Avignon

Well worth a visit, see the photo’s.  Know nothing about the history, you can research it if you feel so inclined.  Suspect a strong religous influence.

Most of us have witnessed, in various forms, people acting as statues, the one in the photo is very good. It is a source of good entertainment for adults and children.  The children, screams of delight and fear when it moved as they approached.  The little boy in the photo did not show any fear and was very persistent that the statue accepted the coin he was offering.  The little boy eventually realised that he had to deposit the coin in the box provided. The reward? a sweet.

Adults enjoyed the general anticipation knowing what was going to happen and laughing at the children.  The little boy received a round of applause.

This is our current base.  We have done a little exploring of the area, a mixture of tourism, agriculture and industry.  The river Rhone has a strong influence on the area and some of you will associate it with very good wines.  In a sense our journey as been to follow it until it enters the med, the Camargue. More on that later.

As part of our exploring we drove into some small towns, one, the name of which we do not know, was in the process of closing off streets with large strongly built metal barriers. Not your average crowd barriers. We ended up in a side street that was so narrow we could not negotiate the corner in the Kia. That’s narrow.

After a few attemps to find our way out, which we did with some local help, we figured what was going on, they were getting ready for a bull run.  We decided that we did not want to witness that and moved on.

Traffic calming, in this part of France they have a little trick up their sleeve.  In addition to speed humps they have hollows, a kind of inverted speed hump which doubles as a drain, yes you read correctly.   Crafty beggars.

We decided to move into France a little south of Switzerland with a view to driving back north in the car to visit Geneva, it didn’t happen.

This is not one of the prettiest areas of France and the overall appearance is one little prosperity.  However, the wild flora is outstanding and we enjoyed going for walks, flower book in hand, trying identify them.  You really had to be careful where you placed your foot to avoid crushing orchids etc.  The other benefit, in natural history terms, is the insect life, because of the flowers, it abounds.

As Brits, we love to talk about, perhaps even complain about the weather.  We thought that we were being a little self centred with our perspective on the weather over the last year,  not so.  We have talked to people all over Europe, residents and visitors.  The common theme is that the weather is, colder and wetter.  Spain, flooding the worst in living memory, snow, heavy, prolonged and reaching right down to the southern med, plus freezing temperatures.  Gibraltar, unusually wet, cold and windy.  UK, snow, freezing cold followed by heavy rain and cold winds.  Switzerland, some of the alpine passes were opened three weeks later than on average and there is still an un seasonal amount of snow on the tops.  Southern France, rain and thunder storms in early/mid June.  People who know the area and are regular visitors complain about having one sunny day in three weeks. 

Whats going on?

A lovely picturesque country.  The people are friendly and helpful, it’s clean, lots of high quality fresh produce.  The down side, it’s expensive, two orange juices bought in Interlaken, 17 Swiss francs, 10 quid!   There is a tax on everything, which you pay in addition to campsite fees.  About half as much again,  thats why we did not stay longer.

Interlaken ouses wealth and  is a popular destination for hang gliding.  How many places do you visit which have a field roped off to permit the safe landing of hang gliders, their equivalent to Heath row.  They literally stack like aircraft waiting to land and, when they touch down, they quickly move to a designated part of the field to pack away their gear.

Took the train to Luzern from Meiringen.  After about a kilometer the train has to make an assent up a very steep incline, this it achieves by using a third rail which is toothed and engaged by a cog wheel mounted under the loco.  The transition and climb were very smooth, over the top and down the other side.  The Switz railways are modern clean and punctual.  A lot of the route is single line working, this means that trains travelling in opposite directions pass at stations, the first train to arrive waits at the station for the second to arrive before either can proceed.  There is only one platform at a number of these stations, the result, passengers from one train, usually the second to arrive, alight between the tracks and have to wait for a train to pull out before crossing the track to the platform.  Can you see that happening in the UK? no.

Luzern is nice, compact and picturesque.  We saw a dog swimming in the fast flowing river and were concerned for it’s safety.  Later we saw it again swimming across the river, leaving the water by some steps.  We understand that this is a common event and most people do not give it a second thought.  Nice meal sitting at a table on the riverbank terrace of an Italian restaurant, and then the train back.

We took a circular route up to some of the high passes and then down, and then up, and then down again.  In terms of distance driven about 8o miles, Linear measurement on a map about half of that.  The snow at the tops is still about ten to twelve feet high in places, (see the pictures).  The little car had it’s work cut out that day.  Some of the mountain passes, including foot paths, are closed because of the amount of snow still lying.

Since we started our travels, at least since we have been towing a trailer with a car on we seem to generate some interest, at times we feel like a spectacle.

Some examples, a site in Somerset. We had literally just pulled onto the site when we were approached by an excited man who stopped us. It turned out he had the same model of van and wanted to exchange views.

Spain, an English couple taking great interest in the car and trailer, when approached he came out with the statement, “that’s illegal, that trailer, it’s not twin axle”.  He was advised and sent on his way.

Germany, motor way services.  We were parked next to a coach and  the source of interest to many of its passenger, one lady walking around the outside with no attempt to hide the fact that she was being nosey.  Keith then noticed a couple walking from the rear to the front pacing out the length, to much, they were challenged, shown the dimensions, in writing, and left.

We have, on several occasion noticed people taking photos.  The latest one was quite funny.  The guy was trying to be discreet, unfortunately, the tree he decided to hide behind was a very slim sapling.  Silly man.

On Monday 31st May we left the site near Berlin and headed south, roughly.  It is quite a distance, so we decided to take two days, selecting a site near Nurnberg for a nights stop over, that was the start of our troubles.

We arrived at the site where the welcome was less than friendly.  We were directed to a pitch on grass, alarm bells should have rung and Keith should have checked the ground state, we got stuck.  It took us an hour to extricate the van and trailer, much to the entertainment of others, none of whom offered any assistance.  We  promptly left the site.

At the earliest opportunity we pulled off the road to consider our options.  We had our evening meal and decided to go to a stellplatz which was about 40 k away, having rejected the option of a service area, upwards and onwards.  We then encountered a road closure which involved a long and tortuous diversion.  Arrived at the stellplatz only to be directed to a pitch which was to far away to connect to the electric or make use of other facilities, we payed €8 for that.

The rest of the journey was not to bad, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. We had a stop go at the Switz border, guard one waved us through, guard two signalled us to stop, guard one, by now agitated waived us on while his mate stood in the road. Words were exchanged between them and on we drove.

We are currently on a site at Freienbrink, south east of Berlin, close to the E55 motorway.  The countryside reminds us of the UK in the early sixties, pre farming on an industrial scale.   Water meadows grazed by cattle, unimproved grassland, clean rivers and open countryside, woodlands that are free to walk through.

We have discovered an Osprey’s nest on top of an electricity pylon, on  a platform kindly constructed by some nice person.  A red squirrel in the woods that did not appear at all bothered by our presence sitting on the ground and in the tree to have a good look at us, nice.  Wild mink on the river, not so good.