled by foot: 16
£ spent on fuel, oil, propane: 65.01
£ spent on camping: 54.00
£ spent on groceries: 9.17
£ spent on takeout/Restaurant: 7.70
£ spent on misc. items: 3.00
£ spent on tourist sites: 24.40
# of showers had: 2
# of days spent in Northern Ireland: 3
Total Spent in £: 163.28
Average Daily Costs in £: 54.43

Scotland Statistics

2008-08-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Km traveled by car: 1,856
Km traveled by foot: 59
£ spent on fuel, oil, propane: 344.16
£ spent on camping: 185.35
£ spent on groceries: 16.77
£ spent on takeout/Restaurant: 105.37
£ spent on misc. items: 147.94
£ spent on tourist sites: 70.70
# of showers had: 5
# of days spent in Scotland: 12
Total Spent in £: 870.29
Average Daily Costs in £: 72.52

Bristol, Bath and the Old Wardour Castle

2008-08-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

Our time in Bristol was a bit of a blur, and not just because of the cider and beer. Bristol is England’s second largest city and it really does feel like it. Our first task was to find the “address” The Old Rectory. Our GPS doesn’t seem to like names, as it prefers # and street names when finding an address. So it’s no wonder that we went down the wrong street. We asked a couple walking along the street if they knew where the Old Rectory could be, based on the Postal code; she had suggested driving back the way we came but to continue on up the hill. We tried her advice and yet again couldn’t find Megan’s place. We both had spotted what may have been the street to head on, so since we were already lost, we took the chance. We drove for a few minutes before Julie managed to spot the Old Rectory as we passed it. I turned around (about a 50 point turn as the streets are very narrow) and we buzzed in. At last we found Megan and parked our Van. It was great seeing her again, and it was especially funny to hear her new accent. We bounced back and forth between our two friends Phil and Megan as best we could. Our attempt at this was to give them a break from entertaining us and spend as much time as we could with them both. At Megan’s we hung and chatted and pretty much took it easy which was nice after the relentless pace we tend to set when we are traveling. It's also see easy to do at Megan's place too. She lives in a giant old house with a huge lot. Julie's favorite past time is playing with the two resident dogs. If we weren't hanging out at Megan's, we were at Luke's house playing games and hanging out. At Phil’s it was a more lively atmosphere. No doubt that is contributed to the fact that 12 people are living in the house and it's in the middle of the city. We played games, drank, went to many bars that were closed at 10pm, only to head off to the next one a few steps away. That is not to say we didn’t manage to find open bars past 10pm though. It seems the bars in Phil's neighborhood close early, but the once in the heart of Bristol stay open into the wee hours of the morning. They even managed to take us to our first cider house which Julie and I both enjoyed. Our first weekend in Bristol, Phil, Julie and I headed off to London to meet up with Dave and Trevor. However when we arrived, we found out that the guys scored free tickets to a Foo Fighters concert and would not be able to meet up with us. Since we have all been to expensive London before, we spun the van around and headed back to Bristol. In order to make the trip not a complete waste we decided to visit Old Wardour castle. This castle was used as Robin Hood's home in the movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner. There was a wedding taking place so the access was limited, but all in all, it was a nice castle.On a Sunday we went with Phil to the absolutely gorgeous city of Bath. It was a gorgeous day and there’s not much more I can say about Bath, other than it is one beautiful city. I’m sure the weather helped with that too.

After our visit to Bath, Emma made up a picnic and picked up a disposable BBQ and we all headed off to the nearby park. This was a unique experience for us. We aren’t allowed to drink in public in Canada, but it was perfectly fine in England. I’m pretty sure we aren’t allowed to bring a BBQ to the park, but once again, it was allowed in England. It was a great day with an old friend and many new ones. The two weeks we spent in Bristol with our friends showed us more of the English culture than the entire time we had previously spent in England. The hospitality shown to us was amazing and we hope we can return it in kind. We are truly going to miss the people and the life style in Bristol, England. Thanks again guys.

Gloucester

2008-08-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

On our way to Bristol we made a small detour to Gloucester to view its cathedral. This cathedral is yet another on the Harry Potter trail. The moaning myrtle scenes were filmed here. It was yet another architecturally stunning church but we shortly moved on to continue our drive to Bristol.

Warwick and Stratford

2008-08-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

We spent the night in Stratford which we were lucky to be able to do. As it turns out, the campsite we stayed at was having a massive RV show that weekend. We managed to park for 5 pounds on an extremely small bit of grass. We were blown away by the number and size of all the motor homes on site. There were two that appeared larger than our old apartment. We had a small lunch, then we headed into town. Our hope was to see a show, but to no avail. If we were to see one, we would have had to book a few months in advance. Although we got to walk the streets of Shakespeare’s home town, we did not get to cross off watching a Shakespearian play in Stratford. As far as the town goes, there isn’t much to do or see, unless it involves restaurants, bars, café’s and the occasional play. Which means we would like to go back to do just that.
The following morning we woke early to have enough time to visit Warwick Castle, the Gloucester Cathedral and finish the day off with a drive to Bristol. We were waiting inline to purchase tickets for the castle when Julie spotted the price of admission. At a staggering £17 per person, plus the £5 parking we had already handed over, we opted on skipping this over priced attraction.

Chester

2008-08-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

The city of Chester was recommended by Phil and two of his friends we met in Milan, Alex and Mike. This being yet another “walled” city, Julie and I were pretty skeptical about whether or not we would see the same beauty the guys did. When we arrived in town, we wandered around for a bit and did admire parts of Chester, though more time would be needed to fully enjoy this charming city. Upon our wanderings, we found a specialty liquor store where I was able to acquire a bottle of Tobermory for my dad. I hope this scotch is as good as he remembers.

The Lake District (Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside, Windermere and Kendal)

2008-08-23T15:57:00.001-07:00

This truly is the most breathtaking area of England we have seen thus far. We had decided early on to just drive through the Lake District but after arriving in the first town, Keswick, we regretted not having the time or money to stay longer. The Lake District is essentially “cottage” country, but you won’t see many motor boats on the water. After a lengthy drive through some stunning scenery we stopped off in Windermere for a rest.

Hadrian’s Wall and Haltwhistle

2008-07-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

Our first stop for the day was Carisle Castle. Despite its lengthy history, it was rather boring but it didn’t stop us from exploring it for nearly 45 minutes. The second stop for the day was Lanercost Priory and was by far the highlight of the day. The priory is located in a small town where Hadrian’s Wall used to be as the priory was constructed using the material from the wall. Lanercost Priory is run down now, but this adds so much character to the remaining buildings. Our “audio guide” was nothing more than the script printed out. However, the information in the “audio guide” was very informative and provided us with more information than we needed. It was a very peaceful location and helped Julie and I relax a bit. Our next and last stop was Birdoswald Fort. This is the first Hadrian’s Wall site that actually has the wall still erected. The wall is nothing spectacular, roughly 4 feet high, but it is thought to have been much taller, especially at Birdoswald fort. This location is the only Roman fort that actually trained its soldiers year round. It is also thought to be a major trading town. There isn’t much left of the fort now, but the area was still charming. From here we finished our drive to Haltwhistle, where our campsite is located.

Larne

2008-06-04T11:04:00.001-07:00

We had every intention to visit Newgrange and Belfast today. However we learnt that Newgrange is only allowed to be visited with a tour guide (€45 each) and our Belfast campsite is actually located in Larne. We are planning on taking the same route back to Scotland, since it’s the shortest and cheapest route to and from Ireland. Larne is about an hours drive north of Belfast and the drive from Dublin took us nearly 3 ½ hours. When we finally arrived in Larne we decided to book our ferry tickets and not take the train into Belfast. We aren’t entirely disappointed with this decision, as we weren’t too excited about visiting Belfast and there isn’t much to see or do in Belfast either. We purchased our ferry tickets for tomorrow morning at 7:30. It will be a very long day, as we plan to drive to Haltwhistle, a town located along the middle of Hadrian’s Wall and on our way tour 3 EH sites around the area, as well as Hadrian’s Wall.

Dublin

2008-06-04T11:02:00.002-07:00

There are no campsites in Dublin so we stayed on the outskirts of the cities ring road. We didn’t know it at the time, but we think we were staying near the town where Andrew stayed when he was in Dublin. Clondalkin is located west of the city and it was about an hours bus ride into town. We were dropped off right in the smack of it, on Aston Quay in the Temple Bar district. From here we traveled across the river to O’Connell Street to find the tourist office and get a better map. Along the way we passed by the incredibly ridiculous, but also extremely tall (120m), monument to Aran sweaters. They say it is a giant knitting needle with the tip being a beam of light and they call it the “Monument of Light”. The tourist office was helpful and even booked us tickets for the Guiness brewery so we wouldn’t have to queue. We then back tracked over the bridge to make our way to Trinity College and the Book of Kells. We opted for the guided tour offered by students for two euros. The tour was informative and fast, apparently just the other day, our guide was giving a tour and was interrupted by Colin Farrel who apparently has a gorgeous girlfriend in the nurses’ school on campus. No celebrities interrupted this tour though. The book of Kells wasn’t all that interesting, but it is just a real old book. From here we stopped by two churches, St Patrick’s and Christ Church. They were nice enough but we have seen so many impressive churches that we are now a bit jaded. Once we arrived at the brewery we commenced our tour and skipped a large portion of it. It was a self guided tour and the only real reason I came here was to drink “the best Guinness of my life”. It was much better than I remember, but I am still not a fan of the stout. I was surprised to learn that Coors Light has more alcoholic content than Guinness. We were getting hungry now, so we made our way to Temple bar to see about a pub. The pub fare is usually fishy, so we had to search a while before we came across a pub with reasonable prices and a decent menu. There are so many stag and doe parties going on that we see large groups of people wearing the same shirts all over the place. Most are locals, but I did see one shirt that said Paul’s international stag party. It would be pretty cool to go all out and take a trip somewhere for the party. After lunch/dinner we made our way down Grafton Street. Julie is still searching for Irish things. I hope she finds everything she is looking for. Oh, I should say that Julie and I both picked up “Irish” drinking shirts to wear on St Patrick’s Day. Our intention for the evening was not to hang out in Temple Bar (Boo-urns) but to visit Aras Chronain – an Irish culture party where they teach you some Gaelic (like how to order a beer), some traditional dance and they also play some traditional music. However, we did some online research before we stepped out for the night and learned that it is more like an Adult education course, not a party like we were told. So we regrettably did nothing this night either. Two nights in Dublin and no pub crawl. I guess I will just have to head back another time and do it right.

Kells Priory and Kilkenny

2008-06-04T11:02:00.001-07:00

It was a long drive (for Ireland) to reach Kells Priory, the old ruins where the book of Kells was located before it was moved to Trinity College in Dublin by the monks. The ruins now are mostly occupied by tourists and sheep. Unfortunately there was no parking available for anything taller than a car so we took what photos we could before heading on to Kilkenny. I should mention that the sheep were being herded over to an adjacent field by a guy in a truck and a guy on a Gator. Julie thought it was ridiculous. By the time we arrived at Tree Grove Caravan & Camping Park it was well past four. The castle closed at five and since that was the only site in town besides a church, we had a break and had dinner. We ventured out tonight in hopes of finding a bar with some Irish music on. We were told that it was a sure bet to find a bar, but when we started our search at 9:30, all was quiet. We picked a nice looking pub and had a few pints before heading out only to discover a pub a few doors down playing lively Irish music. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t find this pub first. I wanted some food so we stopped by a fast food place called Supermacs and I had myself one of their signature burgers (think Big Mac with ketchup and no cheese).

Blarney Castle

2008-06-04T11:01:00.005-07:00

The walk into town wasn’t as nice as our camping guide suggested so we made the decision to drive in this morning. Thankfully the parking was abundant and free. It was €20 for the two of us to view the castle and kiss the stone. The castle itself is mainly in ruins and isn’t all that impressive of a sight. But you don’t come to Blarney for it’s castle, you come to kiss the Blarney Stone and gain the “gift of gab”. The staircase leading to the top of the castle, where the stone is located, is extremely steep and narrow. Near the top I almost had trouble squeezing through with the backpack on. Julie was just starting to climb the last 3 steps to the top of the castle when her pedometer fell from her waist. It bounced three times before it finally plunged through a large hole in the floor. The pedometer fell nearly 5 stories to the ground. We both thought instantly that it was broken. It has fallen many times from Julie’s hip and occasionally needs encouragement to start counting again. The entire time we were standing in line for the Blarney Stone, Julie watched through more floor openings, hoping no one would steal her pedometer (that’s probably why we never found the old one after loosing it in Pompeii).
The Blarney stone was not quite what we thought (picture a hole in the floor where it meets the wall, the Blarney stone is the piece of wall). The stone itself looked “moist” and it’s rumored that the locals urinate on it. If the stone was more like a large boulder, we probably would have kissed it, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to kiss the wall of a ruined castle. We both laughed later at the thought of me getting the gift of gab, don’t I already talk too much? When we made our way down the narrow stairs of the castle, Julie was being as patient as she could while we followed a rather large woman down. Fortunately she ducked into a doorway for us to pass by. To Julie’s relief and our total surprise the pedometer was still there and it is working just fine.

Cork

2008-06-04T11:01:00.003-07:00

Cork doesn’t have many sites so we took our time getting ready and walking the 2 km into Blarney to catch the bus to Cork. Unfortunately we left without getting the bus schedule from the camp reception office so when we arrived at the bus stop we found out that we would have to wait one hour before the next bus. In order to pass some time we made our way to the Blarney tourist office which happens to be closed on Wednesday’s. Without much left to do, we started browsing in the tourist shops. The bus ride into Cork was short and a little overpriced. Julie and I tend to skip out on museums as they are not very interesting and you miss out on the town itself and since the only suggestions in our guide books about Cork are museums, we were left to fend for ourselves. We decided to follow the crowds of people around some of the city streets and were not rewarded for our efforts. Once you step away from St. Patrick’s street the city becomes grimy and very shady. We did manage to find a few pedestrian only streets but they weren’t as nice as St. Patrick’s. It only took us few hours before we started to get bored. So we began our search for a pub. You would think being in an Irish city it would be easy to find a decent pub, not so. We came across a sports pub, after looking for ½ hour, that had a decent menu. The food was okay but the beer was fantastic. We tried to explore a bit longer before stopping in a self service restaurant for a drink. Afterwards we caught the bus back to the Blarney campsite. While I was typing this blog entry, a gentleman stopped by to ask us about our rig. His rig was a baby version of ours, right down to the colour. We chatted for a bit and found out he was originally from Glasgow, lived in Germany for awhile before settling in a town near Bristol. We didn’t catch his name though.

The Ring of Kerry

2008-06-04T11:01:00.001-07:00

I was tempted to drive a complete circle around the Dingle Peninsula but was reminded that the drive around the Ring of Kerry would take about 4 hours. This is a shame, because the scenery is supposed to be stunning. A few movies have been filmed here, one of which was Far and Away. The Ring of Kerry is said to be home to some of Ireland’s best scenery. In addition, the towns are said to be clean, charming and exactly what you’d envision an Irish town to be. We have seen nicer scenery through our tour of Ireland, but that is not to say the Ring isn’t without its beauty. None of the towns seemed worthwhile to stop in, but maybe it is because we are visiting out of season and they don’t have their flower boxes out yet. The drive was long but very worthwhile. We were going to rest in Killarney, the official start of the Ring of Kerry but I vetoed this decision. There was nothing for us to see in Killarney, except its Natural Park. We were only an hour’s drive from Blarney and the Blarney campsite has free showers, unlike the previous ones we have been at. So we drove to Blarney to spend two nights, this way we could visit Cork with a full day and see Blarney castle on our way out.

Dingle/Gallarus

2008-06-04T11:00:00.003-07:00

Dingle was our second and last stop for the day. I originally thought we were coming here to visit the local celebrity, Fungie the Dolphin. However, Julie informed me that it was to visit a few pubs, which was just fine with me. However, the campsite in Dingle shut down. This really sucked because they offered a shuttle bus to take you into town for a pub crawl and bring you back too. We went to the tourist office to see about other campsites and found out the closest one was a 15 minute drive away in Gallarus. Our plans for the night failed, so we planned to visit Dingle in the morning before we continued on our way.

Cliffs of Moher

2008-06-04T11:00:00.001-07:00

These cliffs are beautiful. The wind however, is another story. It just never stops and it’s incredibly strong. We saw a wedding group having their photos taken while we were there. Besides the cliffs, there are a few shops cut into the hill as well as a visitors centre. After taking a few photos outside we went browsing in the shops. Julie has been looking for Celtic stuff and most recently, a charm bracelet. She managed to find a nice one in the visitors centre.

Galway, The Burrens and Doolin

2008-06-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

We haven’t been sticking to our plans of late and today isn’t different. We left hoping to do a hike near Sligo to Knocknarea and maybe visit Maeves tomb (Neolithic mound) but were unable to locate it. We then moved on to Galway only to learn that the campsite won’t be opening until June. We managed to find a place to park and ventured into town. Galway was nice enough, very modern and sort of dirty. We managed to buy a phone card and call home though. Galway was our original pit stop, but since we were too early for the campsite we moved on to the next stop, The Burrens. The Burrens is a large area of exposed limestone that starts near Carrofin and runs into the sea near Doolin. Our camping guide suggests a drive through the area and during the drive we spotted signs for Ailwee Cave. Julie and I saw this cave advertised online when we tried to do research on Ireland while we were still in Burlington. It looked pretty cool then, so we decided to make a stop. It, unfortunately, wasn’t that great. We have seen much better caves; the one in Belgium comes to mind. Afterwards we left for Doolin, which was originally our planned resting place for tomorrow. The drive was only 281km, which is our longest drive so far in Ireland. Doolin wasn’t on the GPS and it’s not surprising as our camping book says that “Doolin is really known as Fisherstreet”. This small village (pop. 200) is literally one street a few km long with a few pubs and some stores. The only real reason for coming here is to catch a ferry to the Aran Islands. It is also a great base for exploring The Burrens and the Cliffs of Moher. If that weren’t enough it is also said that the pubs have the best music in Ireland. We did attempt to have dinner and a few pints at the local pub but were completely dismayed when we couldn’t find a seat. The pub itself wasn’t small, around the size of the Dickens but every single seat was full. Before we considered standing, Julie looked at a menu and determined that we would find nothing of interest to eat and that everything was around €20. However, it wasn’t a total loss as we did hear some music being played. Four guys sitting around a table playing their instruments.

Londonderry, Donegal and Ballyshannon

2008-06-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

We had such a great start to the Coastal Road, that we hoped today would be just as good, if not better. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way. The drive to Londonderry was not as scenic as the first section we drove. Sometimes it wasn’t even near the coast. We found parking relatively easy and close to the downtown area of Derry, but decided to skip it based on what we saw. We expected to see an older city, not something that resembled Toronto. The main reason for visiting this town was the wall surrounding the centre. We have seen so many walled cities that we have become jaded, so that is another reason we decided to skip it. Donegal had two sites for us to see, the Castle and a Craft Village. The castle was a small wall and half a tower squished in between two larger buildings. The craft village was not at all what Julie had envisioned, being mostly large sculptures and expensive paintings. With the day being a total loss, we moved onto Ballyshannon for a rest at a campsite. I would have ventured out into Ballyshannon but the campsite was actually quite a distance from the town.

Carrick-a-Rede, Giant's Causeway and Bushmills

2008-05-30T11:54:00.001-07:00

We started off early again and today we are following the “Coastal Road”. This route starts in Belfast and follows the coast all the way to Londonderry and is described as having views of outstanding beauty. Our first stop along the route is the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. The bridge was originally built by fishermen to gain easier access to the island for fishing. Now this bridge is used by tourists. The surrounding area was amazing and you could see many birds flying and nesting along the coastal walls. Crossing the bridge was not as “daring” as it looks in photos. Our next stop along the coastal road is the more famous “Giant’s Causeway”. Formed by lava millions of years ago, the Giant’s Causeway looks like many perfectly shaped hexagon steps that run out into the sea. An island in Scotland also has the same formations. The story goes like this; Finn McCool and a giant in Scotland wanted to do battle so Finn McCool built the causeway to go battle Scotland’s giant. However, upon seeing the much larger Scottish giant he flees back to Ireland, the Scottish giant in turn uses the Causeway to go to Ireland and fight. However, Finn McCool’s wife dresses him up as a baby to trick the much larger giant. He buys the trick and flees in terror at the potential size of Finn McCool and destroyes the causeway as he goes so that Finn can’t follow. Our next stop was the Bushmill’s campsite. It was still fairly early in the day so we decided to walk into town to visit the distillery for a tour. We had just over an hour to wait for the next tour to start so we went into town and had something to eat. The distillery tour was short and very similar to the Famous Grouse, but for some reason this tour was much hotter than that one. We had the choice of 4 different Irish whiskey’s to try, so Julie tried the sweetest one, the Black Bush and I tried the Special reserve that is only sold at the distillery. I didn’t like it very much, but thankfully Julie enjoyed hers. We made our way to the campsite and used the free WiFi that was strangely located in the laundry/dishwashing room. The showers at this campsite were the best we have had in Europe – we might even go as far as to say they were the best we’ve ever had anywhere.

Broughshane

2008-05-30T11:53:00.002-07:00

It was dark and foggy when we arrived at the port city of Larne, which didn’t help us navigate towards our stop in Broughshane. We picked up a Northern Ireland Camping guidebook in London and in the inside cover there was an article on their very first “Camping Aires”. Apparently the guy traveled through France and loved the aires there so much that he had one placed in his hometown. This was great news for us, as everything would be closed once we arrived. Finding the town proved to be a little tricky at first, as the fog was so thick, I missed a few turns because I couldn’t see them. Eventually we found the aires and settled for the night.

Stranraer

2008-05-30T11:53:00.001-07:00

This small port town was supposed to be where we caught the ferry to Belfast, but a smaller port called Cairnryan just down the road would take us to Larne, a city just north of Belfast. This route is the cheapest and shortest at £136 and 2hours. Since it was our original plan to head to Larne, not Belfast, we chose this route. We watched the 5 o’clock ferry leave the port just was we showed up at the ticket office. So we managed to get on the 8pm one with P&O ferries. The ferry had a movie lounge and was showing an absolutely dreadful movie called “Daddy Day Camp”. With nothing else to do, and it being a 2hr trip, we decided to take in this movie as we both hadn’t seen it. We truly hope a different movie will be played on the return trip. After the movie we saw that in the “kiddies playroom” they were playing “Surfs Up!” , which we both would have preferred watching. The ferry crossing was really smooth which was good for Julie, as she was able to walk around this time and she even managed to eat a little too.

Culzean Castle

2008-05-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

Culzean castle gardens cover many acres of land along the coast. The castle itself was nothing spectacular, but Julie did see the grand staircase she would like to have in her future dream home (when we win the lottery), unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures. We could have spent the day exploring the grounds at Culzean, but we decided to check out the aviary and be on our way. The aviary was closed due to construction so we ended up heading off to our next stop, Stranraer.

The Famous Grousse

2008-05-30T11:49:00.003-07:00

We had a jam packed day today. First, we were to head to the Famous Grouse to sample some Scottish whiskey, then it was off to Glasgow to explore, if we decided not to visit Glasgow once we arrived, it was off to Culzean Castle. This didn’t happen though, as we never made it passed the Famous Grouse distillery. While we were getting our things together to visit the distillery we realized we were blocking access to a car (A lady and her baby). We promptly apologized and got out of their way then made our way to the distillery for a tour. It turned out that they had a deal on, The Malt whiskey tour for the price of a lesser tour. Naturally I said yes but the lady explained to us that we arrived just after the tour left and would have to wait 1 hour or we could tag onto the tour that had just started. We decided to tag onto the tour that had just started so we didn’t have a chance to get an explanation of what “The Malt Whiskey” tour entailed. During the tour a young lady approached Julie and I, asking if we were Canadians. Julie’s watch strap has a Canadian flag on it and it was this that she had spotted. We ended up chatting with her for the remainder of the tour (when it permitted). The basic tour includes a sample of the Famous Grouse whiskey. They had a scratch and sniff card to help you find the smells in the scotch. Oh, we were also told that the Grouse’s name is Gilbert, after the local team rugby ball. We parted ways with our new friend here, as she was on the basic tour. The Malt whiskey tour includes a video on all the brands of whiskey made by the company and an odd, incomplete, explanation on the “Grouse’s” animation for the video. From here we were escorted to the café where we would sample 4 other scotch’s. There were two that we liked but the only one we remember was Highland Park, as it was our favourite of the two. This was a nice Scotch that is made in the Orkney Islands (we were told that it was a nice scotch from the tour bus driver but didn’t get a chance to sample it at the time). The seven of us sat at the table and had the chance to sample the whiskey at our leisure. Julie and I don’t do so well with that, and managed to have them all down in minutes. I was a little buzzed and decided to have a bite to eat and wait before driving anywhere further. During our tasting, the young lady came up to us and asked if we could give her a ride back to her hostel (she had walked to the distillery and it wasn’t a short or pleasant walk). Of course we said yes and when we were done our small lunch, we took off for her nearby hostel. During our lunch we realized none of us had introduced ourselves (we tend to do this a lot and sometimes end up never learning the names of people we talk to), so we rectified that and quickly got acquainted. Karen’s hostel was only a few km down the road and she invited us to hang out for a bit, and possibly see if we could park the van overnight at the hostel. The people that owned and ran Comrie Croft Hostel had no problems at all with us staying overnight in the parking lot and told us to make ourselves at home. That decided our night. We ended up hanging out inside the lovely hostel and talking with Karen (Toronto), Mel (from London, England) and a German family (from Stuttgart, Germany. Who were in fact the family that were parked next to us when we got to the distillery). Completely random, but Julie and I had a great time. The next morning we talked with Karen a bit more before heading off for Culzean Castle. Karen had told us that Glasgow is a lot like Toronto and well worth the visit. Unfortunately, we ended up skipping it as it didn’t seem to have anything that really interested us. Julie did suggest to me that we visit Glasgow if it means we find a bottle of Tobermory for my Dad. We have been trying to find this particular whiskey for some time with no luck. We passed the Tobermory distillery before we learned it was the scotch to bring home.

Glencoe

2008-05-30T11:49:00.001-07:00

Today’s drive was relatively simple, as was the day. The Glencoe campsite is beautifully situated among mountains, has loads of hiking trails and next door is the Glencoe Visitors Centre. Unfortunately, our health hasn’t been the greatest of late so we had to skip on the hiking. So, we set up our lawn chairs and relaxed. Our drive took us passed Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest peak. There are so many mountains in this area that we couldn’t tell which one was Ben Nevis and most mountains seem to start with the name “Ben”.

Balmacara

2008-05-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately this drive was much longer than we both had thought it would be. Our intentions were to visit the Isle of Skye, while using the campsite at Balmacara as a base. It was roughly three in the afternoon when we arrived in Balmacara, we were both exhausted from the drive and decided to skip our driving tour of the Isle of Skye. Gas is expensive and we’re broke, so spending money to drive around an island with beautiful coastlines didn’t really seem all that important. We have seen beautiful coastlines and we are heading to Ireland which is said to have the best. With the decision made we relaxed in the van for the remainder of the day.

Durness

2008-05-30T11:44:00.001-07:00

Our drive for today was another long one so we woke early to give ourselves enough time to reach Durness and fit in a brief stop. It must be the wrong time of year for wildlife watching because everywhere they claim is a great location for it has nothing new to offer. Duncansby Head is said to have Puffins and seals, what it did have was a stunning coastal view. We were a little disappointed but the coast was beautiful and on the way out Julie managed to get a picture of a Highland Cow. Our drive from John O’Groats took us through Dunnet Head (the most northerly point in the UK) and through the most desolate and beautiful countryside. The majority of the road was one lane with occasional places to pull over. We found everyone extremely nice on these particular roads, as they would wave and almost always stop for us and let us pass rather than forcing us to stop. To get an idea of how narrow these roads are, we would have to worry about smaking a biker on their head with our mirror when we went to overtake them. Our vehicle is wider than most, but even small cars look large on these roads. Occasionally we would pass by a house here or there, and signs pointing to the nearest gas station, which would be about 30km off the main road, in a small village. Durness is famous for being one of John Lennon’s favourite holiday retreat spots. Once again the coast is beautiful here. The only site other than the coast is a cave along the coast called Smoo cave. Since the campsite was 5km passed this cave we decided to visit it first. The entrance to this cave is massive. On the inside was a bench with hard hats and a note saying that the guide was just outside the cave entrance if we wanted a tour of the inner cave. We decided to check this out along with 3 other people. The guide briefly explained how and when the cave was formed and handed out the hard hats. One lady hits her head and now everyone needs to wear one of these (Julie and I both smacked our heads off the ceiling, but we think it was the hard hats fault). The tour was extremely short only lasting 3 minutes but we got to ride in a raft, see the guide feed some very hungry fish and explore a small inner chamber. That was it and was not worth the time or money. Having spent £3 each for the tour we felt extremely ripped off. The campsite was located right on the coast and we had an extremely nice view. The wind however, never stopped and was pretty strong.

Orkney Islands

2008-05-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

We had a very early start today to get ready for the ferry crossing. At 7:45am we were up and getting ready for the day ahead of us. By 9 o’clock the ferry was well underway and Julie and I were outside, sitting on the upper level. Needless to say, we got pretty cold and gave up after 30 minutes. The only reason we wanted to be outside was to see any sign of wildlife. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to see any on the way to the Orkney Islands, hopefully our luck will change. The crossing took all of 45 minutes and was pretty smooth going. We also met another traveling Canadian onboard. Once we docked in Burwick we met our tour guide/bus driver and climbed onboard. The bus driver then took us towards Stromness, all the while following Scapa Flow on our left. Along the way we also crossed a few Churchill barriers. Apparently during the First World War ships were floated up and sunk at key areas around the Orkney islands to prevent the enemy from passing through and gaining a huge staging point. It worked, but over the years the ships moved apart and during the Second World War a submarine managed to navigate past the ships into Scapa Flow and destroy The Royal Oak, the largest ship in Britains fleet. Churchill then decided to construct solid barriers to prevent any further access. As a result, the fishing villages located in Scapa Flow couldn’t fish any more and had to turn to other means of income. Of all things, they decided to become Chicken farmers and they did an extremely good job of it for a many years. Until one day a storm came in and blew all the chickens away, so now they tend to cattle and sheep. The winds are so strong in the Orkney Islands that very few trees grow, most are found in towns being sheltered by buildings or in valleys. TV antennas are built on the inside of roofs. We had a 1 hour break in Stromness and Julie and I decided to use the time to get some lunch. We ended up eating at The Ferry Inn. Julie had potato wedges and sticky toffee pudding while I had a plate of local cheeses with hand made oak cakes and ½ pint of the local brew. The next stop was probably what Julie and I were looking forward to the most, Skara Brae. Skara Brae is a 5000 year old Stone Age village; it is older than the pyramids and Stonehenge. Skara Brae was found by a farmer after a huge storm. Apparently he thought nothing of it but one day mentioned it over dinner to a visiting friend (who happened to be an archeologist). Needless to say when the friend had a look at what the farmer had found he didn’t return home for quite some time afterwards. Thankfully, admission for us was 50% off again as we are EH members, so it was only £6.70 to get in. It was pretty cool to see the replica stone house they had constructed, however, the village itself is very small and we didn’t get the chance to walk in it, but around and above it. The Skara house was not worth visiting though. It was included in the admission for Skara Brae so Julie and I decided to check out the mansion. Afterwards we made our way back to the main entrance to Skara Brae and I had a coffee while we waited for the tour to start again. We boarded the bus again, stopping for two short stops. The first being the Standing Stones of Stenness and the second being the Ring of Brodgar. Like Stonehenge but less in tact, these stone circles were nice enough to see. Apparently a farmer that owned the land that the Ring of Brodgar was located on was fed up with all the people showing up to view the stones that he started to destroy them. He was stopped but managed to destroy a few of them, including the Odin stone. Along the tour the guide provided us with many stories of the Orkney Islands, one of which was of Odin’s stone. This stone had a whole in it and it was said that all binding agreements were made through the circle (marriage, business etc). The stone went missing though and apparently a farmer was using it for farming, but he no longer needed it so he left it in his shed. His son was doing some clean up and found the stone, since he couldn’t move it in one piece, he smashed it into smaller pieces to carry out. Then we had a two hour stop off in the Orkney Islands capital, Kirkwall. We visited a few stores, bought some local cheese and made our way to a pub for some dinner. Our options were pretty limited though, as most of the restaurants weren’t open until 6pm (it was 5pm). Up to this point Julie and I have been able to get back to the bus with plenty of time to spare, so it’s fitting that on our second to last stop for the day we were late. On our way back to the Burwick, we stopped at the Italian chapel. The barriers I mentioned before were built by Italian POW’s and while they were here they also built an Italain chapel and a statue (the statue was made of barbed wire and cement, and represented goods triumph over evil).
The ferry ride on the way back was very similar to the way there, only this time Julie managed to spot a lone seal swimming near the ferry. The tour was worth it and I really enjoyed not worrying about driving or parking for one whole day (Julie was also thankful that she didn’t have to navigate for a whole day).

Loch Ness and John O'Groats

2008-05-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today we made our way to the Loch Ness visitor centre. We stopped along the way for some photos of the famous loch, hoping to catch Nessie and left feeling ripped off. We have seen many TV shows on the Loch Ness monster and felt that the visitor centre would provide us with no new information, so we turned around and started our long drive north to John O’Groats. This would be our longest drive to date in the UK, 254km. Our route hugged the coast pretty much all the way north. We gassed up in Wick along the way and eventually the towns and cities started to become less frequent. When we finally arrived in John O’Groats, it was much, much smaller than we thought it would be. John O’Groats consisted of one street, a harbour, a restaurant/gift shop, tourist information, the campsite and a very small building that housed the ferry terminal. After we checked in at the campsite we took the ten steps over to the ferry terminal to purchase our tour tickets for the Orkney Islands. The tour cost us £40 each, which included the ferry there and back, and a guided bus tour. Since the ferry alone costs £26 round trip, this isn’t such a bad deal. The campsite is right on the water and given our location, Julie and I were hoping to get great sunset pictures. This didn’t happen though, as every single night the sun went to set, a set of clouds would cover it up. Oh, and we took this picture at 11:30pm.

Inverness

2008-05-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

Sterling is said to be the gateway to the highlands and we have no doubt that it is. Our drive from Sterling to Inverness has been an exciting one, visually anyway. Although we know most of the west coast is famous for its rugged looks we can’t help but enjoy what the central and east coast offer. The campsite we chose to stay at is near the town centre of Inverness. We never got the chance to visit the town centre, but if there was more to do than just shop, we might have done so. At the campsite we managed to find a free wireless connection. This might have played a small part in us not venturing out. Julie and I managed to speak to friends and family for a bit and we also managed to post more blogs and pictures. We actually thought that it would be easier to keep up with this in the UK, but internet isn’t as easy to come by as it was on the continent.

Aviemore/Glenmore

2008-05-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

There is a very scenic drive north starting near Sterling and St. Andrews that takes you through the mountains known as the Cairngorms. This was a very lovely area to drive through. The campsite we stayed at in Glenmore (in the Cairngorms) is what is called a Forest Holiday site, which is closer to nature and focuses on hiking, boating and biking excursions. This area is indeed a place we would love to come back to explore by other means. Unfortunately we are not prepared for any of the excursions this time round. Our campsite sits on a lovely lake and it really was a nice spot to rest for the night.

St. Andrews

2008-05-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

We arrived in St. Andrews later than planned and this meant that I wouldn’t get the chance to explore the small town or its golf museum. You would figure since golf was created in St. Andrews that you might see some golf courses, but I only managed to spot one. If I do come back to St. Andrews though, it will be to play golf.

Sterling

2008-05-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

The internet still wasn’t working, so this morning we ended up returning the cards to get a full refund. The van is still overheating now and again, and today is no different. Sterling isn’t a far drive from Edinburgh but we managed to stop 3 times to top up the water in the coolant reservoir. This procedure is pretty frustrating as we need to remove Julie’s seat before we can lift the lid to access the engine compartment. So when we eventually arrived in Sterling and we started to pass by many dealerships we made the decision to see about getting the van fixed, or at least looked at. We were sent to two shops, the last shop providing us with honest help. We were told that the head gasket is probably blown and the water is leaking into the piston heads. We were also told that the engine would need to be rebuilt or replaced to fix the problem (this mechanic was an engine specialist and he said he wouldn’t touch our van). Since we don’t have the kind of money needed for that kind of repair anyway, he gave us some stuff to put in the coolant tank in hopes that it would seal any leaks we have. After that we continued on to Sterling castle. The castle is not extremely impressive. Actually, for the price they charge (we paid half price because we are EH members) it’s not worth visiting. The views you get from the castle are nice enough, but you can get better ones at the nearby Wallace monument. We visited the Wallace monument after the castle. It was late in the day and we ended up having to cut our tour of the William Wallace monument short. Fortunately, we managed to see the more important things, the view from the top and Wallace’s huge sword, before they closed. From here we drove to St. Andrews.

Edinburgh

2008-05-30T11:15:00.001-07:00

New Europe tours offers free tours in Edinburgh, but they start at 10am, thus making it impossible for Julie and I to stay only one night in Edinburgh. We spent two nights at a campsite recommended in our European camping guide. When we arrived we were extremely happy to learn they had WiFi since it was mother’s day and this would be a perfect way to communicate with our mothers. We purchased two 24hr cards for £5 each. Unfortunately the internet was down and we could not use it. We ended up getting a full refund when we left. Since it was mother’s day, we tried to call using the phone outside the campsite. We were told later that the phone does not accept calling cards which would explain why we couldn’t call home. The campsite office had an internet terminal, £1/30minutes so we used this to send emails to our mothers. Being in no mood to cook and there being a pub located on the site of the campground, we decided to go to The Stable Bar for dinner and a pint. The next morning we managed to catch the bus into town but due to construction it let us off later than expected, which resulted in us having to rush to the meeting point. This really sucked because it was outside of a Starbucks, and I was hoping for a coffee to go along with the tour. We arrived, apparently with time to spare as it was 10 and nothing was going on. It turned out one of the guides was attacked by a shark and wouldn’t make it in (Our guide Andy made the story up for a laugh, it worked.) To our surprise the group is the largest we have seen since Berlin (the weather was horrible). The announcement was made that they were waiting for another tour guide for 10 minutes, thus giving us time to get a coffee. Julie was pleasantly surprised when she ordered her Chai Latte with no water to be told that they do it only if you ask them to and that she shouldn’t be shy about asking. Every Starbucks serves their Chai’s with water, not sure why, but it was the first Chai Julie liked from Starbucks. A small victory, but if you’re spending $10 Canadian on a drink you might as well enjoy it. The other guide showed up during the introduction and we went off with Andy who turned out to be one of our favourite guides from New Europe tours (www.neweuropetours.eu.co). So far we have done all the tours available with the exception of Amsterdam, as we didn’t know of it then. We continued along High Street heading towards Edinburgh Castle, occasionally taking a detour down a side street to be shown particular buildings. We saw where the guy who wrote “Auld Lang Sine” (the New Years Eve song) lived. Where taxes used to be collected and public correction took place (they used to nail wrong doers’ ears to a door). We stopped at one point in front of a door and before Andy could get started a couple came out the door. Andy said to the man “Happy Birthday” and instructed us to sing the birthday song. We did, the guy’s name was Fred, from Canada on vacation. All in good fun, however that first song turned out to be a warm up. Apparently Andy always exchanges greetings with an elderly fellow along the route but today when Andy said hi the elderly fellow replied “Hello, it’s my birthday”. It being his birthday, and wearing full Scottish attire, the group gladly sung “Happy Birthday” once again. Outside Edinburgh castle, on a wall, sits a tiny flower basket with an equally small plaque commemorating all the women killed during the witch hunt. Besides the plaque indicating that all the women were indeed witches, more humor can be found in knowing that the plaque was put up in the 70’s. We then proceeded to where all the executions took place, stopping briefly to point out the school that inspired JK Rowling’s Hogwarts. We ate at Biddy Muligans which was next to “The Last Drop”, the actual pub people would go for a drink before they were hung. We sat with two couples from Holland for lunch and chatted with them and Andy. Afterwards we made our way to the cemetery to see some famous graves. Julie and I can’t remember what the first sets of tombs were but we do remember they are now locked off because of some Goth kids playing a midnight soccer game with a skull. We were also shown a “grave cage” which was a giant metal cage that would surround the grave site to prevent body snatchers from breaking in and stealing the recently deceased. The story we remember the most though, was of a dog that stayed at its master’s grave for 17 years. They put up a statue in memory of this dog and the loyalty that it showed. The statue is apparently Scotland’s most photographed object. Apparently the William Wallace statue was the most photographed before it was sold to Donald Trump and moved to one of his golf courses, which is why the dog holds the #1 spot now (or so we were told). We continued along the street to a café called “the elephant house” where JK Rowling sat each day writing Harry Potter on napkins. She did this because it was cheaper to buy a cup of coffee than to heat her apartment for the day(She is now richer than the Queen, so don’t feel too bad for her). Andy then finished off the tour in a garden just below the castle. After the tour Julie and I went for yet another free tour, this time of Edinburgh Castle. This one was short though, only ½ hour but it was good enough. We explored what we could of the castle before moving on. The natural formation called “Arthur’s Seat” was next on our list, but my knee was starting to hurt much more so half way through the walk we called it quits. Making our way back to the town centre proved to be more difficult than we first thought. We managed to walk for about an hour before we figured out where we were and where we needed to go. Everything was closing and Julie didn’t want a tea in the famous elephant house so we decided to take some pictures of the monument to Sir Walter Scott (largest monument to a writer in the world) and catch the bus home. On the way back Julie and I managed to get seats on the second floor of the double-decker bus. It was pretty cool riding that high up.

Jedburgh (Alnwick Castle and Belsay Hall)

2008-05-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

The garage was closed. The van needs constant top ups, but it is still driving, so we decided to head back to Belsay Hall. Alnwick castle was also on the list for the day and Julie decided that she wanted to visit it before heading to Belsay. It is a good thing too, because the drive from Belsay to Jedburgh brings us nowhere near Alnwick (contrary to what I thought). We managed to find a place to park in Alnwick not too far from the castle itself. Alnwick castle is the second largest inhabited castle in the UK, Windsor being the largest. It has also been a film site for many movies, most notably the Harry Potter films. Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood Prince of Thieves also filmed some scenes here. The castle is extremely nice and the interior is the best we have seen, probably because normal people live there. Alnwick castle was a staggering £21 for us to get in, and even though it was a steep price, it was worth it.
Belsay Hall itself wasn’t worth walking around. The mansion was done in a Greek style and was badly damaged and not properly restored. The mansion had 4 large wine cellars which I thought was a great idea. Julie found the library to be perfect, as it was the closest thing she has seen that looks like what she has envisioned for her own library. The mansion was built of stone excavated nearby and the area that was excavated was turned into a garden. The gardens were really beautiful, in particular the high stone walls surrounding them added to the effect. There is an arch way in the garden that Julie found most lovely as pictured in the EH guide and to her dismay, it was under renovations when we were there. I took a picture anyway, but it really took away the appeal of the arch. There was also a ruined castle on site, which we explored before heading back and making the long drive north to Jedburgh. The entrance fee for Belsay Hall was £7.50 each, free for EH members. When we arrived in Jeburgh, the campsite warden told us that it might get a bit loud as a rugby game was going on next to the campsite, and access to the field passed through the campsite. He was right, the music didn’t stop until 11:30pm.

Durham, Prudhoe and Dunstan Hill

2008-05-23T10:17:00.002-07:00

Barnard Castle has a ruined castle which we saw on our way out. The campsite attendants suggested that we get the van fixed in Dunstan Hill, since there is a campsite there and a mechanic that they recommend, so that is our intended stop for tonight. We stopped off in Durham on the way north. Instead of seeking a parking spot, I decided to take advantage of the park and ride. Within minutes of parking we were in the downtown area. Once off in the main strip, we made our way to the Durham Cathedral. This cathedral was occasionally used as a stand in for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. The church was free to visit and we explored what we could. It was a shame they didn’t allow photos in the church as the inside was very nice. We only stayed in Durham for an hour before moving on to Prudhoe Castle. This ruined castle was just alright. It wasn’t impressive, but it wasn’t a total disappointment either. We went to it because it sounded interesting in our EH guidebook. It was free for us, and usually would run you £3.50 to get in. This was another short stop. On our way out the GPS tried to take us across a narrow bridge. I thought our van was less than 3 meters wide, but it turns out it isn’t. I started to climb up the lower part of the walls and decided to bail. I’m not sure if we could have made it across or not, but we both thought, why risk it? It was really getting late in the afternoon and we managed to arrive at Belsay Hall at 4:30pm. This however, turned out to be too late. They would allow us to visit part of the site, but officially they stop letting people in at 4. Since the gardens were the main reason for visiting Belsay Hall, and the gardens are near the end of the site, we regrettably skipped it and moved on to Dunstan Hill. Dunstan hill campsite was another very small site and we arrived too late to get a pitch with electrical. They explained how to get to the garage and they assured us it would be open on Saturday (tomorrow).

Barnard Castle (visited Fountains Abbey)

2008-05-23T10:17:00.001-07:00

We left York this morning to visit Fountains Abbey on our way north. We also planned on visiting, Durham, Prudhoe Castle and to stop and camp in Jedburgh, Scotland. Our drive to the Fountains Abbey was delayed, as our GPS took us right by it. Sometimes when we create routes it doesn’t actually bring us to the stops, but near them. Well, Julie realized this after we had passed it. Our second attempt to the Fountains Abbey brought us down a very small road, it almost seemed like someone’s driveway. Sure enough, not 5 minutes on the road we were greeted by a herd of cows. Usually animals run in fear of our blue van, but these cows didn’t even budge. Well, I just kept the van moving closer, and closer until finally it was close enough that they decided it was better if they moved. Our second obstacle on this road was a gate. Julie, being a season pro by now (every campsite so far has a gate to open manually) hopped out of the van swung the gate open and made sure it was properly shut behind us. When we finally arrived at Fountains Abbey, I realized just as we parked that the car was starting to seriously overheat, again. Completely dismayed about springing yet another leak, we decided to visit the site before attempting to fix the van again. This also would give it, and ourselves, time to cool down. The old Abbey ruins were absolutely stunning. I could not believe that we could walk amongst them like we did. They are probably the most impressive ruins I have seen on this trip. The gardens we walked through were nice enough, all were extremely manicured, even the large lakes were in order and in patterns. It was extremely worth the visit, it was free for us, but for none EH members, it would have cost £15.80 to get in. When we returned to the van I decided to cut the rubber coolant hose to make a new cleaner piece and reattach it as I did before. The rip occurred in the same section of tube as previously. After fixing it we thought, for a while, that we had more than one leak. Thankfully, we didn’t and we managed to top up the coolant tank and move on. We considered staying at a campground nearby, Boroughbridge, but in the end we decided to keep heading in the direction we needed to, despite the kilometers. However, we cut out the remainder of our stops for the day and stayed in Barnard Castle, near our next stop.

York

2008-05-23T10:16:00.002-07:00

We woke this morning with the best weather we have had since we arrived in England. It was sunny. Although we have seen the sun pretty much everyday, it usually isn’t until 2 or 3 in the afternoon and doesn’t usually stick around for too long. It has rained on us every single day since we arrived in England as well. So for us to wake with such gorgeous weather, it ended up taking us longer to get going. We ended up leaving for the city of York around noon. It seems that most of the campsites in England play host to various animals. Rabbits and ducks are pretty much the norm, and once in awhile a new creature we haven’t seen before. The drive to York was uneventful, but it was through the remainder of the Peak district. This section was the most barren of them all. I have to admit, if we had more time, it would have been a great place to go for hikes. The campground we intended on staying at had a bogus address. We ended up in a very posh neighborhood just outside the ring road surrounding York. I made the decision to go to a Caravan Club site (mentioned in our European Camping Guide book) despite the fact that we would pay a non membership fee of £7. The location of this campsite couldn’t be better. It is right on the river and only a 20 minute walk to the tourist office. It took us no time to walk around York’s city centre, as it is so small. We learned of a free tour and decided to take it the following morning at 10. We had also planned on visiting Scarborough via the Hogwarts express steam engine train. Once again, traveling off season has its downsides. This old train only does the run in the summer months. With this off of our schedule we had much more time to explore York at a leisured pace. Maybe this is why we actually missed the morning tour by 10 minutes. We had already seen the York Minster the previous day and decided it was a good place to start our walk today before the 2 pm tour. I spotted a market on the way to the tour meeting point and decided to bring Julie there in hopes that she would find something to buy. To our luck, she was able to purchase a skirt, shirt and light jacket to wear on warm days such as today. Today was another bright sunny day, with lots of warmth. Many people walked around town proudly showing their sun burns. After the market we made our way to the Jorvik Viking center. Underneath York’s streets a Viking village was discovered and now they have a tour to simulate the village’s way of life. This is a slow ride through the village streets as they assume they would have been, complete with sounds and smells. This was a discounted tour because of our EH membership. It was interesting to view the Viking skeleton with all its battle scars but even discounted, it wasn’t really worth it. Julie told me it was more for kids. We packed our lunch today and had a picnic of sorts in a park just outside the York Minster. We laid in the sun for about an hour before making our way to the tour meeting point. While we were waiting a lady started a conversation with us, turns out she was from Halliburton and visits England every year. She joined us, along with two young women for the tour. Our guide was a retired history teacher and had volunteered to do these tours for the past few years. There are over 60 volunteers that do these tours. For a walking tour, we managed to walk only one small section of York’s centre, but the areas we did walk were all the old areas. It was extremely informative and history packed (For example; Mel Gibson, a.k.a.William Wallace, never sacked York although our guide only used the actors name). The tour ran the length it said it would, but for some reason, it felt like it was dragging on. I guess I wasn’t the only one who felt this, as the other people in the tour bolted as soon as it was over. We did enjoy the tour. I guess we are just used to more energetic people doing the tour and much more walking. York is a beautiful city and we really enjoyed visiting it, although we think the weather played a small part.

Sherwood Forest, Bolsovar Castle and Hayfield

2008-05-23T10:16:00.001-07:00

We left the Nottingham campsite early enough as we had a long day ahead of us. Our first stop of the day was Sherwood Forest Visitors Centre. We did the recommended walk, passing by the “Great Oak”. It wasn’t what we expected, so we moved along to our next stop of the day, Bolsovar Castle. Once we arrived at the castle we were redirected to alternate parking as it was full. A few kilometers away we parked in a field and followed the small crowd to the Castle. This was supposed to be a free visit for us today, as it is part of the English Heritage sites. Today is a Bank Holiday though and the Castle was hosting a Jousting Tournament. Because we are EH members, we paid half price (£10) to get in. Once inside the castle’s entrance there were many families scattered about watching the various entertainment. The main stage, was by far the largest and had the most viewers. Here, the knights would perform various tasks to gain points, including sword fights etc. Nothing was going on at the moment though, as it was a musical intermission. The 3 piece band was walking around the square stage amongst the audience. We sat down knowing an event was about to take place but only managed to stay for 10 minutes before deciding to leave and visit the castle before the hoards of spectators did so as well. Julie’s highlight was getting up close to various birds of prey they had on display and were using in an upcoming falconry event. The castle was decent, although needed plenty of work. What we enjoyed most about the castle was the room layout. We wandered around the site a bit more, enjoying the splendid panoramic view of the surrounding countryside before calling it quits and making our way back to the van. We passed by a grocery store and decided to pick up some much needed supplies. After buying my beer and Julie’s Smirnoff, and a few hamburger toppings we continued our journey north. This leg of the drive was the longest we have done since being in England. This drive is through what is considered to be England’s “wild land”, the Peak District. The name of this area is deceiving, or just plain wrong. There are many hills, and sometimes they might be jagged enough to make a peak (we think we saw one). Despite the obvious lack of mountains, the area is beautiful. It is mostly farm land and there are areas that have been left unclaimed. The small town we stayed at for the night was Hayfield, near the top of the Peak District.

Nottingham

2008-05-23T10:15:00.004-07:00

We originally planned on staying at a Certified site while visiting Nottingham, but we couldn’t find it so we ended up spending two days at a campsite just outside a major water park. It is also a bank holiday weekend (long weekend), making it harder to stay in popular campsites. However, this campsite was massive. It only had 20 pitches with electrical and every other “pitch” was located in a large field (about 300 pitches). Julie and I decided to park close to the toilet buildings, but further away from the tenters and in a somewhat level spot. Our intention was to head into town today, but the bus that comes by every 10 minutes didn’t show even after 30 minutes so we decided to go on tomorrow (Sunday May 4th) instead.

Once again the campsite staff were incorrect about the bus schedule. The bus itself only came by once every 30 minutes, rather than every ten like they informed us. They were however, right about it making stops in front of the campsite today. The first 15 minutes on the bus were awkward though. We got on, we sat, then the bus driver pulled over, shut off the bus and started to read the newspaper. We did ask him if he was driving into the town centre, to which he simply replied “yes”. After his break, we were on our way into town. Nottingham is much larger than Julie and I expected. We also thought it to be very modern. Once we visited the tourist information office, we learnt that what we had come to Nottingham for, was actually located a fair distance away. We decided to visit Nottingham’s Castle, the castle grounds were okay, but the remainder of the self guided tour was a waste of time. We then made our way to the oldest pub in England, hopping for a seat and a pint. “Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem” is said to be the oldest pub in England, opening its doors in 1189AD. We walked in, saw how much a half pint was (£6) and left. With out much more to do, we decided to do some window shopping in a mall and have lunch before heading back to the van. We came across a game store in the mall and purchased the British edition, travel pack version of Monopoly (it was only £4.99).

Cambridge

2008-05-23T10:15:00.003-07:00

The campsite is located a fair distance from Cambridge which forced us to use the bus. It didn’t take us long to get into the town centre. The weather was fabulous today, which made it a great time walking around. We made our way to the tourist office, passing a market along the way. We decided to visit the market after we got what information we needed at the tourist office. A town map was 30 pence, which you don’t really need. It did help out, but what it really showed you is that there is not much in Cambridge. Touring the colleges is the main attraction here, as well as in Oxford. But, it being exam week, touring was impossible. The colleges were closed to tourists. This was sort of disappointing, so we made the best of the weather and walked around town before stopping on a bridge watching people go by on punting tours. I suggested to Julie for us to go out on one, but it was too expensive so we just ended up taking the bus home. What we did by mistake though, was take the bus in the wrong direction. It wasn’t a total loss though, as we managed to find a very cheap grocery store along the way. So we had groceries, finally, from a store that wasn’t too expensive. The grocery store in Oxford was prohibitively expensive and we ended up leaving without much food. It took us under 20 minutes to get into town and closer to 2 hours to get back to the campsite (without the stop for groceries). We were both exhausted by the time we arrived at the campsite. My knee was particularly bad today, which always makes matters worse.

Oxford

2008-05-23T10:15:00.001-07:00

We spent two nights at this campsite due to our late check in the day before. There is really only one reason we came to Oxford. It was for Christ Church College’s dinning hall. This hall was used in the Harry Potter films, as was the staircase outside the hall. It was much smaller than we both imagined, and we wondered if it was based off of the hall, and not filmed in it. After seeing the college we went back to our van before we went to visit Cambridge, another popular university town.

Old Sarum, Stonehenge and Avebury

2008-05-23T10:14:00.001-07:00

Old Sarum turned out to be located just a few kilometers from our campsite and was on route to Stonehenge. The aerial photo we saw made the place look awesome. Before we could find a ticket booth, there was a man who worked for English Heritage blocking our way further into the site. He asked us if we knew anything about English Heritage, obviously we don’t, so he went on to explain everything. He also asked us where we were heading in order to further promote his sale. Julie wanted nothing to do with the guy (her usual reaction towards sales people) but what I learnt was valuable, at least I deemed it so. If we were to join up with English Heritage, all English Heritage sites would be free for us, in addition we would receive discounts on participating English attractions, 50% off on Scottish Heritage sites (like Edinburgh castle which we intend on visiting) and half off of some sites in Wales. It also came with a guide book and map which allows us to plan day trips along the way to our already planned stops. The cost to join was steep though, £73 for a two person membership. I decided it was worth the expense and purchased the membership. With this membership, Old Sarum was free, as well as Stonehenge and Avebury as they are English Heritage sites. Julie was still doubtful after I purchased the tickets, so we have ourselves a contest now. She believes I will not be able to make up the £73, and will have spent more money on the membership than if I just paid each time at the attractions themselves. I think the opposite.

Old Sarum is a very ruined castle. Actually, it just looks like small stone walls on a hill. It wasn’t overly exciting; Julie was more interested in the small bunnies living on the side of the hill. It did offer great views, and from the hill top we could see Salisbury’s Cathedral. Old Sarum is probably best viewed from the sky, the many small airplanes flying by the site attests to that. It would have been £3.50 each to get in.

Stonehenge was another short drive and parking was surprisingly easy. The wind has picked up considerably making it feel much colder than it is. Our membership got us onto the Stonehenge site with an audio guide for free, it would have been £7.50 each without. Julie and I learnt nothing new with the audio guides, as we have both watched TV shows on Stonehenge. The site itself was nice although the stones were not as large as they make them out to be on TV. It was cold, windy and threatening to rain but it didn’t stop us from doing a complete circuit of the stone circle while listening to our audio guides. I would have liked to have been able to walk amongst the stones, but I am glad I couldn’t at the same time. There were so many people there it would have ruined the experience. The entire site is an open field, making it feel solitary. If I was bumping shoulders and waiting to take a photo without anyone in it, it wouldn’t have felt as it did. It was worth stopping at, and even walking around. If I had to pay for it, I would only do it once, because its just one of those things you got to do.

Avebury has another set of stone circles, one of which surrounds the entire town. The site is free to visit, but the car park is £5.00 for the day, but free for EH members. The stones were located in a nearby field and just as Julie and I started to walk towards them it started to pour. Because it was raining so much and still cold, we didn’t spend too much time here. We left shortly after for our next stop, Oxford.

Salisbury

2008-05-23T10:13:00.002-07:00

The drive from Winchester was rather long, due to some traffic and an accident we encountered along the way. Rain was the main factor for the accident as it was a sudden down pour. It appeared no one was hurt, but it looked like 3 cars were involved. We found the campsite with little difficulty and since the day was getting late and we were tired from the drive and our short stop in Winchester we decided to just hang out in the van and do some research and play some games.

Winchester

2008-05-23T10:13:00.001-07:00

We have our route planned out all the way until we take the ferry over from Scotland to Ireland. This made our morning much easier and the drive very pleasant. It was cool today but I still managed to wear shorts and since we weren’t doing much walking today, I wore my sandals too. Once we found a place to park for the hour we ventured into the small downtown area of Winchester in search of the great hall that holds King Arthur’s round table. The hall was located away from the main strip and up on a hill. The table was not what we expected. It looked very childish and it was hung up on a wall. The hall itself was empty except for a set of chairs. Julie really liked the ceiling in the great hall, but I was rather disappointed with the whole venture. What I did like was walking in the pedestrian zone and listening to two young busker’s sing a Green Day song.

Windsor Castle

2008-05-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Julie and I were both exhausted when we woke up so it was no surprise to us that we ended up leaving for the Castle much after lunch. The train ride from the campsite was a short one and it was very easy to find the front entrance to Windsor Castle. There was no lineup as we were just arriving for last admission, just before they shut the wickets down. The castle itself isn’t all that impressive, it’s still nice, but what makes it famous though, is that it’s the largest inhabited castle in the UK and one of the Queens official Royal residences. Based on the wonderful location and the traffic gardens it’s no wonder she uses it as a retreat. The inside is like any other castle we have been in. Rooms are themed and you would have to be daft not to figure out what the “themes” are. The dinning hall was our favourite room out of all that we saw. We also managed to squeeze in a very quick walk around the doll house. This doll house is huge, took over 3 years to make and even has hot and cold running water in its sinks, toilets etc. The day was nice so we decided not to hang around too long. We did enter the visitor gift shops and found a set of China ware we both felt my Mom would love. Since the one plate we looked at was just £150, we decided that it would remain a nice idea. Our penchant for missing trains in London continued today and made what could have been a 3 hour tour, more like 5 hours.

London Day 2

2008-05-15T09:08:00.001-07:00

With my knee being sore we missed the train once again heading into London. However, the day before I spoke with a train guard and he told us if we headed in the opposite direction we would get to London Waterloo station faster. So we decided to try this today after missing the train. To our luck it worked and we managed to be early. Today’s free tour is focused on Old London and it started off (late) in front of the Tower of London. Our tour guide was the same guy we had yesterday so this time we got his name, Dave and learnt he is from Australia, went to college in Canada and is now living in London. His accent was a mix of all these. We then walked over to a great viewing point along the Thames to see the Tower Bridge. To our luck while Dave tried to give us some history on it, it was opening to let a boat pass. This apparently only happens once or twice a day. He also pointed out that someone should have told Fergie that she was dancing (ridiculously) on the wrong bridge for her song London Bridge. From here we walked under the London Bridge (it actually had the name on it so you wouldn’t be confused). He also pointed out Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre across the River. He then took us to the City of London, dubbed “the city”. In this small area inside London you can find government buildings that handle the currency and welfare of London and is completely separate from London. We also saw the courthouse that recently held McCartney’s divorce, this courthouse only handles high profile cases. From here we went into what he considered another city inside the City of London. The area is set aside for lawyers to study and work. The area was so quiet and peaceful it was hard to believe you were still in London. We then passed by a church that was once of the Knights Templar. More walking and we came across St Paul’s Cathedral before we crossed the famous wobbly bridge (it isn’t wobbly anymore, and its official name is the Millennium Bridge). He finished off the tour outside a church that still had WWII damage on its exterior. From here Julie and I decided to head to Convent Garden to a bar/restaurant Phil had suggested to us, called the Maple Leaf. Julie and I indulged ourselves with poutine and nachos and washed it all down with a pint of Sleeman’s IPA. While Julie had a Belgian waffle covered in Maple Syrup, I had another pint, this time Labatts. I’m not sure which Labatts, but I was told it was similar to Blue and it turns out it wasn’t. Covent Garden is absolutely packed with people and show performers. You could probably hang out in this area all day and not become bored. As it is, we took off for a tour of the Tower Of London and to our dismay we missed the last admission by 30 minutes. So that left only one thing left to do. Visit platform 9 ¾. Julie and I did the photo opt while others waited for their turn. While we were in the station someone was pick pocketed. It was sort of funny, because the guy started yelling after the man that snitched it, a police officer was nearby and walked over to the yelling man, when the man turned he bluntly said, “Get him!”, and the cop took off in an instant. We didn’t stick around to see what would happen. We headed back to the van to rest, as we needed to visit Windsor castle the following morning.

London Day 1

2008-05-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

I glanced at a local map to see where the train station was located the previous night. I had hoped to have enough time in the morning to get a better idea of how to get there from the campsite. I didn’t, so we ended up walking in the general direction. It did take us longer than planned. We anticipated a 30 minute walk, and it took nearly 45 minutes. This made us miss the train into London, which in turn would make us late for the free tour. The train was more expensive than any other we have used to date on our trip. £28.60 for the both of us, this included all forms of transport for the day including the train there and back. Luckily while we were on the train heading into London we learnt of a faster train we could switch to. We did the switch and managed to arrive just before the tour left its meeting point. We missed the intro, but managed to understand what the arch was for and the nearby mansion. This tour was focused on the Royal area and new parts of London. The tour we will take tomorrow focuses on Old London. Today’s tour started us off at the Wellington Arch and from there we made our way in front of Buckingham palace to watch the Changing of the Guards ceremony. During the off season they only do the ceremony on odd days, this is why we needed to meet this tour today. The crowds of people were impressive for being out of season and the guide said it was mainly due to the fabulous weather they were having (best he has had this time of year). We then cut across a park to walk down a famous street that has many Gentlemen’s clubs. We also passed by the old Royal residence which was mainly red brick and looked to blend into the buildings on either side. After seeing it you can understand why they switched to Buckingham palace (Buckingham palace was built for the duke of Buckingham but he was forced to sell it to the king who had grown quite fond of it). We then walked through another arch that led onto Mall street, which is the official gateway for the queen to enter Buckingham Palace. The street itself is painted red so it resembles a red carpet. The interesting thing about the arch is that the builder had a nose placed high enough for a man on horseback to touch as they rode by, strange, but nevertheless interesting. Then it was off to Trafalgar square, what is considered the center of London. In the square there were two large fountains with funny looking lions. We then walked over to the horse grounds across from St James Park. Here, we learnt that the pelicans in the park have been eating pigeons (video). We could also see a bunker from WWII which is still in use and not open to the public, as was the street where the government homes are located. The Horse Parade area is going to be used in the upcoming Olympics for beach volleyball. It was awful, but we took the guides advice (along with everyone else) to enter another set of gates to take photos of guards. These guards are of the horse division and stand guard of the entry through the gates. To see so many people snapping photos and posing with them was just awful. Out of the 4 guards, only one seemed to enjoy it. We pressed on from here to the very impressive Westminster Abbey and “Big Ben”. This is where the tour finished. Julie and I walked from here to see the famous London eye but not ride it. We decided to head back towards Piccadilly Circus, as there was a very large book store with over 7 floors (Whitestones) and the tourist office was also nearby. We stopped at a Pizza hut for their buffet, as it was only £5.99 all you can eat. We then walked back to Trafalgar square to check out the national portrait gallery before I threw in the towel again. My knee is even worse today after such a long walk and I couldn’t bear to continue any longer.

Chertsey

2008-05-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

Our London campsite is actually located in the outskirts of one of the cities suburbs. We had major difficulty locating the Canterbury campsite and hoped this one would go smoother. It did, but we managed to pass it 3 times before spotting the sign. Today we also gassed up the van, £1.195/L making it around $100 Canadian to fill the tank. That is only slightly higher than in Europe, where it was costing on average $80 Canadian. Still, it’s expensive. We decided to take it easy today and head into London the following morning for one of the free tours offered.

Canterbury

2008-05-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

We finally made our way into England and the customs agent was kind enough to tell us there was a lot of smoke coming from our exhaust and that we might be burning oil. It wasn’t a complaint so we weren’t offended. Driving on the left side of the road is rather easy, especially when you start off on the highway. However, our GPS figured it would be faster to get to Canterbury if we took a few back roads as well as the highway. The first left and right were weird but I quickly adapted. The speed and distance is another story, so I drove what I felt was a comfortable speed. Thankfully the van is large and slow and I ended up driving too slowly most of the time (but not by much). We signed up for a 3 month membership (available to foreigners only) for £20 at the campsite. If we didn’t join it would be an extra £7 at each location (free camping is illegal and not recommended in the UK). The other camping chain is £40 to join for the year, and again saves you a £7 non-member fee on each stay. The day was starting to clear up and since it was still early we decided to head into town and go explore. But before we did this we used the internet a bit over lunch (10 sites offer WiFi). The walk into town was a short one and when we arrived at the town wall, we couldn’t find a way in. We had to walk for a short distance before we came across a street entering the town centre. Our first stop was the cathedral, however we only saw it briefly from the street as it was surrounded by walls of its own and it was £7.50 to enter them. Since this was really all we came to see, we ended up walking around the town, stopping in a few shops, some book stores and then eventually at a Pizza Hut. They had a new stuffed crust pizza, this time with cheese and pepperoni. I highly recommend it. We have only been in England for 2 hours and we already appreciate the ability to speak and understand others. After lunch we wandered a bit more before heading back to the van.

Calais

2008-05-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

The wind here is so strong that our clothes dried in minutes after hanging them. It is also so windy that any heat from the sun is blown away. It was nice enough for me to wear shorts though. From our van we could see the huge ferries docking and taking off every 1 hour or so. As Julie pointed out, we could also hear them sound their horn during the night too. We ended up getting an 8am ferry for 70 euros on Sea France. So instead of staying another night in the campsite we stayed in a parking area for a small fee.

Forges-les-Eaux

2008-05-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

We slept in this morning and it did help to recuperate us. The spot we slept in was free for one night only, so we pressed on to Calais. Since we aren’t sure of the ferry times or prices, and we have laundry to do, we decided to spend two days in Calais only campsite.

Chateaux Versaille

2008-05-15T07:14:00.002-07:00

As you may have noticed, Paris took us 3 days, not our planned 2. So we are spending another night in the campground so we can go visit Chateaux Versaille. The Chateaux is only 2 km from the campsite so we decided to walk it. My knee is still as sore (if not worse) as before. Usually a 2km walk would take us 30 – 45 minutes, this time it took us 1 ½ hours, again attesting to how tired we are (and how sore I am). When we walked along the main street leading up to the castle we saw numerous places to park our van, thus making our walk shorter, but since we were already 1 km into the walk we decided to just leave the van and get this over and done with. The chateaux itself is rather unimpressive from the exterior. Where its glamour lies is in the interior state rooms, where the rooms are lavishly decorated to the point of absurdity. The gardens are supposed to be very impressive as well, though they cost extra to visit so we skipped them. When we were in the famous “Room of Mirrors” I was half way through the giant hall before realizing it was the room of mirrors. It was not what I expected. Like everything in Paris (and Versaille) the place was crowded with tourists which made it hard to enjoy properly and at times impossible to take a photo. Chateaux Versaille cost us 27 euros to get in and it was hardly worth the fee.

Paris Day 3 (26,201 steps, 20.3km)

2008-05-15T07:14:00.001-07:00

Once again we found ourselves getting off at St Michel’s square. This time we are heading to Centre Pompidou. This stop can be skipped, in our opinion. The building is supposed to be radical and amazing (the inside is on the out). We found it to be very ugly and not impressing. I’m not sure what I did, but I am now walking with a limp. My knee is so badly hurt that now I have to fight to keep the wince off my face. That being said, we have a huge day in front of us. The walk to Pompidou did prove to be not totally wasted, as we stopped at a Starbucks for a pick-me-up. We then walked to the Conciergerie and Ste-Chapelle. The conciergerie was the prison during the Reign of Terror and where Marie Antonette had stayed (not worth it). Ste-Chapelle was said to be an impressive gothic church, it took us more than 20 minutes to get in and only 2 minutes to leave, nuff’ said. From here we continued south on our journey to pass by the Pantheon and then finally the Catacombs. I guess if you have seen a bone chapel, then this won’t impress you either. It was said to be a maze made of bones underneath the city. It was under the city, and there were bones lining the walkway, but when there is only one route to walk, it can hardly be called a maze. We then caught the subway to the Arc de Triomphe to have a better view of it, and then we walked down the Champs Elysees and headed toward the Louvre. It’s Friday, and Julie gets in for free after 6pm. We figured we would have to wait in line, but as it turns out, everything moves rather quickly. Once inside we decided our path and it wasn’t before long that I called a halt. My knee was bothering me so much that I could only justify visiting the main areas. These being the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the wedding at Cana and on the way up the stairs we passed the winged victory at Samothrace statue (Luke recommended it). Everyone says the Mona Lisa is small, so naturally I found it to be bigger than expected. The Venus de Milo was nice as well. The Louvre is huge, and I would suggest visiting it first when you have the energy and the health to do it justice. In Paris we walked a total of 78,024 steps which according to Julie’s pedometer is roughly 60.4km. Maybe that’s why I have a busted knee.

Paris Day 2 (19,905 steps, 15.4km)

2008-05-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

It was very hard to get up this morning. We were so tired that we opted on buying our breakfast instead of making it. So we stopped at a bakery/pastry shop. We both had a croissant, a pain au chocolat, and a chocolate éclair. Not the breakfast of champions, but we both felt more Parisian for buying it (being tired and grumpy added to the feeling). We started our day at the same stop as yesterday, the St Michel plaza. Only this time we crossed the Pont de Notre Dame. The Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris is famous due to Victor Hugo’s novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Touring the inside of the church took no time at all. It was pretty remarkable, but I felt jipped, as I expected the church to be bigger. Julie however, found it to be the exact size she pictured (liar). Once we did our walk around the inside of the church it was time to see the roof (Julie couldn’t believe how loud everyone was inside the church). We then realized that we had to exit the church in order to go to the roof. So we stood in a very long line to climb up to the top of the church. It would have been a very boring wait if it wasn’t for a street performer. A guy wore an ugly mask and would walk around the crowds of people bustling by and try to scare them. He was very good at what he did. A group of girls actually sprinted off screaming, most women though just screamed, then laughed. It was very entertaining. On fresh legs the climb to the top would be a cinch, but because we were walked out it was a very long climb up. It was however worth it. The gargoyles are amazing up close and the views are nice as well. We were lucky enough to be up there when the church bells rang and before long we were on our way to our next stop, The Paris Opera house. The Paris Opera House is the setting for Julie’s favourite play “The Phantom of the Opera” and Gaston Leroux novel. The inside is pretty elegant and I asked Julie about 30 times if she was sure she didn’t want to see a play that night. We found the box seat that the “phantom” always reserved for himself, then took some photos and were off. On the way to the Opera House I managed to loose a piece of the camera, thus making our makeshift button practically useless. We then switched to Julie’s key ring. It was easier to use and I was actually enjoying taking photos again. After the Opera house we went to find the tourist office to pick up some info and a map. I unfortunately left the new button for the camera on a seat in the tourist office and only realized this after we got off the subway. Julie and I were very tired from the previous day and our day wasn’t working out right. My left knee is also causing me some pain and I felt that resting it would do it some good. The day was taking too long and I had already lost two things. We therefore made the decision to make the Rodin museum the last stop for the day. The Rodin museum has sculptures outside in a garden, one of them being the “thinker”. This museum was thankfully cheap, only 1 euro each. The line up was ridiculous and according to a lady that Julie was talking to it was not the norm for there to be a line up here at all. We left quickly after viewing the “Thinker” and made our way back home on the train. That night we rested and posted all our pictures and updated our blog.

Paris Day 1 (32,918 steps, 25.5km)

2008-05-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

It wasn’t a particularly early morning for us (around 9), but we moved like it was. We needed to be in town to meet the free tour at 11am in St Michael’s square. The train ride in took only about 30 minutes. Although Julie and I couldn’t help but think that we could have purchased an unlimited daily trip ticket, rather than the one way with return tickets we bought. We aren’t planning on using the subways or busses in Paris so we weren’t too concerned. The market square we entered was very busy and lined with streets and restaurants. Once up the steps we could easily spot the free tour guides, as they were amongst the very large group, but that didn’t stop people from being friendly. We met two guys from the US. Luke, our guide, was pretty good at summing up all of France’s often bloody history and how Paris itself fit into it. We started the tour off in St Michael’s square which had a huge fountain for the Saint, but we were also shown how Napoleon placed his mark on it. We would see this on many of the buildings in Paris. We then crossed over to the Ile de la Cite that Notre Dame and the Louvre are on, amongst other attractions, using the Pont au Change. The Ile de la Cite is where the first settlement of Paris was, in the 3rd century BC. From the bridge we could see the Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris and we were also shown the building that held Marie Antoinette before she lost her head. Apparently she was treated so poorly during her imprisonment that her hair turned white and she looked to have aged 10 years. One torment that stuck out to me was when they placed her best friends head on a stake outside her cell so that was all she could see when she looked outside. We then walked along the Seine River and from this vantage point we got a great look at the Pont Neuf (oldest bridge in Paris, 1607). As the story goes, Henry the III dedicated this bridge to his friends and nobles, but he wanted it funny so he threw a party for all his friends where they proceeded to get sloshed. Then he had all the artists and stone sculptures come into the party and sketch portraits of all his inebriated friends. One of the faces looks like he wouldn’t make it to the bathroom in time. We then made our way over to the Louvre and entered the Jardin du Carrousel. From here we went north to the Jardin du Palais Royal where the French Revolution started. After a quick bite to eat at what Luke referred to as a “traditional” French restaurant (they served sandwiches on baguettes) we made our way through the Jardin des Tuileries. The gardens are large and beautiful so it was nice to walk through them rather than along a city street. From here we then went to Place de la Concorde where all the beheadings took place during the French revolution. Apparently they had two platforms in this large open area (it also happens to be in the middle of a very large roundabout) and when Napoleon came into power he had the area cleaned (because over 38 beheadings took place each day during the Revolution and no one cleaned up, could you imagine the smell?). In place of the platforms he stuck to very large and beautiful fountains which are unique because they shoot water into the centre of the fountain, rather than the water coming from the centre. He also placed the gift he received from Egypt here, an Obelisk. We then heard a story about a safe sex promotion and how they made a huge condom to go over the Obelisk. We were also told that one of the two buildings on the north side of the plaza was the most expensive hotels in Paris (both buildings looked alike; the other was a government building). On a side note, the campsite we are staying at offers WiFi and since we arrived we had been trying to download NOFX’s Champs-Elysees song and have had no luck. Alas, Julie and I didn’t get to listen to the song before or after we took our stroll on the 2km road called the Champs-Elysees. Our first stroll was just after the Place de la Concorde. The section we walked along was wide and “park” like. Our guide told us that when we were to cross the road, if we stopped in the middle we could see the Arc de Triomphe and have a great photo opportunity. It did offer just what he said. But with the street being as busy as it is, all 30 of us were crammed like sardines at the middle of a small crosswalk, avoiding the passing cars (the Parisian drivers didn’t seem to mind if they hit us or not). It’s a shame we couldn’t get a photo of the tour group stuck in the middle of the Champs-Eylsees. From here we stopped in front of the Petit Palais which sat directly across from the Grand Palais (both have exhibitions, though the Petit Palais has permanent collection too) and also provided us with a view of Hotel des Invalides where Napoleon is buried for the end of our tour. From here we had an option, either to head to the grave site of Napoleon and see how he designed his own grave or visit the Eiffel tower. We chose the Eiffel tower (during the tour we were able to see it the entire time, almost), as we decided to meet another free tour provided by the same company.
The extremely long climb (700 steps) was very strenuous for us but that was probably because we had already walked for a good portion of the day. The views from on top of the tower are worth it though, but Julie and I wished they had more ticket booths open, as we wouldn’t have had to queue for so long. The Eiffel tower is really worth while to see and spend the 4 euros to climb the steps, but don’t expect to be blown away by it. With everything we had just done, you would figure the day to be finished. But we are hoping to finish Paris in just 2 days, and that includes the Louvre. So we had a quick bite to eat from a snack shop at the Eiffel tower (where Julie lost 40 euros, we didn’t find out until much later) and figured out where exactly we were and how to get to where we needed to be. The tour started at 6 and was of the areas known as Montmartre and Pigalle. Pigalle is a red light district, and is where the Moulin rouge is located. Montmartre is home to many artists and was home to Picasso. It is also where the Basillique du Sacre Coeur is. The tour was interesting, but not at all like the first tour of the day. We started off in front of the Moulin Rouge and then proceeded to walk up the hill towards Montmartre. We saw where Picasso lived, clarified the ear story and then proceeded to the Basilica. When we arrived at the main entrance we could hear music playing. On the steps below the basilica’s main entrance was a guy playing in front of an audience of bystanders. The music was good, the view of the city was fantastic, and the sun was just starting to set. The tour ended a little further down the hill but still in front of the Basilica. During the tour I had been talking to a couple of Canadian guys (one from Calgary, the other from Quebec) and I had hoped to join them for a few drinks, but with us loosing the 40 euros earlier, and it being such a long day, Julie made the decision to call it a night. For whatever reason, we decided not to take the subway back to St Michels, but to walk. This was the longest walk of the day yet. We did however get the train back to the campsite only remembering on the way that we did not know the punch code for the gate into the campsite (we didn’t know it because we weren’t checked in the proper way earlier so nothing was explained to us). Luckily two other couples were heading towards the campsite as well, but as we were so tired from the walk, we couldn’t keep up with the older couples. It didn’t matter though, the gates weren’t closed up and we were able to just walk right in. Tomorrow we have a huge day, and then we have to see the Louvre too.

Versaille

2008-05-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

We intended to visit the city of Rouen today. This city is mostly famous for its cathedral and it is where they burned Joan of Arc on the stake. However, the city was crazy to drive around and we were running out of gas. We could not find a place to park and when we started to look for gas stations they were all underground and thus, had a height restriction of 2 meters. Julie was not up to spending the money to stay at the campsite in Rouen after spending a half hour driving around the modern city. So we headed off to our next stop. Les Andelys is a small town with a ruined castle. The castle was nice enough to walk around, but it was closed because it was a Tuesday. So we saved some money, because I didn’t think going inside the castle would have been worth the 3 euros entry. It being closed convinced Julie.

The drive to Versaille was a long one. We originally wanted to split up this long drive, but since we didn’t stay in Rouen, we needed to move on to the campsite in Versaille. We intend to use this campsite as a base for exploring Paris. When we arrived at the campsite, one of the employees was really excited that we were from Canada. Apparently the chain of campgrounds has a few sites in Quebec. On our way back to the van we saw street signs pointing to what they considered “Canadien” style lodges. They had wooden floors with waterproof canvas sides and ceiling. You can have a look at them online. We had already put our Canadian flag on the front window and before we even had a chance to sit down a boy came by to say high. He is on exchange for two months and had come to Versaille to see Paris with his host family. He said he was from Barrie and that the host family told him he shouldn’t go over to the van to say “Hi”. His response to them, was “Canadian’s are the nicest people in the world and not to worry about it.” Once he was off, one of our new neighbors returned and the lady asked us if we were really Canadians or American’s pretending to be Canadians. Peggy and Bruce are from Nevada on tour for the summer. They purchased their van from a dealer in Amsterdam, and strange as it is, they were driving a Volkswagen LT28. We chatted for quite some time before calling it a night. Julie said to me later, that the flag had already paid for itself.

La Mailleraye-sur-seine

2008-04-28T03:23:00.000-07:00

This was another free parking spot for campervans, and once again it was along a river. I love these locations, I just wish it was warmer and maybe that I had a boat. After we got settled we remembered that I needed to call home as my parents just returned from Jamaica yesterday after attending Kate and Kenny’s wedding (sorry guys for not making it).

Courseulles-sur-Mer

2008-04-28T03:22:00.001-07:00

The town of Bayeux appeared to be a nice small town with a fairly impressive church when we passed through the other day, but in the end we decided not to back track to this town. Instead we went to Juno beach about 20km west of Arromanches. When we woke earlier that morning we headed out with the intention of visiting the museum in town, which we sort of did. On our way we passed by the beach only to see the tide had gone out another 50 feet or so. It was crazy to have seen the water only 15 feet from the break wall and now the water was more than a football field away. We took advantage of this and walked around the beach again. We saw three people on horseback and we figured by the way they were riding them they must have been training the horses to walk in the water. Julie was also grossed out while we walked along the beach. That was due to what she referred to as “fish poo” that covered the ocean floor we were now walking on. We then went to purchase a giant Canadian flag to hang in our window when we’re parked and we also had some awful lunch consisting of microwaved hamburgers and French fries. The museum was on the concrete harbor that Winston Churchill thought up during the war. Since our shoe strings guide explained what the concrete things were, we decided to skip this museum for another. In the entry room for the museum they had on display the list of beaches that were stormed on D-Day and the countries that stormed them. They also had a plethora of information on all the beaches. The beach we were at is Omaha, which was stormed by the Americans. The beach to the west was called Juno and was stormed by Canadians. In the town of Courseulles-sur-Mer they have a Canadian orientated museum(http://www.junobeach.org/Centre/index.html). We decided that we wanted to learn more about Canada’s part in the war. Juno beach was the second bloodiest of all the beaches stormed that day. Utah saw more blood, which was located on the other side of Omaha. The young lady at the counter was from London, Ontario and we chatted for a bit, but because the movie was about to start we were ushered off. The museum starts you off in a small room with screens surrounding three walls. The lower half of the room is designed to look like one of the boats used during the storming of the beaches. The film was about Canada and about what the soldiers could be thinking. It wasn’t what we expected. We figured it was supposed to be moving, but it missed its mark. The remainder of the museum was set up in stages, what was being done in Canada and what troops were in the war. The second last room had to be the best though. On all the walls they had information on the war going on in each country and in the centre of the room they had videos playing. The videos were of veterans speaking of the war, all were matched perfectly from the start to the finish of the war. The last room had a continuous stream of names of all the Canadian soldiers that lost their lives. Apparently to watch it from start to finish it would take 4 ½ hours. Up to this point the museum was on Canada’s contribution to the war effort. Now the museum turned to Canada in its present state. Julie and I felt that this sign was just perfect. (insert photo here). We ended up not hanging around too long in this room as it seemed more like an advertisement of Canada then actual education. We did read some of the quotes that ran around the room. One read “It’s impossible to explain the size of Canada to any European. I mean we will drive 100 km just to see a movie.” We left the museum with Canadian patches for our bags (we haven’t had them and could not find them up to this point) and decided once again, not to buy Maple syrup. €15.50 for 500ml of this golden liquid is insane.

Arromanches

2008-04-28T03:21:00.002-07:00

It would seem that I got my wish. This morning we woke to an extremely nice day. I was able to wear shorts and a t-shirt for at least most of the morning. I had to put on a sweater by mid-day. Nevertheless, we both enjoyed the warm weather until we had to leave the campsite at 2pm. At this point it had started to pour. We had originally decided to go to Bayeux to visit the D-day beaches but when I looked at the map, it wasn’t on the coast. So I changed the plans to go to Arromanches instead which was only 10 km north of Bayeux. Once we parked the van and had lunch Julie and I ventured out for a short walk. We had no intention of doing much today other than showing up. We plan to visit tomorrow. But the town is pretty small, really only one main street so we ended up walking the beaches later that night (at sunset) when the tide had decreased. This allowed us to walk right up to what we think was the old concrete dock that was made in order to support the troops during the storming of the beaches. As you can imagine, the sea is taking its toll on them, but they are still pretty impressive to see. After seeing these, it made me want to visit as much as possible in Normandy. So tomorrow we might visit the museum in town and then proceed to the other beaches. We will also make a stop in Bayeux, but a short one at that.

Le Mont St Michel

2008-04-28T03:21:00.001-07:00

What can I tell you about Mont St Michel? Well, since it has a pretty decent history, I can start there (but I will only mention a few things). It is thought that Aubert the bishop of Avranches built a sanctuary on Mont-Tombe (now called Mont St Michel) in 708. He dedicated it to Saint Michael. It is a fortress and a place of worship. There is a town just outside its walls. During the 100 years war it was impregnable. In 1874 it was classified as a historic monument and 1979 it became a Unesco site. The current population is 42.What makes it pretty cool to visit, is that it is on a small island connected to the main land by a causeway. You can visually see where the water level comes up to during high tide. During low tide you can see the ocean floor for kilometers in most directions but can barely see the ocean itself its so far away. The walk up to the Abbey leads you along a narrow medieval street lined with shops and restaurants. The restaurants are extremely expensive and the shops sell typical tourist stuff. Julie and I could not imagine visiting this place in the high season because it was extremely busy today. Our guide book says not to even bother visiting on weekends during the summer and tells of traffic backing up 5 km from the abbey. We decided to go with an audio guide while we walked around the Abbey. One of the rooms we were in was thought to have been built in the year 1000 and has been untouched since. We didn’t have a close look, but apparently you can still see the timber marks from the scaffolding on the walls. The abbey was pretty cool and the views, when you got them from the windows, were great. On another note, Julie and I took way to long this morning getting going. I was typing the blog, while Julie was engrossed in a book. We managed to head out around 1, which made it too late to check out today. So we are spending another night at the campsite. Tomorrow is Sunday (April 13th) and everything will be closed. So we took the van to fill up on gas and purchased some food from the grocery store. My jeans are finally giving in. I tore them today at the knee, so Julie is patching them up now. I hope it can hold out until Canada, or at least until the weather becomes warm enough for me to start wearing shorts.

Fougeres and St Malo

2008-04-28T03:20:00.002-07:00

Well this day was a bust, mostly due to us. We took our time getting ready this morning and didn’t leave the campsite until noon. When we did finally head out we ended up taking the wrong road and then had to back track. When we arrived in Fougeres the campsite we intended to stay at was full, but we aren’t even sure if it was the campsite. It was the wrong name and it was located in an industrial zone. We went to a McDonalds to use the WiFi and before long we decided to head to St Malo as it had a free place to stay. The drive to Fougeres was a long one, so we weren’t looking forward to this drive. It was around 6’oclock when we arrived in St Malo but the site didn’t open until June 1st unlike what our book told us. On a map it showed the location to other parking areas for campers. St Malo is a popular destination for UK citizens as it’s just across the channel. We never did get to see it as we decided to skip this stop as well. We drove another 1 ½ hours to Le Mont St Michel. Where there is a campsite just 2.5 km away. We were very grateful to be resting at a campsite after the drive we just did. It might have only been 367 km, but it took 8 hours to do it. Sometimes we wonder if avoiding the toll roads in France is really worth it.

The Loire Valley

2008-04-28T03:20:00.001-07:00

Today we started the drive through the Loire valley. Maybe it was the route we took, but at no time did we see or feel like we were in a valley. We have only planned on visiting 2 castles out of the many that are here. Chateau Chambord is one of them and is the first one for today. From our rest stop it was roughly a 60 km drive to get to Chambord. But not even 30 km in did we spot our first castle. Sully-sur-Loire was definitely worth a stop so we pulled into the parking lot and started to take some pictures and walked into the grounds. We did not plan to go inside though, as almost all the castles in the Loire valley charge from 7 euros and up. This one was no different. It was a truly magnificent castle with a moat and everything.

We moved on feeling pretty excited about the drive and it wasn’t too long after that we were driving in Chambord’s nature reserve on route to the castle itself. Chambord castle is truly remarkable. Julie felt that it looked more like a church then it did a castle. To its defense, it was built as a castle but used as a hunting lodge. This is the first castle we have been in that actually uses the fireplaces. This proved to be a great way to warm up. We spent a few hours wandering around the castle, a few of the rooms were done up while some were stripped bare. On the third floor was an exhibit of all the products that bare Chambord’s name. It was really amusing to see and to learn what they did to sell to the Americans. The castle was truly great to see.

I decided I wanted to see the other castles mentioned in the book so we added them to our route. These were Chateau de Cheverny and Chateau de Chaumont. But in the end, they weren’t as accommodating as Chambord. High gates and bushes made it impossible to see. Whereas at Chambord, you could walk the grounds for free. On our way to Chinon we spotted another small chateau and took some pictures, though we didn’t get out of the van this time.

The campsite in Chinon is located directly across from the castle. It would have been great views if it weren’t for the huge restoration taking place. They are planning on rebuilding the entire castle to its former glory by 2010. When complete, it will be pretty impressive. We opted out of seeing this one even though Joan of Arc spoke to the Dauphin here. I decided today, since it was so nice out, I would get Julie to shave my head. I haven’t bic’d it yet but this is the closest haircut I have ever had (to my memory) so I might not do that. Julie says I look younger and completely different from behind and isn’t sold on it and neither am I frankly.

Norgent-sur-Vernisson

2008-04-28T03:19:00.002-07:00

On the way to our stop we went to grocery store and mechanics in a town called Avallon. The mechanics said they couldn’t fit us in. This seems to be the norm though. No one wants to even try to fit you in, they just don’t seem to care whether they have your business or not. The location of our stay was next to a small pond. We weren’t the only ones there but the other people weren’t all that friendly (they were in a large rig towing a car). When we finished lunch I took Julie up on her offer to go for a walk around the pond. It was raining and pretty cold out but that didn’t seem to deter us. I’ve been suffering from headaches lately and today isn’t any different. After the walk my headache turned into a migraine. We did one full lap of the pond, but it was only on the farthest bank that we saw signs posted explaining what the small structures surrounding the pond were used for. It seems that the pond is set up in stages for a work out. Hurdles, balance beam, sit-ups, chin-ups and jogging were what we could figure out or were told. Tomorrow it’s off to the Loire Valley.

Beaune

2008-04-28T03:19:00.001-07:00

The town we were in was almost completely deserted so we pressed on to Dijon. Dijon is said to have a nice centre and it is also famous for mustard. When we finally arrived in town, it was rather large and busy. It also appeared to be very modern. Our next stop sounded more appealing so we ended up only driving through Dijon. I hate skipping things, but this way it gives me something to see if I get the chance to return. Julie was happy, as she had no interest in seeing Dijon in the first place and especially so after driving through it. Beaune (pronounced “bone”) is the capital of the Burgundy region. We stayed in the municipal campsite just outside the town centre. We ventured into town that evening to visit the tourist office and try to learn about the caves that offer wine tasting. The only reason we came here, was to sample wine. That night we went to the campsite restaurant where we had a 3 course meal for 15 euros each. I also had French onion soup for 4 euros, though I didn’t need it. The meal was too much in itself. We both started off with red port as an aperitif, Julie had a huge salad campagnole and I had bread and liver with mushroom pate after my onion soup. We were both full before the main course arrived. Julie had beouf bourguignon (stewing beef with a red wine sauce) and I had chicken with a white mushroom cream sauce. Julie said the beef was too fatty. The meal was accompanied with French fries. We both had a glass of wine with dinner, I had white and she had red. For desert we had mousse au chocolat. We left the restaurant at 10pm feeling beyond full and quite happy. During the dinner there was an English couple sitting next to us that were sitting with a gentleman. This gentleman was telling them all about the tour he offers in the wine region and throughout the dinner Julie and I couldn’t help but feel the couple would rather speak with us. The wife more then once mentioned us because we were speaking in English too. She also commented on the meal we went with. The guy wouldn’t give up though and they left the restaurant with him, although they did their best to leave before. We felt for them, but couldn’t help but laugh when they left. Thank god Julie and I look like we have no money.
We woke early enough but managed to take our sweet time getting ready and managed to miss the last tasting of the morning (they run from 9:30 – 11:30am). So we ventured to Le Marchee aux vins for the afternoon wine tasting. At 10 euros each we got two souvenir tasting cups that we would also use for the wine tasting down in the cellars. It was a self guided tour. This was perfect because you could just sample the wines at your leisure and no one there to sell them to you. They did have a young guy walking around to ensure you only sample the wine once. Julie figures the tasting cups hold ¼ cup. Every wine they make was displayed along a wall with a price affixed to it. And each wine was also on top of a wine barrel with a candle to help you see. With this particular tour we sampled 15 different types of wine, a few whites, but mostly reds. Out of the 15 we could say we liked one white and maybe two reds. However, all the wine was too expensive, ranging from 11-80 euros. I would say that by the time I got to the 4th last wine I was pretty tipsy. Before we left the van I had a beer with lunch and I was pouring my own samples up to that point which was a full mouthful. Julie seemed to enjoy my drunkenness. After the tour we went by the tourist office to purchase two posters (€20.00) Julie really liked and a how to guide on wine tasting (€0.69). On the way back to the van we stopped by a bakery for a few things.

Fonteney le Chateau

2008-04-28T03:18:00.002-07:00

This place was free and was roughly 3 ½ hours away. For whatever reason the GPS has stopped indicating turns to Julie. The result of this was a lot of U-turns. The last U-turn of the day was on a highway, where I pulled off and drove some distance to turn around and rejoin it. We were driving uphill when I glanced down at the console only to see the heat gauge almost maxed out. I said “shit” and drove the van up the hill to the first exit and got off all the while watching it climb and max out. I managed to pull off to the side of the road while the engine gave in and shut off. I might have sworn again, but I can’t remember. A few days back I remembered that I needed to “top” up the coolant but forgot. For the life of me though, I couldn’t imagine the engine heating up so quickly without giving me the flashing warning light as it had in the past. After I removed Julie’s seat and the engine cover a cloud of smoke came up from the engine. Despite being on a highway, we were really near nothing and it was a Sunday, so everything was closed. Julie made me read my book for an hour before I was allowed near the engine to see what had gone wrong (she said the engine had to stop smoking first). She didn’t need an injured boyfriend on top of a dead car. The coolant tank was completely empty, so I decided to fill it up. Julie was watching the line to let me know when I put in enough liquid, but it never reached it. Julie and I realized this at the same time, but the coolant jug was already empty. So we both frantically looked and listened for a leak. It wasn’t long before we found the culprit. A rubber tube had torn almost in half. The tools I had were useless to fix this problem but I tried anyway to no luck. Not wishing to be stranded though, I asked Julie for a butter knife and proceeded to unscrew the clamp. My hope was to either cut the tube and refasten it, or to force more of the tube onto the metal attachment and re-clamp it. I did the later. We topped up the coolant tank with water and prayed it would work. Our first try, we needed to add more water as the pipes were empty too. Afterwards, it seemed to hold. So we continued on our way. Thankfully we only had to drive 36 km before our stop. Only 10 km in and the warning light started to blink. To top it off we have driven into one mother of a snow storm. I pulled over quickly and had another look at the engine. The tube was leaking so I decided to see if the clamp could be tightened more, and thankfully it could. I topped off the tank and ran the engine again, this time the water was staying put. We had only stopped for about 5 minutes but the entire van had at least 2 – 3 cm covering it. The snow was coming down in huge clumps and falling fast. The repair seemed to hold to our stop and when we stopped we decided to see about visiting the restaurant of the parking lot we were in. It was too expensive. It became cold in no time so we huddled under the blankets and read before going off to sleep. I hate to eat my words, but Phil’s dad told me of a time he needed to fix a car with a knife while he was traveling and Phil and I both laughed at the possibility and I said I would hope to never need to resort to that. Well, it wasn’t a difficult repair in the least, but I still remembered his story. We plan to get the van fixed tomorrow.

Colmar

2008-04-28T03:18:00.001-07:00

Our first day in Colmar was spent cleaning up the van at the campsite and me catching up on the blog and re-adjusting the new mirror. That evening we played cards and watched a movie. It was still early in the day when we arrived in Colmar, but we just weren’t up to touring. The following day (April 6) we left the campsite and found parking just outside the centre of town. The town map provided us with a suggested walking route which we decided to follow. Now we knew we were in France but we couldn’t help feel its German vibe. All of the buildings and alleyways scream Germany, but the shops are definitely French. Colmar was a really nice town to visit and to wander around. I felt I was almost successful twice in convincing Julie to visit a coffee shop or a restaurant, though she told me later that I wasn’t even close, everything was too expensive. There was a castle near by that we had decided on visiting that day. Now, I thought I remembered it being located in Mulhouse, so that’s where we went, all 60 km south of Colmar. However, when we arrived in Mulhouse we realized almost immediately that it wasn’t the right town, and confirmed it when I decided to look at the brochure. The castle was located just 15 km west of Colmar, and what I was thinking of was the old car museum that was located in Mulhouse. Slight mistake and it wasn’t the first one of the day. I was stubborn and wanted Julie to visit this castle so we headed back towards Colmar (this was easy to convince Julie since Dijon appeared to be in the same direction). Well, as it turns out the route to the castle is not well labeled. When we finally turned onto the correct road it was blocked off. There were so many cars parked along the street and on a trailer I saw a rally car that appeared to have rolled over. I would still love to see a rally first hand, but the amount of people walking down the road told me that it might have been over already. The route to the castle was blocked, and the deviation wasn’t at all labeled, so we headed off to Dijon. We drove for about 40 km before Julie realized we were heading north. She had me pull the van over and we confirmed that we should be heading south-west. To our dismay, Dijon was 5hrs away and not the 1hr we had originally thought. So we turned the van around and continued on the mountain road until we came across a rest stop and had some lunch while we figured out a place to stay for the night.

Hinterzarten and Freiburg

2008-04-28T03:17:00.000-07:00

For the first time in days it was sunny when we woke up. It was still a cool day in the mountains but it didn’t spoil our spirits. We got ready, the van too, and headed off to Hinterzarten. The only reason we drove to this town was to then drive through the very scenic “Hell Valley” to Freiburg. Our high spirits wouldn’t last though. As we drove closer to Freiburg we were passed by a guy on a dirt bike who was weaving in and out of traffic. Only moments later we entered a tunnel and I went to pass a car that had slowed down only to have to swerve to miss the biker that was flat on his back with his bike several yards away from him. We saw someone had pulled over in the tunnel and was running towards the fallen biker. We didn’t witness the accident but we are pretty certain as to what had happened. That being said, we didn’t pull over but kept on moving, as did other motorists. Julie wasn’t pleased with my decision, but I tried to rationalize the situation with her; first we didn’t see what happened, second we are not trained in first aid, and third we don’t speak the language. Despite my assurances, Julie and I still aren’t sure if we should have stopped. We felt like shit afterwards and I didn’t feel like driving or touring around Freiburg. When we arrived at our planned stop, outside of a RV dealer, we sat in the car before we did anything. We were pretty shaken up by the events of earlier. Eventually I convinced Julie to come into the store with me in hopes of replacing the side mirrors. Going into the shop did help us move on a bit and we regained some of our focus. We were able to replace the smaller mirror but not the larger one. The stellplatz was such a distance away from the centre of Freiburg (more then 6km) that we decided to leave Germany and head to Colmar, France.

Schiltach, Wolfach, Triberg, Furtwangen and Titisee

2008-04-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

We started today off very early because of all the planned stops we had. The first two towns were small and charming but offered us nothing really worthy of getting out of the van into the cold rain. The third stop would prove more worthwhile. Triberg is surrounded by three mountains, has the highest waterfall in Germany and is home to two of the world’s largest Cuckoo clocks. Since we left Baden-Baden we have been driving on the B500, which is considered the tourist road for the Black Forest. Up until Triberg it would seem to be just an ordinary road, nothing touristy about it besides it connecting the towns we have been visiting. Just before we entered Triberg we saw a huge shop called “The house of 1000 clocks”, corny but we stopped anyway. Before we got out of the van I had said to Julie “I wonder if this is where Rob Zombie got the title for his movie?” Of course this was wasted on Julie. It was still fairly early in the day and when we entered the store I was greeted with an automated cappuccino maker. I enjoyed a large chocolate cappuccino while we shopped. Julie picked out the clock we purchased for one good reason. I would have chosen the one that was huge, expensive and did just about everything a cuckoo clock could do, that being, many, many moving parts. In the end it came down to two clocks. The shop manager did his best to leave us alone but when he found out about our trip he couldn’t keep away from us. As is the case when people learn we have quit our jobs to go adventuring for a year. He was extremely helpful though. He managed to educate the both of us very quickly on cuckoo clocks and had placed all the ones that interested Julie on a plain white wall next to each other so she could better see what she wanted. In the end, I did have an opinion. The two she had chosen were more or less the same size. One had wooden carved maple leafs on it, the other had two horses pulling logs on it. The birds sounded different as well, but the main difference to me, was how often you needed to pull the chains. The horse one was needed to be pulled every day. My parents owned one like this and it became frustrating, I don’t know where they put their clock now. So knowing this, I suggest she go with the one that lasted a week. That way when we leave on weekends or what not, we wouldn’t need to worry about the clock keeping time. In the end, Julie was extremely happy with her purchase. The only thing that concerned her was that they didn’t start to package up the clock in front of us. She was worried he’d ship the wrong clock.
Once we parked we made our way to the tourist office to locate where the two “dueling” cuckoo clocks are. In the shoestrings guide we were led to believe that these two clocks faced each other. This was not the case as they were at least 5 km apart. So we decided to go do the hike to the waterfall and then take the van to view these giant clocks. The hike was an easy one but it was truly wonderful to be outside in the fresh air. It was fairly cool and when we got closer to the waterfall it was very damp but it was great anyway. The hike took no more then an hour and when we got back we decided to look for a restaurant to eat. We wanted to try the Black Forest specialties in the black forest. As you can expect, everything was expensive. So we left to see these clocks and can confirm they were large. We didn’t hang around for them to go off though, as we still had two other stops for the day.
Furtwangen is one of the larger towns on the list, but we only came here for the cuckoo clock museum. They had more clocks here then just the traditional style of the black forest. They also had many styles throughout the ages. Many were religious. One in the main hall was of Christ being nailed to the cross on every hour. It was about as exciting as a clock museum could get, so we moved on rather quickly. Our last and final stop for the day was Titisee. Titisee is a famous resort town that has the largest glacial lake in Germany. The campground where we stayed was nice enough and the restaurant was a fair price. So we had our dinner at the restaurant and it was rather nice – but way too much food was served. Julie could barely finish the main course and neither of us could finish the salad.

Freudenstadt and Alpirsbach

2008-04-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

The morning was extremely cold which deterred us from leaving the warm comfort of our blankets. When we finally plucked up the courage to get going it was already getting late in the day. Being called the “Black Forest” you would expect to see trees, but so far we see the scars of clear cutting that was done many years ago. For the most part it is ugly, but occasionally you get nice bits. The rain is mixed with snow and the plants are still holding onto their winter coats, so I would suggest visiting in summer, as it might provide you with more cheerful scenery. It was still raining and cold when we arrived in the town of Freudenstadt, and after driving through the town we decided to skip it and head to our final stop for the day in Alpirsbach, which was at Camping Alpirsbach. The owner of the campsite was extremely friendly providing us with detailed information about the campsite and the surrounding area. What was probably the coolest thing to happen so far at a campsite was the owner stated that we each get a beer from the local brewery for free. This is when he walked us over to the fridge and started to explain that because the water is so soft in Alpirsbach, they actually have to add minerals to the water, but because of this, the beer is really good. He asked Julie if she drank beer, and when she answered no I was not particularly happy (she could have said yes, then I would get two beers for free) but before I could even finish this thought, the owner looked at me and said I would just have to drink two beers. I like this campsite. I chose a Pils, and since they also had a raddler Julie ended up being able to have a beer anyway. I went to explore the small campsites facilities, actually thinking they would be pretty bad based on what we originally saw when we pulled in. However, the bathrooms and showers were all very new and well kept. To Julie’s dismay, all the showers had the “Rain” shower head installed which provides no pressure. She also complained about the soft water not washing away the soap causing her hair to feel gross. I agreed with the pressure thing, but couldn’t confirm the hair thing. When I went to do dishes, I noticed that they had a stove and a microwave provided. We haven’t seen a microwave since we left Canada. Since Spain, Julie has been craving popcorn and since I spotted the microwave we decided to venture out to the grocery stores in search of microwave popcorn. The way into town is through a very lovely wooded area cut along a hill and is only around 1 km away. Despite visiting 3 grocery stores and having found it in the past we came up empty handed, sort of. In the last grocery store I purchased a bottle of Alpirsbach export (like a lager beer) and popcorn that can be popped on the frying pan. Julie is now happy because she can now have popcorn whenever she wants (until the bag runs out). The town itself is barely longer than the brewery plant which didn’t provide us with much to “explore”. In fact, the campsite owner only mentioned the church and the brewery for things to see.

Baden-Baden

2008-04-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

It’s cold and raining today which made our drive less than pleasant but worse, it affected our plans for the day. Our intention was to start our tour of the Black Forest with a visit to Baden-Baden, Freudenstadt and Alpirsbach today. But the weather sucks, so we decided to hang out in Baden-Baden. When the weather cleared up we went into town and explored the pedestrian areas. The main reason for visiting Baden-Baden though is the spas. We’re broke, so we skipped this and that is also why we originally planned to visit more than one town today. The small pedestrian area was really nice to explore, but as you can expect, there were many stores catering to tourists. Julie loves this tree (below) so much that she took a few pictures and hopes to have it in our yard when we get back to Canada. We have no idea what kind of tree it is though.

Heidelberg

2008-04-26T14:11:00.002-07:00

Our next destination after Stuttgart is Heidelberg but since the drive would be too long after visiting the museum earlier in the day we decided to stay in Heilbronn. When we arrived in Heilbronn it appeared to be a nice town to walk around although we never got the chance. The parking area was a fair distance away from the centre, however, it was next door to a lovely park, which Julie and I took advantage of. The nights are still cold which is another reason we chose this town for our stop, the site is free but the electricity is €0.50/kilowatt. I think we only put in 1.50 and that lasted us the evening, night and morning with our heater being on sporadically and our fridge on the entire time. On the second walk into the park Julie brought her entire bag of breadcrumbs to feed the ducks. This made me happy because the breadcrumbs were taking up a portion of the fridge. The following morning was so nice that we almost decided to stay put and just enjoy it, but we wanted to press on and see Heidelberg’s fairytale castle. We never got the chance to visit the medieval streets of Heidelberg because all the parking was underground and if there was above ground parking it had height restricted bars. So after a few U-turns we almost skipped this stop but in a last attempt we decided to drive the van up the cliff to see if the castle itself offered parking. To our luck it did, and it wasn’t all that expensive at €2.70 for 2 ½ hours. This massive castle was truly impressive. The views from above the city were amazing too. The fact that it’s ruined actually adds to the appeal. The only thing we would suggest skipping is actually paying to go inside. It is not at all worth it. Oh we did get to see a museum on medicine, but that was about it and medicine museums aren’t what I would consider a good use of my time. After paying the €6.00 entrance fee, you then have the option to purchase an audio guide for €4 which you can only use once inside the gates but if you actually want to visit the castle rooms etc, you have to pay extra for a guided tour. The castle is definitely worth visiting and from what we could see of the old town centre, it would be too. Just don’t pay to go in unless you’re going to want to do the guided tour (we didn’t). We stayed outside a VW dealership in the town of Bruchsal, this stellplatz offered a place to park, water, dump and electricity for free.

Stuttgart

2008-04-26T14:11:00.001-07:00

Porsche and Mercedes build their cars here, it is also the birthplace of the automobile. So naturally I wanted to come here. We stayed at a campsite just outside the Mercedes stadium and plan. We had agreed to only visit one car museum while here so I had to make a difficult choice. I chose Porsche. The museum was small and just ok, but they are building a much larger one which should be pretty cool (I was reminded of the BMW museum in Munich). The best part about the museum was that it was free. We didn’t know this going in, so I asked if that meant we could now visit the Mercedes museum. At 8 euros admission, more transit fees to get there and a simulator for 4 euros I was eager to visit the Mercedes one despite the exorbitant costs. But we were running out of day time so I was only allowed to see the one museum, which was alright with me. We did manage to walk around a bit outside the campsite, since the weather was very nice, and ended up going to Subway for lunch. It will probably be the last time, as it was 20 euros. Oh, and they were still giving out stamps, I guess nobody here has thought to steal the roll yet.

Gunzburg

2008-04-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

That night we drove to Gunzburg and I wasn’t all that comfortable knowingly driving at night to reach this destination because I didn’t fully believe the lights would work. To my defense, we have been driving without lights for nearly 2 months. Not having them really changes your attitude towards driving. But we managed just fine. The lights work just as well as they did before. Julie mentioned this location and I at once said yes to it. The place we are staying is in the parking lot of Legoland Germany. We need electricity still as the nights are cold and it was a cool place to park for the night, although Julie wouldn’t allow me to visit Legoland, which is probably for the best.

Prague

2008-04-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

We all felt pretty rough in the morning and once on the train Julie’s hangover didn’t combine very well with the motion sickness she usually gets on train rides. Julie made it to the bathroom on the train only to find that it was occupied and she ended up puking on the train floor. Thankfully we were switching trains the next stop. The train ride to Prague was a quiet two hour ride and luckily for us we got our own compartment on the train. One of Michael’s friends Jonas, has a friend that lives in Plzeň and he offered to give us a hand getting on the bus to Prague. However, our train was delayed along the way and when we arrived he wasn’t there. We decided to ask for directions to the bus station. The young lady behind the counter was extremely nice and helpful (though, Anna reminded Michael and I to pay attention to the map and not the girls that were poking out of her V-cut top). We found out that it would be about a 30 minute walk. Michael then decided to call Jonas to see if we could get in touch with his friend Roman. Five minutes later we were on our way to the bus stop in Roman’s car. It all happened fairly quickly, we showed up, bought the tickets and were on the bus to Prague that left in a few minutes. An hour later we were dropped off somewhere in Prague, but nowhere near the centre. After we got some money and a bite to eat at the nearby mall we took the subway to the Mustek stop which was the centre of town. Before we jumped on though, two ladies approached us realizing we spoke English, but when they learnt Julie spoke French, it was only Julie they wanted to speak with. We (Julie) tried to help give them directions to their hotel and we think we managed to do so. This was sort of funny though, because we weren’t 100% sure of what we were doing only moments before boarding the subway. It was also funny, because you wouldn’t think that speaking French would come in handy in the Czech Republic. Once we surfaced, I used the GPS to help guide us to our hostel. It was a short walk, but it took us down some back streets and other major ones and eventually into the Old town square – we already liked the city. We had to wait 30 minutes for the receptionist to return to the hostel but once she was back it went rather quickly. Upon entering our room we all had to laugh. Of course we weren’t expecting anything great but we all felt like we just walked into a hospital room. The beds were small and covered with crisp white sheets like the ones on hospital beds. The high ceilings and walls were also painted white. We had some tea and coffee (as it was free) before we stepped out for the night. I decided not to bring the camera only to kick myself for the remainder of the night, thankfully Michael had his with him. We wandered around a bit before finally coming to a restaurant that all of us agreed on. Julie had a steak, I had chicken, Michael had Schnitzel, and Anna had a club sandwich. Some of the meals came with soup, fries and beer for around 200 Kč. We wanted to head to a bar afterwards for some light drinking and entertainment. The bar we finally decided on was an Irish pub, we saw a bunch of advertisements for it and weren’t too keen on a few pubs we saw along the way. It was an easy night and we headed off around 11.

We learnt of a free tour the previous day and decided to attend it hoping to save some time and learn more then we could on our own. The tour started at 10am in the old town square, so we bought our breakfast at a huge bakery and picked up some coffee from Good Fellows (we learnt from their coffee cup that they donate their old beans to charity). Our guide arrived more or less on time, though he wasn’t one of the guides on the brochure. It was a large group of around 30 people, from what I could tell, some were from England, some from America and a few Canadians too. The walk was long but interesting and he brought us to a few places we surely would have missed. We learnt a lot about Prague during the 2 ½ hour tour. We were supposed to head towards the bridge and castle, but we never even ventured within sight of it. We went for lunch afterwards at Friday’s as Anna was craving ribs and we all wanted to show Michael what a restaurant chain is like (France is the only place that has 1 chain so far) and he got to experience “North American” food. Unfortunately we had run out of time and needed to head back to the hostel to gather our bags before making our way back to the bus stop. This is where our trip fell apart. We arrived in time to meet the 5’oclock bus, but learnt that all the tickets where sold on that one and the other one leaving at 5:30. This was not good. We had already purchased our tickets for the train ride from Plzeň to Wieden and it left Plzeň at 7. The bus ride takes 1 hour from Prague to Plzeň. We ran through the list of options we had, first of which was seeing if we could take another train or bus, which we couldn’t. Then we talked about renting a car. In the end though we took the 6oclock train and Jonas drove from Wieden to Plzeň to come pick us up. Since he was in the area though, we all went down to the club Roman worked at and hung out until around 11 at night. Despite it messing up our plans, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the remainder of our time in the Czech Republic. Some shady things happen in this country. While we were waiting for Jonas, we witnessed a pimp picking up his girls (we think it was a pimp or the guy was loaded) but prostitution is legal here so I guess we shouldn’t dwell on it. When we came out of the club, Jonas’ car was “tagged” with something that wiped off easily enough. When you walk around Prague there are many men standing around, some we think were there to sell stuff, but we couldn’t be sure as they had nothing on them and they didn’t approach us. The following morning Anna dropped Julie and I off at the train station to head back to Regensburg. We got word that morning that our van was ready to be picked up. We had a great time in Prague and of course we had more great times with our German friends. Thanks for everything guys.

Our van is fixed and Tobias offered to drive us to Pasburg. We loaded the car up with everything and were there in no time. One of the brakes was seized, so that was replaced and the light issue was more problematic but it turned out to be the switch that was faulty. After we paid the 170 euros we stood around and talked for a bit. The mechanic invited us all in for a coffee which later turned into dinner, we had goulash and it was great. We moved on afterwards but we did manage to help provide the couple with some locations in Italy to visit when they go with their rig next month.

Wieden

2008-04-18T01:35:00.000-07:00

Tobias was invited to dinner at Anna’s as well on Monday so we all drove down in Tobias’ car. Since it was such a sunny day we decided to venture to a nature park. This one was like a petting zoo with pathways leading you around the lake. It was nice but it wasn’t before too long we all started to get cold and continued our journey to Wieden. When we arrived we learned that Anna’s grandfather was not doing well and needed to be taken to the hospital later that night. Anna wanted to show Tobias around Wieden (it was his first visit), so we made the hike up the volcanic mountain to the church on top. This is my 4th time being here and I once again managed to forget the camera. Julie kindly reminded me before we arrived in the parking lot for the restaurant at the base of the mountain. We drove downtown afterwards and took a stroll though a park and the downtown before heading back to Anna’s grandparent’s house. The dinner was one we have had here before and it was still good, Julie managed to learn a few of the ingredients for parts of it too. This time it was followed by desert, a mole cake, and it was good too. Tobias needed to be on his way after dinner was over so the rest of us went downstairs and watched 1408.
The following day was slow and lazy for Julie and I. Quite the opposite for Anna’s family though. They were in and out of the hospital most of the day as Anna’s aunt and grandfather were going in for surgery. Later that night we booked our hostel for Prague and I tried to show them Canadian Bacon but the sound wasn’t in time with the picture. So we watched Billy Madison instead (Anna and Michael’s first time watching it).
Determined not to spend another day inside we took Anna’s offer of a drive into Wieden’s centre while she went back to Regensburg for an appointment. Julie and I ventured into a few bookstores and some stores that we couldn’t label (they sold kitchen stuff, wine, candles, patio furniture, greeting cards, “funny” mugs and some other stuff that didn’t quite fit). The bookstores provided us with no new books as they seem to have purchased the same ones as other bookstores. It wasn’t before long that Julie and I ventured to a coffee shop for something to drink, warm up and just sit and talk. We decided not to take the bus back to Anna’s place, but to walk back instead. We stopped by a grocery store along the way. We picked up some snacks and some flowers for Anna’s grandmother. Later, we had tea/coffee and cake with Anna’s grandmother, all of us doing our best to hold up a conversation. I think with not much being said, we all did very well. We originally purchased the snacks because we weren’t going to Anna’s Uncle’s birthday party that night. However, when Anna came back home from her appointment she had said that 3 people weren’t going to show up so there was room for us to join the party. We had barely taken our jackets off when shooters were placed in front of us along with our beers (Julie was drinking wine). It was a great night and we all had a lot of fun and managed to get pretty drunk. This was probably not the best idea though, since we were taking the train to Prague the following morning.

Kallmunz

2008-04-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

Tobias’ son went to Poland with his mother for Easter which left the 3 of us free for the day. Tobias also had use of the car so he took us to one of his favourite towns nearby called Kallmunz. The town is full of artists and there are many shops for such a small town. The town itself sits right on the bank of the river and this time of year the river was full and running fast. Julie and I thought it completely impractical and unsafe to live so close to the river. Tobias showed us a few plaques indicating the highest the water has been in town (basically just below the first floor windows). We also saw a few houses that were built right into the cliff face. We have seen this before and find it pretty impressive. But before we wandered the town, we did a small hike up the cliff to a ruined fortress. The view from atop the ruins was great. Afterwards Tobias drove us to another small town, where one of his friends lives, to find a favourite beergarden of his. The beer was different from what we have tried before and both Julie and I liked it. It being Easter weekend not much was going on and we learned that during Easter all the bars have to shut down at midnight, so surprising for a long weekend. I should mention that after another delicious dinner by Tobias we played a round of the Wizard game and Julie finally managed to win.

Pasburg

2008-04-18T01:06:00.000-07:00

Julie and I woke up at 8am to get ourselves ready in order to drop off the van before noon. The drive was longer than we expected as we were told it would take roughly 45 minutes (But because our van is slow it took more like 1hr and 20min to get there. Once we arrived in this very small village of only 40 houses we discovered the mechanic wasn’t at home. Not sure what to do we climbed back in the car to get out of the cold and snow. We waited for around 1 hour before he poked his head out from a nearby driveway. It turns out his “shop” is next to his neighbors place. He invited us inside for some coffee while he phoned Tobias to translate what was going on and it wasn’t long afterwards that he drove us to the train station. He helped us purchase tickets (although we learnt later that the tickets weren’t good all the way to Regensburg, well we were told this by our friends when they found out how much we paid). His wife stopped by too just incase more translating was needed. It was a short train ride back and we walked back to Tobias’ and along the way found umbrellas for 1 euro each. We also decided to swing by the computer shop before we made our way to Michael’s later that night for dinner. The guy at the shop seemed to think he would be finished with it in a couple of hours. This surprised us because it was Thursday and the following day was the start of Easter holidays and he closed at 5pm and it was nearly that time already. Michael made us Chili con carne for dinner and it was good (he even had oven fresh bread). When the 2 hour time came up we had Michael call the guy for us and apparently it didn’t take him as long as expected so we hastily made our way over there. The laptop is finally fixed (which is why you are reading this….just try to type on a foreign keyboard, it ain’t easy). I know I should have thought of it before, but it looks like our battery is kaput (which I had a feeling) so we can only use the computer when we have it plugged in. With taxes it was 70 euros and Julie and I couldn’t be happier.

St-Patrick's Day

2008-04-04T11:35:00.002-07:00

We started the day off with heading to the computer store to see about getting our laptop fixed. It turned out he could fix it and it would only cost us around 40 euros (we didn’t find this out though until later when Tobias called the guy to translate everything for us). We will probably regret not heading to Dublin for St Patrick’s Day as it was one thing Julie and I did not want to miss out on. Unfortunately, it was just too expensive for us to justify the 4 day trip. There are two Irish bars in Regensburg and the one we went to was closest to Tobias’ apartment and had St. Patrick’s Day banners whereas the other one didn’t have any advertisements. Our initial plan was to have dinner and drink the night away at the pub, but to our dismay it didn’t open until 6 (as it is every day) and did not serve food. So we went to a bakery and picked up some beer absorbing food. Just after 6 Julie and I were in the bar along with the bar tender and the music being played over the speakers. We sat near the bar at first, Julie drank Raddlers all night, and I drank Kilkenny all night. Because it was St Patrick’s Day and I was drinking an Irish beer I was given a scratch ticket and proceeded to win one of those large goofy Guinness hats (I won on my next drink too but after that they stopped giving me scratch cards). When a few more people showed up, about an hour later, we decided to move to a long table, not sure if Anna and Michael got our message to come join us. The beer was going down easy and eventually the bar started to fill up. A guy sat down at the end of our table and was speaking to the waitress in English saying he was waiting for his wife. Well, his wife came with three friends and then two more showed up later. The table was full and the place was crowded. The band didn’t start until 9 (which I still can’t get over) so Julie and I had a few beers in us and were wearing the hats, the owner of the bar, a little lady with short red hair took our picture to go up on her bar. Eventually the band came and started playing, all American music, some English (no German, except when they spoke with the audience) and we managed to hear two St Patrick’s Day songs (can’t say they were Irish though). One of the guys sitting next to us was from San Francisco teaching English here, his name was Travis and he spoke to us for a bit, though most of the group spoke German and kept to them selves. On our way out though, more than one person at the table had said good night. We had a great night out, the band was great, the company was fun and it was the best way we could spend St Patrick’s Day in Germany (Most German’s don’t know about this auspicious day but they did hold a festival a few days before, so they are close enough I guess).
The following night Anna came by Tobias’ place for dinner and some games. I unfortunately decided to drink with them this night and the following morning was very rough not to mention that night. The dinner was once again delicious and we learnt a new game called Wizard – the play is similar to euchre but there are no teams and you must guess correctly on how many tricks you will take. It was fun and I won (Julie almost ended up with a negative score but on another day she beat the lot of us). The following day we met up with Anna and Micheal for coffee and made plans for dinner the following night. Before we left to meet up with them Tobias phoned the mechanic friend about our van, it looks like we will be driving it to Pasburg tomorrow to get the van fixed.

Regensburg

2008-04-04T11:35:00.001-07:00

Well we sort of managed to find parking once again on “our” street. This time we are lingering over the parking spot but we think it shouldn’t be a problem. On Friday we called Anna to let her know we were in town but Anna and Michael were in Wieden this weekend. We intended to visit some travel agencies to see if we could book a flight to Dublin for St Patrick’s Day and see if we could make it to Kate and Kenny’s wedding in Jamaica. Unfortunately we just can’t afford either trip. The trip to Ireland would run us about €600/each and the trip to Jamaica would cost us $4000 CDN, money we simply don’t have. Julie and I hung out in town the next two days, visiting a coffee shop and some book stores. Sunday night Anna and Michael surprised us at the van and took us out to a Bavarian restaurant where even they had trouble decoding the menu. We were there for a bit but it was getting late so we headed out with the intention of meeting up the following night. On Monday we proceeded to the internet café to see what BW Campers has to say about fixing the van. It’s sort of hard to say if it is bad news or not, but BW’s is saying that they are under no obligation to fix the camper as it was only covered for 3 months or 10,000 km. I guess on the upside we don’t need to drive to Amsterdam, but now we need to pay to get it fixed. Anna was meeting up with one of her friends at a silver surfer themed bar for cheap cocktails night. Anna’s friend (can’t recall his name) knew of a place to get our laptop fixed which brightened our moods (I’m sure the drinks had nothing to do with it). It was raining on Tuesday so Julie and I decided to just hang out in the van and it was a rather long and cold day.
I convinced Julie to try out a Sport store for a pedometer, we’ve had no luck so far and she was convinced that we wouldn’t have any here either so she didn’t want to waste time. Success! We managed to buy Julie a very nice pedometer (although she thinks it was too expensive). Just after we purchased the pedometer we ran into a friend of Anna’s, Tobias (we met him last time and he showed us a nice garden restaurant). We spoke for a bit and in the end he offered a room in his apartment for us to stay in while we hung out in Regensburg. Julie and I being who we are thanked him and said we would give it some thought. The following night we met up with Anna and went out to the Buro for cheap beer and to meet up with more of her friends. During the night Tobias and Anna came up with a plan to get Julie and I out of the van and into his flat. So it was decided for us, at 4:30 tomorrow we move out of the van. Julie and I finished off the night with Tobias at a bar called the Pharmacy (when translated to English) and had the same name and sign that all pharmacies have in Germany. This bar offered free peanuts and didn’t care where your shells ended up, like Jack Astor’s or East Side Mario’s. Friday night we spent the day at Anna’s doing some general research online and trying to get caught up on everything. We later moved the van closer to Tobias’ and moved into our temporary home. We eventually met up at Anna’s place to go out for the night. The night started off with Julie, Anna, Tobias, Nicole and I and ended with at least 5 or 6 more of Anna’s friends. We went to many bars and had a great time.
We met Tobias’ son over the weekend and hung around with them and we went on a few walks. Tobias also made us what he considered traditional German breakfast which consisted of boiled eggs, cheese and meats, bread and muesli. It was quite good, especially the muesli. We also checked out a bridge that had caught fire earlier in the week causing large traffic problems as it was a main bridge. Regensburg is made up of 3 or 4 islands. On the Sunday night we met one of Tobias’ friends, David, whom stopped by for dinner with us. He offered to speak to his brother-in-law regarding our van issues. David’s brother-in-law works for ADAC (a lot like CAA) but is also a licensed mechanic and does repairs for friends and families.

Plattling

2008-04-04T11:34:00.001-07:00

Yes we are back in Plattling. We knew this site was free and provided electricity which we need to run our heater. However, the electrical box only accepts 50 cent pieces and we only had 4 so this gave us around 3 hours of use. We slept in the cold that night.

Salzburg

2008-04-04T11:33:00.002-07:00

The Sound of Music was filmed here or at least near this city. We did not venture out to the film site but can confirm there are hills (although we didn’t hear the music). Finding parking was pretty difficult in Salzburg and we are about 2 weeks too early to stay in the only campground we know of. So regrettably we only spent a few hours in Salzburg. It was pretty cold so it was probably for the best. The city was nice enough but you can see why Vienna wins out on visitors, but you can also see why it is more visited than Graz. Julie and I went to an internet café to send some emails and get caught up. Our laptop is still broken, having had no luck in getting it fixed. We should be in Regensburg in a couple of nights and we hope to figure out what to do about it then.

Konigswiesen

2008-04-04T11:33:00.001-07:00

This was a bit off the beaten track and was only for a rest stop. We didn’t realize just how far off the main road this town is. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful drive even if some of it was done on snow. Most of the road ran next to a stream or river and all the towns seemed to be logging towns. When we finally made our stop we learned that the site was closed but an old man showed us that we could still hook up our electrical and even made sure the box was in order. We were watched for at least an hour before the town’s folk lost interest, we figure they don’t get too many tourists this time of year. Even with the heater it was a bit cold today but at least the sun was out. I had to switch the electrical connection once again to use the electricity and I hope I only have to do it one more time for the remainder of the trip.

Vienna

2008-04-04T11:32:00.002-07:00

The following morning we checked in and watched the bus drive by as we were doing so. They managed to take some time to “check” us in and we left knowing we had to wait 20 minutes before the next bus. This really screwed up our plans as we wanted to go to the Spanish Riding school for 10am. The weather so far is cold and it is snowing, though it is not staying on the ground. We made it onto the bus and got off at the main station for the area. Julie and I made a small mistake when we entered the station. We read the sign and thought we were heading to the subway, but went to the surface train instead. We learned from a fellow that the train takes us into town and should be leaving shortly, well shortly was close to 20 minutes. We weren’t alone in this error though. A group of Americans came on the train thinking it was the subway too. I guess, we should have thought about it first being above ground and everything but we were tired and I hadn’t had my coffee yet. And to our defense, some subways come above ground at times. To add to our confusion the first 3 stops were identical to the subway stops it was only on the 5th stop that we realized our error. We offered some help to the Americans about which stop they should get off at to make it down town but they didn’t listen and got off one stop early. When we consulted our map, they got off where only the train goes to and there are no sites whatsoever nearby. So Julie and I got off at the correct stop and took line 3 to get off at the stop for the Spanish Riding School. Once we made it above ground (the train did go subterranean too) we used our GPS to locate the SRS because we had no clue where we were. When we started to walk around while the GPS was trying to get signal we felt like the city had been abandoned. But eventually we made it to the school and started seeing some signs of life. The morning practice ends at noon and runs for two hours. Since we can’t afford to wait until Saturday for the show (and can’t really afford the show either) we (Julie) accepted seeing the morning practice. When we finally arrived at the school, Julie no longer wanted to attend the morning “show” because she felt it was too late and that they would no longer allow anyone inside after 10. I figured we should give it a try since we were there. Lucky for us they don’t care what time you show up for the practice and they willingly accept full price for a ticket. So Julie got to watch the horses practice for around 45 minutes, and thankfully for me we were late so I only had to watch them practice for 45 minutes. I’m not saying I wouldn’t enjoy watching the Saturday performance, but the practice was so boring. Julie thinks differently and I’m sure there are a few other people I know that would agree with her. To Julie’s dismay I wanted to just start “walking” with no particular route or idea of where I wanted to go. But we walked anyway and ended up stumbling on a pedestrian route that brought us right to the Augustinerkirche (Augstiner Church) and Joseph’s Platz. We wandered around a bit more before stopping on a bench to see about locating one of the recommended coffee houses in our Shoe Strings guide. Drinking coffee is apparently the thing to do in Vienna. Well, we had two café’s picked out, the Café Sacher which is home to a famous cake called the Sacher torte and they have been serving it since 1832; and the second one was Café central because some famous people drank there (Trotsky, Freud and Beethoven). I put the shoe strings guide away looked up and saw Café Sacher right next to where we were sitting. That solved that problem. I wanted to go to this particular café for Julie, since she has no interest in caffeinated brew. I had hoped the famous cake would be something for her to enjoy. The cake though is not much to talk about (Julie and I left the café saying that McCain’s deep and delicious cake is better). The cappuccino I had was alright but again, nothing to talk about. There was a Starbucks across from the café so Julie and I went there to get her a Chai Tea Latte and me a Caramel Latte Macchiato, both Grande’s to go. I went to the bathroom while Julie waited for our drinks to be made. We aren’t sure if I got my actual drink, it didn’t taste like they added any caramel and Julie told me that there was some kind of confusion which she later blamed on me. I guess I should explain. While I was waiting for our coffees Julie went to the bathroom. My order came up but Julie’s wasn’t finished yet and a young woman had the same order as me, so I let her take it. But I don’t see how that would cause mass confusion, it was one drink and they were the same. We then passed by the Museum quarter before walking back to the Schatzkammer. From here we went to visit the national library as it was of some interest to Julie. Inside the huge library they had an exhibit about a Jewish photographer/journalist that was sent to a concentration camp where he later died. All of the photos, letters and news articles were only looked at 3 years ago and they set up this display in honor of the work he had accomplished. Vienna was a very beautiful city to just walk around and every building was huge and over the top. I would definitely like to come back, perhaps when it’s warmer and not snowing and preferably on the weekend so we can take in some shows.

Graz

2008-04-04T11:32:00.001-07:00

Graz is the second largest city in Austria and was home of the Governator. But after a controversial execution in California the city wants nothing to do with him. There are a few weird sites in Graz, first of which is the Kunsthaus Graz. The Kunsthaus is green and blob like and is used for exhibitions. The locals refer to it as the “friendly alien” and it is very odd indeed. Secondly, the Murinsel is an artificial island in the River Mur and is shaped like an open Sea Shell, it’s used as a amphitheatre and has a café. Julie and I climbed to the top of the Schlossberg (castle hill) to get a great view of the city below. From this vantage point you can see the Kunsthaus and the Murinsel. There was a clock tower at the top with back-to-front hands (the minute and hour hands are reversed). There were a few things to do once up the 260 steps, but all cost and we have seen enough medieval museums and the like. I wish to note, that today’s weather was amazing, it was too hot for jackets and we saw someone tanning. We could not ask for nicer weather and so far Austria is proving to have nicer weather than Italy. Our intention was to head to Bad Waltersdorf to spend the night, but we could not find the location (we think it was under construction) and since it was still fairly early, we decided to finish the drive to Vienna. There were two campsites for us to choose from, because only two were open, or at least that’s what our camping book said. The first campsite we arrived at was closed and this didn’t impress either of us as we were both tired and stressed after driving through Vienna with its traffic. So we plugged in the location of the second campsite only to learn that it was on the other side of town and we had to retrace our steps. The traffic wasn’t as bad once we made it outside of the city as this campsite is located in the forest surrounding one side of Vienna. The location was nice and did provide easy access to the centre. When we arrived the reception kiosk was closed but the gates were open so we found a spot and set up camp. The showers at this campsite were great although Julie tells me her side had an odd smell coming from it.

Stainz

2008-04-04T11:31:00.002-07:00

This stop was supposed to have electricity but there was none to be found. The town was small and quiet. We went for a short walk in town to call our parents only to learn that our trusted phone card had finally expired. We purchased this phone card in Amsterdam when we first arrived. It was a great phone card as we could add money to it when we needed and it worked in every country we were traveling in. It did not work well in France. So, Julie was able to phone home, but I wasn’t able to (sorry mom and dad). Tomorrow we are visiting Graz.

Ferlach

2008-04-04T11:31:00.001-07:00

We finally made it to Austria. I have wanted to visit its two major cities since we landed almost 7 months ago (among other famous European Cities). The vignette needed to drive on Austria’s highways set us back €8.70 for 10 days use. While traveling through Switzerland we found the highways indispensable. The secondary roads are windy, narrow and extremely slow for our van, the highways offer direct routes at reasonable speeds and it was for this reason that we bought the vignette. We chose the town of Ferlach because it offered electricity with a free spot to park. We both felt the need for electricity to run our heater during our stay in Austria, it is March after all. When we arrived in Austria it was pouring rain and even when we stopped it didn’t stop. After an hour of sitting in the van the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. When we thought of Austria we thought of high mountains and rolling hills, but eastern Austria is fairly flat. We also figured we would encounter snow, but we could only spot it on the mountain tops in the distance. Maybe it won’t be as cold as we first expected.

Verona/Arzignano/Spilimbergo

2008-04-04T11:30:00.002-07:00

We don’t think it would have mattered what time we got up this morning, we still would have been tired. As it is, we got up at 9:30 to get the van and ourselves ready before the check out time of 12. We both really wanted to visit Verona, the city that inspired Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. We intended to go visit the statue and balcony of Juliet that was made and wander its centre. However, upon arrival Julie wasn’t feeling up to the walk into town. So I tried to drive closer in hopes of finding a spot but we had no luck and Julie’s mood, health and frustration made us decide to skip out on Verona and head to our resting spot early. Along the way to Arzignano we bought some groceries and visited a computer repair store to see once again if we could get our laptop fixed. It would seem that we will need to get the computer fixed once we are in Regensburg after all. After a night in Arzignano, we went north some more to Spilimbergo for another rest stop, this one had free electricity which we were so grateful for as it was getting pretty cold at night. Spilimbergo is our last stop before we head into Austria which is good, because I didn’t want to venture into Austria until at least March 1st.

Milan

2008-04-04T11:30:00.001-07:00

It must be a northern Italy thing, because everywhere south of Milan and Venice has no fog. The fog was so thick in the morning it might as well have been England (we’ve heard rumors, will confirm later). The fog also seems to hang around until noon when the sun finally has enough strength to banish it. We are staying at a campsite for the next few days that sits just outside of Milan. Campeggio Citta Di Milano is located next to the Aquatica (aquatic park) and has bus service into Milan and then a short subway ride right to the centre. Julie and I spent the day getting ourselves showered and our clothing washed. Now when Julie saw the showers she had to laugh and ask me if I could use them. This is because the shower heads, I guess, were installed to the height of an average Italian (5’4” off the ground). I did manage to use the shower without much difficulty but it did get the floor covered with water because of the angle I had to put the shower head at for me to use it. This campsite took us for a surprise. On the left side of the road on the way in was what looked like a petting zoo. Goats, sheep, chickens, roosters, quail, turkey, geese, rabbits and some small birds were the animals we saw. With the exception of the rabbits and the small birds all the animals were let loose to graze in the campground. I made sure the clothes line was tied up extra high and never fully trusted the goats with our meager clothing. That night we tried to phone Phil to find out where and when to meet up but we had no luck. So we decided we would get up early and head into town and try him on his cell again, and at the hostel too.

The morning of February the 28th was cold and foggy. The hand drawn map to the bus stop provided by the campsite office was not very accurate and we managed to wander for about 10 minutes before we actually found the place to buy tickets and the bus stop itself. The entire ride into town took more than 30 minutes and when we were on the bus the police came on to check tickets (first time for us). We arrived at the Piazza del Duomo and hoped we would just run into Phil and his friends, Alex and Mike. After a few minutes we decided we would head to the tourist office and get a map and maybe see if they could try calling the hostel for us. Up to this point, we haven’t made a successful call which we now know it was purely our fault. The tourist office had trouble speaking to the hostel receptionist as the lady spoke barely any Italian and about the same amount of English (Julie figured she was Asian from her accent). We learnt that the guys had left the hostel already. Julie and I went back outside to the Duomo steps and sat and waited hoping that they were heading to where we were. We still could not reach Phil on his cell phone. Sitting on the steps was probably not a good idea since there was a group of guys running around trying to sell their string bracelets. When your standing, it’s much easier to avoid them, but we were sitting and one of the guys approached us. We spoke for a few minutes then he offered us the bracelets. The guy was nice and not forceful so we accepted them; he claimed they were for “good luck” (we gave him 1 euro). We were very down by this point and didn’t know what to do. We were about to give up on meeting up with Phil completely when Julie suggested we ask the tourist office how to dial Phil’s cell phone, maybe we had been doing something wrong. Turns out we had been and we quickly got Phil on the line and arranged to meet up on the stairs outside the duomo. Julie and I only needed to wait about 20 minutes before Phil showed up with Mike and Alex in toe. After some quick introductions and some talk we made our way inside the duomo to take some pictures and have a look around. Besides the church there is really only one other site worth seeing in Milan, and that it is Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. We couldn’t see the later as you need to book tickets three days in advance. We wandered the city for awhile before stopping in a coffee shop for a drink. The coffee was rather good and since it was off the beaten track, it was cheap too. We decided to go to a patio for dinner as it was a gorgeous day. We chose a restaurant near the duomo and each had a pizza and some wine. We walked around some more, ventured into a Ferrari shop and eventually made our way to a bar for some much needed beer. We tried a few places before finding one with food and bathrooms. In some Italian cities from 6 to 9 when you order a drink you get free food, think of Spain and tapas. The first place we settled on was probably the ritziest place we have all been to. Chandeliers on the ceiling, rich looking curtains, waiters in tuxes and the food was on silver serving trays. It was a nice place but we had to stand as it costs more to sit. After one beer we decided to move onto another location, to our dismay, the beer cost us 9 euros each. We made the decision to find a pub for some cheaper beer and ended up settling on a bar that also sold tobacco. This one also had a bathroom, but it was through two doors and a courtyard and it was also a continental. We sat out on the patio for a few rounds and were also served some food with each round. While we sat and talked a few peddlers came around trying to sell their wares, once again we had to repeat “No gratzie”. It was getting cold so we thought about moving on when we learned that it cost more to sit outside than in, so we went inside for 1 more round before calling it a night. Julie needed to go to the bathroom on the way home and asked if we could swing by McDonalds for a pee break. We all had a great laugh at Alex’s expense as he walked right into the glass window of McDonalds thinking it was a sliding door. We made our way back to the subway station and parted ways. It was really great meeting up with Phil and his friends, and who would have thought that it would be in Milan that we would get that chance.

Cremona

2008-04-04T11:29:00.002-07:00

We originally meant to stay in Fidenza for a few days since it was free and offered electricity but the site was under construction so we headed off to our back up location of Cremona which didn’t have electricity but was also free. We didn’t do too much, but in our defense the hike was pretty tiring. We left for Milan on the second day in Cremona to go meet up with Phil and his friends.

Cinque Terre

2008-04-04T11:29:00.001-07:00

Cinque Terre is a pretty popular hiking trail that runs along the coast and is linked by 5 tiny villages (hence the name, five lands). None of the villages have road access, which just adds to the charm. We arrived late in a small town called Levanto. The van still has no lights and the route was mostly winding roads that thankfully are not traveled a lot. We stopped in this town because we could park for 10 euros overnight and it was the first town we had seen for 30 minutes. I regret to say that we didn’t, at first, mean to stop here. We were pretty sure on making it to the parking area we had selected earlier. But due to two wrong turns and construction we did a U-turn and parked the van. The van did not survive this drive without getting some minor damage. I somehow managed to get the passenger side mirror caught on construction fencing which cracked the small mirror and bent the mirror mount. It can still be used so we were only mildly disappointed. The next morning we got up early and ventured to what was supposed to be our intended stop the night before, a whole 12 km away.

Bonassola is not considered one of the five villages that make up Cinque Terre but is a great base for doing the hike. Bonassola itself is a small village but it had lots of charm and we thought it was rather beautiful. If we wish to do the hike again, we would go back to Bonassola, maybe stay in one of the B&B’s overlooking the coast. The five villages that make up Cinque Terre are: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso. We had a choice to make, either start in the easy section of Riomaggiore or start in the rougher area of Monterosso. Looking back, starting at the tougher section first would have been a smarter idea. The path for the most part was extremely straight forward, only when you arrived in the towns were you unsure of where to go. For that reason, we were not able to complete the hike to the last town. All hiking trails we have encountered so far in Europe are marked with red and white paint. So when we found out that we went on the wrong path in the second last town we were pretty upset since it was dark and we were getting pretty tired. The first two sections where a laugh, the 1st section could be wheelchair accessible. On the route map it estimated that the hike from each town would take 45 minutes which Julie and I did in around 20 minutes (we covered over 20.47km today, which is just under 30,000 steps). The next two sections however had pretty steep climbs that made your legs ache only after a few steps. We were told by a group of Americans that the last section we missed would have been pretty flat. Through most of the hike you could see the ocean and the cliff stretching out in either direction. You could also see the towns. It was truly beautiful and totally worth while. We have two regrets about this section of our trip. First; we didn’t finish the hike because we were too burnt out after we turned around and made our way back to the Vernazza where we caught the train back to Bonassola (It was too dark to continue anyway). Second; our laptop is broken which means we can’t take as many pictures as we would like (no way to remove the pictures). That being said, it now gives us an excuse to come back.

Pisa

2008-04-04T11:28:00.002-07:00

It was a relatively short drive thanks to our stop the previous night so we managed to get to Pisa around lunch time. We realized that the location where we decided to leave the van was free until 3pm (free during the siesta hours 12-3) so we ventured into town with the intention of moving on afterwards and not spending the night as planned as it would cost up to 12 euros. From where we parked, we were able to see the top of the leaning tower just over the old city walls. Despite this, we still had to navigate a few cobbled streets and locate an entrance past the city wall which was not at all difficult because of our trusty GPS. Julie had spotted a sporting goods store, so we stopped by there first in hopes to purchase a new pedometer for her without any luck. The square in front of the leaning tower was quite nice, mostly grass and sidewalks and very open. Julie and I noticed that the leaning tower wasn’t the only structure sinking. It seems that the church, the government building and the tower were all designed utilizing the same materials and same basic design as well as the same sinking land, although the tower is the one that leans the most. We took a few pictures and the obligatory “pose” before making our way to an internet café to catch up on emails. There is nothing else to see or do here. The streets surrounding the square are lined with vendors and street hawkers and they are the most aggressive we have encountered to date. The leaning tower of Pisa was a pretty cool site, but it’s a shame there isn’t anything else to help keep you in town.

Orbatello Scalo and Suvereto

2008-04-04T11:28:00.001-07:00

Before we left for Orbatello Scalo on Monday morning we got the van ready, paid for our site and purchased a bottle of butane. It looks as though we won’t be able to purchase propane until Germany. To our pleasant surprise upon leaving the sosta we passed an Agip gas station (cheapest gas in Italy) and a Lidl (our favourite grocery store in Italy), since we were nearly out of gas and completely out of food, this was indeed a great find. We added a stop, Ostia Antica, which is another buried city located 30km west of Rome. However, it was closed because it was a Monday so we made our way to Orbatello Scalo which is a small town located right on the coast. It provides campers with a secure place to park for the night. It was however, difficult to find. We drove all over this town with no luck and almost slept in a highway turn off lane before making another attempt at the town. This time we saw the signs leading us towards the parking area and when we arrived there was another camper. The German guy wasn’t sure as to where we could park (Julie and I didn’t know either) but he did say that he tried to speak to the policemen earlier. It was late and Julie wanted to stop for the night so she marched over to the police car and asked if the field behind the car park was okay to park our campers (she did this in a mix of French/English/Spanish) and it seems that we were all correct in our assumptions. I guess the only reason we didn’t think it was the spot was all the tiny concrete blocks poking up out of the ground and a small driveway that had a no entry sign. The concrete blocks were spot markers and the no entry sign was intended for cars, not campers. The following day we drove to an even smaller town called Suvereto. We learnt that Phil isn’t heading into Milan until February 28th, and it is only February 19th so we spent a few hours trying to figure out where we could spend the extra time but found there aren’t many cities to visit along the coast between Rome and Pisa. Suvereto has room for 5 campers, dump station and fresh water and unlike Orbetello, it does not have a time limit. There were no free sostas after Pisa so it was logical for us to spend 3 days in Suvereto. It was boring, but we made due with reading and playing games.

Rome

2008-04-04T11:27:00.000-07:00

I’m glad to say that when we drove to Rome, it was mainly on the outskirts and the traffic was only slightly nerve racking (I was impressed and appalled the way a young lady drove a smart car through traffic like it was nothing more than a Vespa Scooter). The Sosta where we decided to stay was one recommended by John and Linda, it also was the cheapest of the 3 we knew of. It was completely fenced in and had 24 hour security watch. This meant we could come and go as we pleased which was great news. If you can believe it, the manager’s name was Luigi and his behavior was odd, but extremely fun and friendly. The check in took about 20 minutes, but was well worth it. He explained three ways of getting into town, showed us on a map where all the main sites are and provided us with detailed directions on how to get to each site using the public transit. He also had a print out of how to drive to our parking spot which was just neat. We left feeling very informed and happy. Since it was still rather early we set up camp, had a bite to eat and purchased the transit tickets from Luigi. We had 45 minutes of travel on any form of public transit for 1 euro. Not bad considering this is Rome. The tram and the bus stopped right outside the gates, but since the bus came by every 10 minutes we took the bus to the main station, from there we took the tram to the Coliseum. Julie and I could not imagine visiting this city in the summer because it was already filled to the brim with tourists (Julie and I stopped considering ourselves tourists long ago, we’re travelers). Everyone thinks that southern Italy is warm, but as you can see by our pictures people are actually wearing toques (it was still nice though, around 8˚C and sunny). To our dismay the Coliseum closes at 3pm and it was 3:15pm when we stepped off the subway. We did take many pictures though and had to say “No gratzie” to the many peddlers surrounding the coliseum. We then decided to visit Palatino Hill but learned that it too closes at 3pm. Damn! So we headed towards the Trevi Fountain knowing that it would not be closed. Trevi fountain is located in an extremely small square which made it hard to navigate through the throngs of tourists to get a good vantage point for a photo. We concluded our day after visiting the Trevi fountain (it was a spectacular fountain), but being as cheap and broke as we are we didn’t follow the superstition of throwing two coins over your shoulder into the fountain (first coin is to ensure a trip back to Rome, the second is for a wish). So we decided to walk back to the main train station so we could see more of the city and along the way we passed by many other spectacular unnamed sights. It was very awesome walking around Rome, exploring. With Rome being the largest city in Italy, you don’t feel it in the old centre with many pedestrian roads and everything being located within walking distance.

The next morning greeted us with a dazzling bright sun and cold crisp air. It was around 9am when we made our way towards the Vatican City. We ventured into St Peters square and witnessed the insanely long line entering St Peters basilica. It took Julie and I a few moments to locate the entrance to the Vatican museum (they had two signs pointing in opposite directions?). Although this line up was long, it proved to move swiftly. The main reason we went to the Vatican museum was to see the “Great Creation” painting on the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. However, this was not all that we saw. We spent a few hours visiting the many exhibits; there was a large concentration of the Roman period and a fair section from Egypt. Many of the hallways had very elaborate paintings on the walls and the ceiling, everything extremely detailed and “rich”. Once we saw everything there was to see we made our way to the Sistine Chapel. This small room was rammed with people all looking up at the many paintings. Julie and I expected something different, so that means we were partially disappointed. This was also the only place in the museum that you couldn’t take a picture. After spending 24 euros to get in, Julie was in no way leaving without a snapshot of the famous painting. Now, I forgot to mention that I dropped our make shift button for the camera in one of the rooms. The room was full of traffic and the floor was finished in impossibly small tiles. So needless to say, I lost our small pin, thus ending any chance for us to take pictures. This caused a nasty argument, but wasn’t without purpose, Julie managed to come up with an idea to take pictures but she still remained upset, but managed to stop glaring at me. We took her ring on the keychain and bent it to form a straight point, so we could then press the hidden contact inside the camera, thus making it possible to take pictures. However, this blunder actually made it easier for Julie to take that secret picture in the Sistine Chapel. So Julie was armed with the camera pointing at the ceiling, hoping to capture that tiny painting, she said “I think I got it” and not a moment later a security guard walked up to her and asked her not to take any pictures and to cover the camera lens and turn it off. We complied but we don’t think he knew we had already snapped a shot. We left shortly after as the room was cramped and smelled of ass. Julie feeling vindicated.

After we left the Vatican, we made our way to the Coliseum for another chance. This time we made it in. One thing is for certain in Rome, expect to cue. Once inside we made our way to the highest area to have a view of the centre ring. Julie and I were surprised to see all of the secret passageways that would have been under the arena floor. There was only a small section of the floor replaced. This, we suppose is to better educate how the Coliseum worked. We both feel it would have been better to see a completed floor, especially if you could walk out onto it. After that we went to tour the Royal Forum and Palatino Hill. The description in the Shoe Strings guide is much better than actually seeing it in person. We did enjoy the walk, but our feet started to get sore (we completed over 40,000 steps today, on average we do about 10,000). I tried to convince Julie to go to the Trinity College pub, but she said the more money we save now, the more I can spend in Milan (when we meet up with Phil) and when we head over to England. Discussion over, we went to Mc Donald’s (sorry Dad, I know you hate hearing how often we visit Mc D’s but it’s convenient, fast and cheap). The main reason we went to McDonald’s though, was for a bathroom. We have learnt that almost all restaurants, pubs etc in Italy don’t necessarily provide you with a toilet. And to our dismay, McDonald’s bathroom was closed. It was however, right across from the Pantheon (which did appall us, we would have preferred seeing a café or something). Despite us being so close to the Pantheon, we didn’t venture in, because that was on the list for the following day.

We awoke early once again the next day, and once again it was a gorgeous day. The only site open on Sundays in Rome happens to be the Pantheon, St Peters basilica and the Spanish steps. Today we started off near the Spanish steps and made our way to the Pantheon, our intention was also to visit St Peters basilica, but Julie was tired from the previous two days and we had already seen the square and the church from the outside. So after an extremely pleasant walk around a few new streets (we spent about 5 hours in town) and a quick call to our parents we made our way back to our van for a much needed rest. The bus was extremely full on our way into town so we couldn’t (or didn’t try) to get our tickets validated in the machine. This meant that when we arrived at the main station, we could take our time. We used our time wisely. We went to a book store and purchased some books. I picked up a book that contained 3 novels, Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara Trilogy and Julie picked up Michael Crichton’s Next, a Sudoku book and an expand your brain book (basically it has many different questions like math, memory, and word problems geared to “strengthen” your brain). I learned later from my dad that the trilogy I purchased is now more than seven books. We also managed to visit an internet café and learn more details from Phil regarding Milan.

Pompeii

2008-04-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

The drive to Pompeii was only supposed to be an hour and a half long, but during the drive there was some construction which led us on a detour. The detour was not labeled well and we ended up doing a complete circle before retracing our steps and trying again and finally making it back onto the SS-18. The driving we have seen since we have gone south in Italy is absolutely appalling. Julie figures they just hand out car keys and driver’s licenses to anyone over a certain age without ever explaining any of the rules of the road. They don’t follow any street signs; stop signs, speed signs, traffic lights (they do well over double the limit). They even make up imaginary lanes (two lanes of traffic where there should only be one) and pass anyone at any time on any side no matter how busy it is, even if it means they have to drive into oncoming traffic forcing everything heading the opposite direction to a sudden stop. When pulling out of a driveway they pull out until half the car is on the street and then they look to see if any cars are coming. One way streets apparently have no meaning at all. Add in illogical street layouts and the ability to park anywhere (again not following the signs) and it makes for a very nerve racking drive (I’ve never heard Julie swear so much, she compares it all to being in a bumper car rink where the point isn’t to crash into other cars but to narrowly avoid one collision after another). We did, however, manage to arrive at the campsite unscathed. It was around 2pm and we both felt it was still early enough to venture to the archeological site of Pompeii. Camping Spartacus is located almost directly across from the entrance to the city of Pompeii, so close we didn’t bother marking the van with the GPS. Before I go on, I should mention that Julie and I were disappointed with the city built up around the famed ruins. The town was disgusting, crowded, filled with strays and completely surrounded the ruins. I guess Julie and I expected it to be located away from the city, in a rural setting. I should also mention that the garbage strike was still on and didn’t help with the appeal.

Once inside the gates, you’re left on your own to figure out how to go about exploring Pompeii. It is so large that you could spend an entire day wandering. With this in mind, Julie and I consulted the provided map and planned out a route. It is hard to believe that this city was buried once you start walking its many streets. Everything is mostly in ruins, but there is still a lot to see and much that has remained. Like paintings on the walls outside of shops, or paintings inside houses, they even had graffiti. The streets have elevated sidewalks and every time you approach an intersection, they have elevated stepping stones to keep it level but still allow for carts to pass through, they call these Zebra crossings. The sidewalks are elevated for one very good reason, to keep from walking in the refuse that was dumped in the streets. Julie and I were very impressed with the whole city and despite the modern city at its walls, you felt like you were in a different place. The best preserved building was actually a small house located a fair distance from the main city. The tiled floor was still intact, paintings and large storage containers could be seen. This was also were we saw our first preserved person (we later saw the dog and many others things locked up behind a cage). It was upon our arrival to the coliseum that Julie realized she had lost her pedometer (The pedometer counts her steps which is how we determine how many km’s we walk in a country). Since this was important to us, we decided to back track our steps hoping to find it. Unfortunately we did not end up finding it, but on the upside we can now walk around Pompeii with out the use of a map. The map of Pompeii that was provided for us came with a scale, so Julie and I managed to calculate the distance with a piece of string and the route we took.

We had intended to spend two nights at the Pompeii campsite, visiting Naples the second day, but since we didn’t see the reason to visit Naples (high crime, busy and dirty city) just for a slice of pizza we stayed at the campsite doing our laundry and catching up on our writing. We ended up spending another day mainly because we had the chance to get everything clean inside the van. So this meant spending Valentines day in Pompeii rather than Rome as we had originally planned. This years Valentines Day could not compete with last years, as Julie and I believed we had some spare money lying around and we went out to Ruth Chris’ Steak House in Mississauga (that dinner was well over $100). Nor could it compete with the previous years. So this year we took it down a bit, a candle light dinner (we ate spaghetti) with some wine. We actually spent the time talking about our previous Valentine’s experiences. We did attempt to find a nice place to eat out, but most things were expensive or not what we would consider romantic. After dinner we realized for the first time that we could no longer charge the laptop. We rely so heavily on our laptop that this problem will have an impact on our trip. Needless to say our moods soured. 

Julie discovered that we had a new friend the moment we arrived at the campsite. A small black dog hung around our van looking for affection and food until the day we left. We believe the dog belonged to the campsite owners, though we can’t be sure as there are so many strays in Italy. The buried city of Pompeii had 4 dogs wandering its ruins, following anybody that had given them food. So three days were spent in Pompeii and we head off to Rome for another three days, although we know we won’t be spending much time in the van. If we had more time and money we would have ventured to the Island of Capri.

Paestum

2008-03-20T14:19:00.002-07:00

We were going to head to a truck stop along the way, but since we got started early in the morning we decided that as cool as it sounds, hanging out in a truck stop for the day wasn’t exactly what we were looking for. So we decided to do the 5 hour drive to Paestum. We stayed for free again, this time it was supposed to be 5 euros/night plus 2 for electrical. No one was around to collect here either. We drove around the ruins first and decided it would be best to visit the following morning. We are finally south enough in Italy for it to actually be warm during the day, still cool at night though. I had a very early start the following day, and unfortunately Julie couldn’t get back to sleep either although she tried. At around 5am I shifted my weight to get comfortable in bed and managed to pull just about every neck muscle I have. I was in so much pain that no matter what I did, it hurt. I was in this state for most of the day, around 5pm I was able to move my head back about an inch without pain. We ended up visiting the Greek ruins anyway but decided that an extra night was necessary. The ruins themselves were pretty impressive, I do wish they would have allowed us to actually walk in the ruins, but I could understand why they fence it off. Julie and I did enjoy walking around and felt the €4/person entry fee was worth it. That night we decided to head to Pompeii, to camping Spartacus where we intend to view the area and finally have a shower.

Fiuggi

2008-03-20T14:19:00.001-07:00

On our drive to Paestum we decided to stay in Fiuggi which was about 3 hours away from Santa Fiora (Paestum was 8 ½ hours away). We stayed for free in the restaurant parking, but the sosta was supposed to be 8 euros, luckily for us no one was collecting once again.

San Gimignano,Siena and Santa Fiora (all in one day)

2008-03-20T14:18:00.002-07:00

Can you believe that we made it to day 200? It is hard at times for us to think that we have actually been away that long. Until we start thinking about everything we have seen. Day 100 had seemed to take forever to approach, but 200 snuck up on us. Unfortunately we didn’t do anything exciting to celebrate this momentous day. We couldn’t find any good parking in San Gimignano (closest spot we could actually fit into was 4 km away down the hill). We originally wrote off Gimignano but Shoestrings said that it was so highly visited that we should only check it out in the middle of the week in the middle of winter, which was precisely when we were here. When we determined we couldn’t park, we skipped it and made our way to the capitol of Tuscany, Siena. Parking in Siena was 25 euros so we didn’t stick around, we did however stop in a McDonalds where we had a quick bite for breakfast(chocolate filled chocolate chip muffins) and I had two Macchiato’s to drink (espresso mixed with warm milk). Since we didn’t stop here either we were well on our way to our next stop in Santa Fiora. We ended up staying here for 2 days where it was very windy and cold. We spent the two days planning the next leg of our trip south. Since the further south we go, the less camper friendly it becomes.

Cusona

2008-03-20T14:18:00.001-07:00

On our way to the hill-top, walled city of San Gimignano we realized that the sosta we were heading to was actually located in Cusona, about 10 km away. The drive through Tuscany was pleasant, although the roads were narrow, which at times made for close calls with other cars. We managed to get close enough to San Gimignano to take a picture of the town before doing our U-turn and heading towards our rest spot for the night. When we arrived in the industrial area of Cusona we quickly came to the conclusion that we would not be the only ones staying the night. When we got closer though, we noticed that the other campers were actually spending as much time as they could here. So we decided to pull in anyway and camped the night with the gypsies. They weren’t typical gypsies though. They seemed to be well off as all the campers were new. One of the men helped back me into the parking spot. There were two electrical outlets, but surprisingly only one was in use (but all the campervans were hooked up to it using a splitter). We had electricity until around 7pm when the breaker blew. None of us could figure out how to fix it so we went without. We decided to get going early the next morning, around 9ish. When we got the van ready to pull out, I noticed that a large camper had decided to park right in front of us at some point during the night, essentially blocking us in. If the guy wouldn’t have moved I planned on backing out over the curb. The same man that helped guide me in the previous night came over and started speaking to us, he suggested we knock on the camper door, when we said we couldn’t speak Italian he took it upon himself to do it for us. A moment later we were on our way.