A drive in warmer weather

Today we did not hear French voices above our heads at 4 am.  And we managed to get up early due to an uninterrupted sleep.  Bliss.  Walter left the radio on, but turned the sound down.   He then took the front of the radio off for extra security.  Our ghostly radio switcher on, was silenced, for good.  

Walter reversed the car directly to the right spot in front of the caravan, and hitched the caravan onto the tow bar straight away.  Two days in a row!  We were feeling very pleased with ourselves.  Of course it always happens when there is no one looking, unlike in the Netherlands when a Danish man came over and watched us struggle to hitch up.  The man never said a word, just watched.  Caravanners are sometimes very strange people.

As we travelled south we watched the temperature rise, from 10 degrees to a dizzy 19 degrees.  We left the airconditioner off in order to feel the warmth of the sun.

Before I continue with todays blog I must give a bit of information about Route Napoleon.  The route, with its picturesque scenery and its twisting, winding mountain road, runs though valleys, a plateau,  woodland, pastures and villages.   It is 325 kms long and runs from Golf-Juan, close to Cannes, and goes to Grenoble.  We drove only on part of the road, from Grenoble to Gap.

It is the route taken by Napoleon in 1815 after he escaped from his exile on the island of Elba.   He had to avoid Provence as he was not popular there. During Napoleon's march to Grenoble, many people joined him, and in Grenoble many army regiments also joined him.  And to cut a long story short he lost the Battle of Waterloo and was exiled to the island of St Helena and died there.

I am sure everyone will want to know about the following piece of information which Walter found on Wikipedia.  Apparently Napoleon suffered badly from hemorrhoids and found it painful to sit on his horse for long periods of time. During the Battle of Waterloo, because of his inability to sit on his horse, he found it difficult to oversee his troops, and this may have lead to his defeat.  An interesting story.  'Ouch' is my only comment.

Now I must return to our journey south.   A very easy journey, and mostly on the motorway.  

The view as we left our campsite, and drove down the hill into Gap.   There was a large old fort on the hill in the distance.

 After leaving Gap we drove througn this village,

 and onto the start of the motorway, where we drove down an ever widening valley.   The rock formations were fascinating.

The motorway was nearly empty of vehicles.  And no trucks, which we left on the N85 due to it being a free road.

We joined the Autoroute du Soleil (A7) at Aix en Provence, and continued on to Toulon, Hyeres and finally arrived at Camping Manjastre by early afternoon.  It was great to be here.

A quiet swimming pool, with very cold water.

 Currently there are only a few people here.  It had been busy during the last couple of weeks, during the French school holidays.

We have no one camping around us.    So peaceful.

 A coffee in the sunshine.

Tomorrow we meet up with Andreena, John, Lindsay, Trudy, Di, Mike and Jenny.  All here from Australia and New Zealand, in order to celebrate Andreena's birthday.  They will be staying in a villa, high up on a hill overlooking Le Lavandou.

We are looking forward to it, and hearing all about the Macedonian adventures (Andreena and John) and the Paris adventures (Lindsay, Trudy, Di, Mike) and meeting Jenny, who hails from New Zealand and currently lives in the UK.

A scenic journey

Today we travelled through the most amazing countryside, from Grenoble to Gap, through the Hautes-Alpes.   The scenery was spectacular, and every corner there was a new breathtaking view of the alps.  There was never a boring moment, for sure.

The day started at 4 am, when I woke to the sound of French voices above our bed.  Now I love the sound of the French language but not at 4 am.  Walter of course sleeps on his good ear, so did not near anything.  I scrambled out of bed, trying to bypass Walter's feet.  I sleep against the wall. I turned the radio off.  And for the next hour it kept turning itself on again, so I poked Walter in the ribs each time, so that he had to get out of bed to turn the radio off. In the end he kept the radio on, but turned the sound down.  This worked.  By this time the birds were chirping in the trees outside and it was beginning to get light.  Everytime one of us got up, it meant a visit to our little toilet room.  What a pickle.

We decided that there was not a supernatural power following us, but that the radio had a glitch in it, possibly due to the extreme cold.  

Consequently we slept in again, and when we woke the caravan was extremely cold inside, the grass was frozen outside and our front windows were iced over.  And whats more our caravan would not heat up.  It took a while to realise our roof vent was open.  

But once we thawed out, and the sun rose over the mountain peaks, the day went extremely well.  We hitched up the caravan in one go, I drove out of the front entrance easily, we found the right motorway, and navigated Grenoble without the slightest problem.

The view of the mountains above our campsite, once the sun rose over the mountains in the east.  Such a beautiful sight.

A view of the alps as we drove towards Grenoble.

A photograph for South Australians.  We stopped at an On The Run service station.  The big, and spreading business, has arrived in France.

Once we left Grenoble, on the N85, the road climbed up steeply until we reached a plateau high up in the mountains.  It was also a very twisty road, as well as a busy road. Our car did not miss a beat, and I rarely had to change down to second gear.  We were so thankful that we driving a powerful car, which pulled our caravan so easily, and managed the steep incline as well.

And high up on the plateau we passed village after village.

A very picturesque view of a well kept village.

A stop at an aire, the temperature registered at 4 degrees on instrument panel on the car, so we did not linger long in this spot.

We once drove along the N85 in the early evening, in the dark, in the middle of winter. We had no idea how high up we were, or anything really.  We were on our way to Orcieres, a small town and ski resort which was along a valley and up a steep mountain.  A side road off the N85, just before the town of Gap.

On that occasion we were caught in a traffic jam in Grenoble which delayed us somewhat.  We rented a lovely apartment in Orcieres, facing south.  The skiing was abysmal, due to lack of real snow. I spent a week risking life and limb skiing on the ice on the artificial snow.  We also ate the worst take away pizza ever at the resort, worse than the one we ate in Milan.  Memories.

More mountains.

A lone building on the side of the road.

Our lunch stop, high up a steep road and overlooking the valley below.  Such a perfect setting.  Unfortunately someone had dumped their rubbish over the edge of the bank beside the caravan.  Extreme fly tipping for sure.  One wonders about some people.

Our view of the valley and mountains.  After our lunch we would have liked to linger over coffee and enjoy the sunshine and the view.  Sadly we had no electricity for our coffee machine.  So coffee was out.

 We continued on our way, with more spectacular views of mountains, valleys, woodland and villages.

Finally we descended down into a wide valley and made our way to the camping ground, where we finally had a cup of coffee.  We also washed clothes, in the washing machine, and at a considerable cost, and found a large supermarket, in order to stock up on food.

Tonight we are hoping for a night without French voices talking above our heads. Walter will leave the radio on, but with the sound turned off.  We will also close the roof vent.

And hopefully not too many visits to the little room next to our bed.

An eventful day

And here we are at a beautiful camping ground, Camping Municipal de Challes-les-Eaux.  Not far from Chambery.  And the sun is shining, which is wonderful when sitting in the caravan.  The wind is bitter, straight off the mountain peaks.  However the temperature has risen to 11 degrees so getting warmer.  The ground is very dry here, as it was in Dole, although the grass is lovely and green.  Obviously the ground dries out faster here, in the warmer southern sun,

I reversed the caravan onto this pitch, with the help of Walter who told me in which direction the front wheels were facing.  Makes all the difference.

 A well deserved glass of beer, non alcoholic, which was all that there was available in the van, but it tasted very good.

The day did not start well. At 5.30 am we woke to the sound of French voices and they were very close.  In fact in bed with us.   It took a few minutes to realise the sound was coming from the speakers above our heads. The radio had turned itself on.  Three times one of us got out of bed and turned the radio off. But after about ten minutes it would come on again.  We think someone close by tried to turn their radio on by using a remote control and it connected with our radio.  Either that, or there was a ghostly presence in our caravan.

We eventually went back to sleep, and then slept in.  So a late start.  But the sun was shining and our caravan hitchup went smoothly.  And I did not take the gate posts away with me.  Why do French campsites have such narrow entrances?

We drove on the motorway for two hours in the morning, in the direction of Geneve.  It was quiet, and we certainly gained some extra time.  It cost €15.60 in tolls, which was pretty reasonable as we were towing a caravan.

After lunch in our van, and a coffee at one of the motorway services, we set off on a D road towards Chambery.

As sensible people we decided to take the D1075, which was a relatively straight road, away from the mountains.  But somehow we managed to get onto the more scenic D1504, which wound through a very tight valley between the mountains.  I think I turned left instead of right at some point.  As one does, in a strange area.  

But the journey was very scenic, and well worth the time it took to slowly and carefully drive through the valley.

One of the few straight stretches of road.

Walter managed to take a few photographs, when he freed himself from the task of keeping an eye on where I was driving.  The villages were the most difficult to drive through as the streets were incredibly narrow at times.  Some of the houses were built into the cliffs.

The rocky cliff faces were particularly stunning.

A village nestled into the hillside.

Just as we were gaining confidence, and thought we were nearing the end of the valley, we noticed a sign which said the tunnel in the last section of the road was closed.  There were detour signs, but we noticed that all the cars were continuing to drive towards the tunnel, and there were cars coming from the opposite direction.  So we continued on regardless.  As one does.

We saw the closed tunnel, and then the road to the right, winding up the side of the hill, and realised we were going to have to drive up over the peak.  Mont-du-Chat.

There are no photos of the steep winding road, as Walter was way too busy keeping an eye on the road, and the traffic coming the other way.  He was extremely patient and only gave me useful advice.  

And at the top, 700 metres up, there was a village, with a very tight hairpin corner.  We thought this was pretty amazing. Imagine living in this village.

The road down was a trifle hair raising due to the closeness of the jagged rock face on our side of the road, and some very tight hairpin corners.  Plus a narrow ditch running along the edge of the rock face.  But the caravan stuck tightly to our car, and all worked out well.

The views of Lac du Bourget were quite breathtaking.  Sadly we could not stop to really admire the view.

I am proud to say that there are no marks on the caravan, or car.

But I did have trouble driving the car through the narrow entrance to the camping ground.  I approached it from the wrong angle, and had to do a bit of reversing, under the guidance of the camping ground manager.  I really must work on my tactics for driving through narrow French camping ground entrances.

Off to Gap on the Route Napoleon tomorrow.

A road tour of France

The beginning of the road tour of France.  The outer edges of France.   Plus about ten days in the Cote d'Azur.

Currently we are in Dole, east of Dijon, and the sun is shining, with the temperature at about 10 degrees.  Very cold one might say, but compared to the last week and the last two days in particular, this is warm.

We have also been very patient as it was easy to lose one's patience in freezing weather when sorting out the caravan and hitching and unhitching, but we kept our cool and did not make any mistakes.  Although we managed to get lost when finding the camping grounds in Metz and Dole.  And that was using a sat nav system and map.

We left De Vliert in Houten, Netherlands, on Monday morning, and travelled on very quiet roads through the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and into France.  Luckily there were very few trucks on the motorway, due to it being a public holiday.  

One small problem. Our Satnav system took us through the town of Liege, rather then bypassing it on a motorway.  This happened six years ago when travelling with Aaron and Kylie, when they turned onto another motorway and we turned towards Liege.  Luckily we managed to meet up later on.  Travelling through the narrow streets of Liege while towing a caravan was tricky to say the least.

Yesterday was overcast and bitterly cold, with the temperature lower than seven degrees.  At least it did not rain.  A small consolation.

We accidently drove through the the centre of Metz and realised it was a very interesting and historical city.  Sadly, once in the camping ground we did not venture out from the caravan.   It was so cold outside.

We had a great view of the Moselle River though.  This is a confession which definitely shows my ignorance.  I did not realise that the Moselle river started in the southern part of the Vosges mountains, and flowed north through France, Luxembourg and into Germany where it joined the Rhine river at Koblenz.  We had previously only travelled along the Moselle (Mosel) river at the northern end.

Interestingly there were rotary clotheslines placed at intervals along the banks of the river at the camping ground.  So that campers can enjoy river views through the clean washing hanging from the clotheslines.  An interesting concept.

A view from our caravan window, of the sun setting over the river.  The fact that the sun appeared late in the afternoon was quite uplifting.

We woke to a cloudless sky, and a heavy frost.  But so preferable to heavy clouds, and rain.  Our spirits lifted.

We set off towards Nancy on the A31, a little later than we should have, due to basking in the sunshine, inside the caravan, while eating breakfast.

After Nancy we drove on the N57, on the edge of the southern Vosges mountains, and often on the edge of the Moselle river.  The scenery was spectacular, with forests, small towns, villages, and fields set amongst the foothills of the mountains.  The Vosges mountains are not particularly high anyway, more like very high hills, in comparison to the alps.

And sunshine, glorious sunshine all day.  The temperature during the morning did not go over 7 degrees, but it was cosy in the car.

 Lunch in the caravan.  My apologies to Walter.  Not the best pose, when one is chewing a mouthful of food.

 After we left the motorway we drove on the D roads for the remainder of the trip.

An avenue of trees lining the road.

 I might add that we avoided going anywhere near Dijon, due to always becoming lost if we venture anywhere near that city.

We finally arrived in Dole, on the banks of the Le Doubs river.  It was also the birthplace of Louis Pasteur.   A picturesque old town, with beautiful and well maintained buildings clustered around the imposing Basilique Notre-Dame high up on the hill.

A view of the church from our camp site.

As the temperature had reached the relatively warm 10 degrees and the sun was still shining we decided to walk into the town centre.

A canal on the edge of the city centre.

The imposing Basilique Notre-Dame rising above the houses.

The narrow street which leads up to the church.

Another very narrow street.

The grand organ inside the church.

The scent from the wisteria was very overpowering.  Spring is definitely more advanced down here.

We visited a very large fairground on the way back to the camping ground.  I think we were most impressed with the size and newness of the caravans which house the families that run the fairground.   And their expensive cars.  Obviously owning and running fairground stalls and rides must result in a good financial return.

Tomorrow we continue on our way south, hopefully in sunshine.

A lovely week in Houten, Netherlands

On the way again.  On this trip we called in to see Aaron and Kylie, Mia, Abi and Raphy in the Netherlands before heading down to the Cote d'Azur, where we will meet up with Andreena and John, from Adelaide, Australia, Lindsay, Trudy, Mike and Di, from Wanganui, New Zealand and Jenny, who is currently working in the UK, but who is also from New Zealand.  And we will have a big celebration for a special birthday, Andreena's 60th.  

A perfect crossing on the ferry from Dover to Calais.  Blue skies and a calm sea, plus the added excitement of seeing about fifty hot air balloons accompanying us across the channel for a short time.  A majestic sight.

Our progress on the motorway from Calais to Utrecht was very slow, with seemingly a bumper to bumper line of trucks in the outside lane.  It was a very tedious trip.

But once at the camping ground, De Vliert, we quickly set the caravan up, and drove to Aaron and Kylie's house in Houten.  It was lovely to see the family again, and we spent time exchanging gifts; a few souvenirs for them from our trip, and from the family a wonderful group of ceramic models of Dutch houses for our bathroom.

We also gave Mia the rest of her birthday present, a light box which was too heavy to post.

Spring in the Netherlands is slightly behind the UK, so we experienced early spring again, with daffodils and early blossom on the trees.

I went for a walk with Abi and Raphy.  The underwater growth in the canals was particularly spectacular.

One beautiful white swan on the small lake.  I should say, a beautiful but very aggressive white swan.  I wonder if its eggs were close by.

Abi having a rest after roller blading, on the cycle paths.

A sunny spot to rest, for Abi, and a climb up to the top, for Raphy.

So peaceful, and still.

White blossom.  Not good for hay fever sufferers though.

Another peaceful scene.

Abi roller blading through the woods.

More reflections in the bright sunshine

And a trip would not be the same without a new dog.  Lucy, the dog, who lives in the house next to Aaron and Kylie.  The children love taking Lucy for a walk, and of course she loves it too.

The photos above were taken on the Saturday, which was a lovely sunny day.  However Sunday was even better, weather wise, and after lunch in the caravan, we spent the afternoon at the Nieuwe Bos, where Abi and Raphy had a lovely time in the playground and at the obstacle course.

After Sunday, the weather went downhill, and most of the next week was showery and very cold.  A bitter wind too.  So it was back to winter again.

Walter and I did manage a day in Utrecht, in order to spend some money and generally have a look around.

I even managed to get a photo of a straight Dom rather than a leaning Dom.

And we saw the nearly completed shopping centre at the Utrecht railway station.  Very impressive.

The view of the woods from Aaron and Kylie's windows.  Please excuse the messy photograph, reflection from the glass, I think.  It was too cold to open the door.

Mia made these very interesting rabbit ears for the chocolates.  Mia's contribution to the class party.  I can imagine they were quite a hit.  A very creative girl.

It was a very busy Easter holiday, and added to the festivities was Walter's birthday on the Sunday.  We celebrated it by going out to dinner at a local restaurant/pub which was once the farm house before Houten was developed into a town.  Most of us ordered pork spare ribs, which were absolutely delicious, although loaded in sugar I think.  Walter ordered his favourite, a pork schnitzel.

We stopped for a photo opportunity on the way home.  Abi was not with us, as she had a birthday party to attend, a swimming disco party.  An interesting concept.

Mia, Abi and Raphy organised an Easter lunch on the Sunday.  The table was set out very elaborately.  A very festive occasion.

Then we all went into the woods for an Easter egg hunt.  All very exciting.  

Last night we said our reluctant goodbyes and today we hitched up the caravan and headed south, on reasonably quiet roads, and very few trucks.  I think they were banned from driving on the roads on the Monday too.  In Europe most trucks are not allowed on the roads on Sundays.