Well we have finally got to go the the continent, and shipped out on the tunnel arrived in the dark at Calais so we parked up in a shopping car park Cite d' Europe, next day trundled off down to Charleville- Mezzieres and over the border to Luxembourg where we filled right up at 1.01 euro per litre. About what I was expecting and it was on the main autoroute. Onward to the Mosel, the place where we went on honeymoon 36 years ago, it hasn't changed much. Stopped on a vineyard with power for 10 euro which was good compared to UK, That is when I lost the EE phone system that I had to get set up again in Calais taking 51 minutes to get it done. A difficulty with the account not allowing phone and dongle on the shared account. So Phone from then on . We went up the Mosel and up the Rhine after getting lost in Koblenz ended up in a car-park as we could not find anywhere else, it turned out the parkplatz was half a mile on up the road. Railways and church and town clocks were an unpleasant intrusion with the noise almost as good as the Armee d'l air at St Etienne, where they we going off in F16s in pairs over us in the morning Went to the technology museum at Speyer and had to pay 16 euro to get in although the website said 8 , and stayed in the site the Wandered off up the Rhine hoping to get to Lake Konstanz and maybe visit The Hymer Factory site, but no I noticed that We would have to go through a little bit of Switzerland Where We would need to buy a 10 day tax ticket for about 30 miles across the sticky out bit. I was not willing to pay that as we would not use it up, so turned back into France again. Various zig zags around France and we found out that the worst book I have ever had, 'Aires de services camping car' Every site we looked like we were near wasn't the numbering system and names were very badly out by a long way, 40-50 miles some of them. Went to Epernay for one and it was closed so we ended up on the street.
We wobbled up France and stopped at one of the War Graves sites where my uncle was on the wall memorial. I had a cry at the sheer numbers of young boys and men that were there and noted the ages of the wasted generation lost and that was only a small site, Thousands of them, it made me angry at the waste of these young lives.
We went over to the channel and stayed at a very pleasant site by the side of the Somme estuary, next morning emptied the waste and filled some water then as I pulled away, A bang and the van would not move , I was caught on a short steel pole near the bund, one I did not see as it was so small but it smashed the nearside wheel arch cover, luckily We got the broken bits and I have now remade it and awaiting to paint it afterwards. We went to an aire at Wissant but was not impressed and it was blowing and raining very hard so I decided to carry on an pay the £20 supplement and come home on an earlier train, I did not fancy staying over there in the wet and windy. Got home OK but the poor van has now knocked up another 1800 miles. I must admit I was not impressed with how it went but I can put that down to inexperience and that bloody book. I have now got after recommendation better Dutch book written in English and far better presented. Next time I will make an itinerary and stop when I can still see where we are going.
Maybe Spain for the Christmas period to get away from the humbug.
I had to wait until I got to the EE shop before I got the trouble sorted out with the dongle, that didn't impress me at all, The second person I spoke to on the helpline, didn't want to know and told me it was my fault for not verifying the account detail on the dongle using my compute (at home) He just did not want to know. However the damage and the lost adblue cap didn't help, It fell in Hymer A class deep depths of depravity , also got stung for a 10 litre of adblue in a can because Mercedes do not give you a magnet on the adblue tank to all the pump to get the bulk price of .35 and I had to pay 1.85 euro for the same stuff in a retail pack. Leisure vehicle do no have the magnet, not that the nozzle would get into the bonnet space on my model. Anyway the learning curve is a bit flatter now, maybe I will not get so frustrated and angry now knowing more how things go.
We wobbled up France and stopped at one of the War Graves sites where my uncle was on the wall memorial. I had a cry at the sheer numbers of young boys and men that were there and noted the ages of the wasted generation lost and that was only a small site, Thousands of them, it made me angry at the waste of these young lives.
We went over to the channel and stayed at a very pleasant site by the side of the Somme estuary, next morning emptied the waste and filled some water then as I pulled away, A bang and the van would not move , I was caught on a short steel pole near the bund, one I did not see as it was so small but it smashed the nearside wheel arch cover, luckily We got the broken bits and I have now remade it and awaiting to paint it afterwards. We went to an aire at Wissant but was not impressed and it was blowing and raining very hard so I decided to carry on an pay the £20 supplement and come home on an earlier train, I did not fancy staying over there in the wet and windy. Got home OK but the poor van has now knocked up another 1800 miles. I must admit I was not impressed with how it went but I can put that down to inexperience and that bloody book. I have now got after recommendation better Dutch book written in English and far better presented. Next time I will make an itinerary and stop when I can still see where we are going.
Maybe Spain for the Christmas period to get away from the humbug.
I had to wait until I got to the EE shop before I got the trouble sorted out with the dongle, that didn't impress me at all, The second person I spoke to on the helpline, didn't want to know and told me it was my fault for not verifying the account detail on the dongle using my compute (at home) He just did not want to know. However the damage and the lost adblue cap didn't help, It fell in Hymer A class deep depths of depravity , also got stung for a 10 litre of adblue in a can because Mercedes do not give you a magnet on the adblue tank to all the pump to get the bulk price of .35 and I had to pay 1.85 euro for the same stuff in a retail pack. Leisure vehicle do no have the magnet, not that the nozzle would get into the bonnet space on my model. Anyway the learning curve is a bit flatter now, maybe I will not get so frustrated and angry now knowing more how things go.
