3 months on the road (13 June to 15 September 2017), 11 countries visited (UK, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Canary Islands ), 6,200 km (3,800 miles) added to George.
39 stops including Lanzarote
We spent the last 18 days in England mostly at Harry’s place, spent 3 nights staying in London, day trips to London, catching up friends, family, lunches, dinners, a trip to the theatre to see Motown – brilliant. Caught up with Celeste of the girl in the cafe fame in Soho – thanks for the coffees C.
We’ve had the most amazing time visiting so many new places and meeting the amazing group of Italian families who are now family. Second year down and absolutely loving our almost endless summers.
Bye England – flew out on the 18th, a short stopover in Doha then the 16 hour flight to Auckland.
See you next year !
Dinner at fabulous The Ned hotel
Pooh’s bridge at the 100 acre wood
Hundred Acre Wood
We’ve had a busy first week back in the UK, catching up with Harry and preparing George for resale and sorting out the stuff we’ll keep at Harry’s for our trip next year. After 2 European summers and 11,000 miles on the clock we’ve upgraded to a better model – a Dethleff. George the 3rd has been a dream to travel with, we shall miss him greatly, here’s hoping he goes to a good home and brings a lot of joy to the next owner. We drove him down to JC Leisure based in Rye and said our good-byes.
What else have we been up to – had a dinner party for Clive & Linda, made a large batch of boozy apple cake using apples from Harry’s tree, popped into London to have lunch with Kellie and caught up with Harry’s son, Stewart who was over from the US.
Weather has been cloudy and temperatures lukewarm, not what we planned. So we decide to head away for a week to somewhere hot. With the help of a travel agent we decided to head to the Canary Islands, in particular Lanzarote. 9 days back in the UK we’re off again.
Up very early to catch our 6am flight from Gatwick, fortunately we live nearby. 4 hours in the air we arrive in Lanzarote. Our room isn’t ready till 3pm so we spend the next few hours in the pool & spa area – not great when all we wanted was a bed for a sleep.
The Canaries is a group of rugged volcanic islands belonging to Spain, located off Africa’s northwest coast, near Morocco and the equator. The archipelago includes seven major islands, all remnants of very steep, extinct volcanoes. They say the Islands are one of the most popular tourist destinations especially with Brits and Europeans. We were expecting a lovely sun filled week of sandy beaches, good simple food and charming villages.
First impressions of the island are not good – a landscape of black lava rock, cactuses, cycads, succulents, cloudy skies, wind and rain. Where’s the sunshine and lush greenery? Fortunately we have a lovely suite and wonderful views.
We hire a car and spend the day exploring the island. Lanzarote is not a pretty island, the landscape has a stark and otherworldly appearance, with the occasional bucolic, palm-filled valley juxtaposed with surreal, crinkly black lava fields. The island has 300 volcanic cones and the hot sirocco wind makes conditions very hot, dry and dusty.
To understand the architecture of Lanzarote we learn resident Cesar Manrique is the godfather of the island’s architecture and man-made aesthetics. The more I see and read about the guy the more I admire him. He had a major influence on the planning regulations. He recognised the tourist potential and lobbied successfully to encourage sympathetic development of tourism. One aspect is the lack of high rise hotels on the island. Those that are there are in keeping with the use of traditional colours in their exterior decoration.
We visit 2 of his homes and learn about his ethos of responsible living with the environment. Both his homes are eye-openers; one is built on top of several volcanic bubbles and the other is on the lava landscape. Tragically Cesar was killed in a car crash close to his home. He is clearly revered and loved.
Lanzarote’s landscape
A typical village of white-washed homes with bright green doors against a backdrop of black volcanic lava
Lanzarote’s fastest dissolving industry, sea salt now producing 30% the volume of 40 years ago, due to construction and destruction.
In Taro, Tarhiche, the Volcano House stands in the middle of a lava landscape formed during the major eruptions that changed the island landscape in the 1700s. 5 volcanic bubbles are connected to forms the rooms of the home
Located in Haria, the Palm Grove House is the studio and home he lived in before his tragic death in 1992 from a car accident on the island
Mirador del Rio at the northern point of the island, designed by CM
We didn’t go to Epernay, France as mentioned in my last post. We decide our last stop before Calais will be Bruges. 8 hours and 570 km later we arrive at Camp Klein Strand, located 15km from Bruges, 19 euros a night with excellent wifi. Its grey, wet and drizzly.
The drive was long and exhausting for Mark, he was keen to get as close to Calais as possible for our ferry trip back over to Dover on Friday 15th. We drove through Luxembourg and France to get to Belgium. We filled up George in Luxembourg for less than a euro a litre, the best rate of the entire trip – bit of a contradiction as Luxembourg is the second wealthiest country in the world on a Gross Domestic Product per person basis, past only by Qatar (in 2016). Our drive was slowed down by heavy winds on the entire drive, a traffic accident and road works on the motorway.
Bruges is in north-west Belgium in the Flemish region. The city is a canal based one and is known as the Venice of the North. Bruges is one of the most well-preserved medieval towns in Europe.
Next day the weather doesn’t improve. We head into Bruges by bus. First impressions are, what a beautiful charming medieval town. Cobbled streets and medieval style buildings everywhere, great walking city filled with restaurants, shops selling waffles and chocolates everywhere. No fun seeing a new city when its raining and windy. We stay a while, enough to see the main sights and to know that we will definitely return if we’re nearby and the weather is sunny.
Tomorrow we drive to Calais to take the ferry back across the channel to UK.
Market Square, surrounded by historical buildings
The Belfry, a medieval bell tower in the centre of Bruges
Provinciaal Hof (Province Court), former meeting place for provincial government
Another view of Market Square
The weather has turned to custard, temperatures have dropped by 15 degrees in the space of 2.5 weeks. We’re further north so we did expect cooler weather but now there’s less certainty of sunshine and blue skies. Planning to head back to the UK now, shall we go through northern France or through Belgium? There’s still quite a bit of driving to go so we decide on at least 2 stops before getting on the Calais ferry to Dover. We brought ferry return tickets at the start of the year (GBP190 return), bringing the return date forward is easily done online.
So where to from Isny? We decided Heidelberg for our next stop. We stay at Campingplatz An der Friedensbrücke, 9km from Heidelberg. The drive is a long tedious one with many roadworks in progress and long waits for one lane roads to changeover. We arrive mid-afternoon, to a beautiful pitch on lush green grass with Lake Neckar (an off flow from the Rhine river) nearby. We unpack and turn in for an early night, after turning the heater on to get the chill out of the air.
Heidelberg is a college town in Baden-Württemberg region situated on the Neckar river in south-west Germany, a quarter of the population are students. Its my first visit, not Mark’s first visit. Back to using Euros, prices are so much more reasonable compared to Switzerland.
We take the bus to town, walk down the pedestrianised main street of the of the old town, saw Heidelberg Castle up on the hill and visited the Church of the Holy Spirit and The Jesuit Church – very different to other churches we’ve visited, this one has a modern looking interior, white walls and chandeliers. Heidelberg is a pretty town, especially like the pedestrian main street.
We decide to head towards Calais through northern France. Next stop Epernay … I think.
Home
Main Street
Heidelberg Castle in the background
Church of the Holy Spirit
The Jesuit Church
Wasps, see this a lot here, bakeries don’t seem to care … I would!
Very clear what this store is selling …
This is one of our best weekends on the trip – spending it with family, good friends and surrounded by awe-inspiring, not enough superlatives to describe, amazing scenery of the Lauterbrunnen area.
We woke to our 6am alarm and saw we’d parked next to the railway platform in Brienzwiler town. We hit the road for the final leg to our home for the weekend, Camp Jungfrau Lauterbunnen in Jungfrau area.
This home takes our best scenic campsite award. Our pitch is in a valley, surrounded by soaring rocky mountains plus we have the view of the 300 metre Staubbach waterfall right out our window. We’re also parked next to our kiwi friends, Kasey and Gavin who arrived a day earlier.
Lauterbunnen is a charming little town filled with traditional wooden buildings covered in beautiful flowers. There’s a lovely cemetery right in town and I think a model of how cemeteries should be – well tended, each plot filled with plants and flowers, surrounded by magnificent scenery.
It’s very important that we arrive today Friday the 8th, as the weather conditions are perfect for the cable car ride to Schilthorn summit for views over the Bernese Alps, and to see the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains. The forecast for the next few days is rainy and cloudy.
To reach the summit we ride on 3 aerial cable cars. From our home we walked 10 minutes to Stechelberg where we take a cable car to Gimmelwald and then to Murren at 1634 metres. From Murren another cable car is taken to Birg, then the final change to Schilthorn summit, at 2970 metres.
We saw charming villages, para-gliders, the walking track, a mountain bike trail, the changing face of the the giant rocky mountains, beautiful fluffy white clouds, goats grazing, and the Swiss flag and its emblem everywhere.
Schilthorn and its peak Piz Gloria is best known for the Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” where the panorama terrace is the setting for the famous attack scenes. The novel that the film is based called for an isolated Alpine fortress. The Schilthorn was found to be the ideal location with its summit building and the longest cable car in the world at the time.
At the Birg level, we walked the Thrill Walk, a 200-metre cliff pathway under the cableway station which leads down and around the vertical walls of the mountain range. There’s a section where you can walk the wire rope and go through the wire tunnel – Hannah, Mark and Gavin took this path while we took photos of their stunts.
For 81 francs it’s well worth the money – plan for good weather.
Next day the Jungfrau marathon was on and it rained all day. We nested and stayed inside George for most of the day. In the evening we had our highly anticipated cheese fondue dinner. Sad to say it was the worst fondue we’d had – it had a indescribable taste, the fondue was too winey, had a burnt taste and we couldn’t taste the cheese – huge disappointment. Our friends loved their fondue which they had at a different location.
On the day of leaving we visited The Trümmelbach Falls – the world’s only glacier waterfalls, accessible by lift, galleries, tunnels, paths and platforms inside Trummelbach mountain.
There’s a series of ten glacier-waterfalls inside the mountain and the Falls alone drains the mighty glaciers of the Eiger (at 3967 metres), Mönch (at 4099 metres) and Jungfrau (4158 metres) mountains. The Falls carry up to 20,000 litres of water a second and also carries over 20,000 tons of boulder debris a year which causes the entire mountain to shudder and make a thundering noise. Its drainage area is 24 km², half of it covered by snow and glaciers. A must see at a very reasonable entry price of 10 Swiss francs – children under 4 years are not allowed in. In the height of the rainy season the Lauterbrunnen Valley’s has 72 waterfalls.
Afterwards we headed back to Zurich to drop off Hannah and Scott at the airport to catch their flight back to London. We had some spare time, so we stopped at Lucerne for a few hours.
After the airport we headed to Isny im Allgau in Germany, staying at Camp Waldbald. Next morning we went to the Dethleffs showroom and factory to check out a potential purchase for next year.
Swiss Alps 
Home
Thrill Walk at Birg level
Top of Schilthorn
Trummelbach Falls
Lauterbrunnen town
Bernese Mountain Dogs, a fellow camper has 4
Last cheese fondue for quite a while …
Left Liechtenstein and arrived at Zurich at noon, passing spectacular clouds and countryside. We booked a few weeks in advance for a spot at this campsite as its the only one in the city. Camping Zurich Fischer Fritz is situated by Lake Zurich with a fisherman’s theme running through the site in its signage and branded products. Fresh fish is caught daily and fillets are sold in the store. This is our 25th home on the road in 3 months short of a week.
Took the bus to the city rather than cycle, we’re feeling pretty tired with all the traveling and recent one-day stopovers. 8 Swiss francs for a return ticket. We walked around the old and new part, had a bite to eat, went into a few shops then took the bus home. The city is pretty, pretty, pretty and so neat, clean and organised.
Everyone is so well dressed, not a jandal and shorts combo in sight … except Mark. We saw an express business lunch for 80 Swiss francs (NZ$116). This got us talking about cost of living and salaries. After some online research, information on the website https://www.numbeo.com says you would need to earn 60% more in Zurich to have a similar standard of living in Auckland, assuming you rent in both cities and assumes net earnings (after income tax). The 60% average is made up of a combo of these factors
click here for more info
Zurich is situated in northern Switzerland and on the northern end of Lake Zurich. It is Switzerland’s largest and wealthiest cities and is a global centre for finance and banking
On day 2 we had a relaxing day at the campsite. We gave George a good clean inside then went for walk to Trois Pommes, a designer clothing outlet store selling clothing, accessories and shoes from top European brand names such as YSL, Alaia, Prada and Tom Ford. Even with 90% discount, prices were too much (from 300 euro upwards) for me.
On our last day, we need to leave the campsite at noon. Hannah and Scott are arriving tonight at Zurich airport at 11pm. to spend the weekend with us. We have a 10 hour wait until they arrive and we need to find a park for George. Finding a park when not in a campsite has always been an issue, spaces are not long enough or we worry about George getting broken into. We’ve only parked in large supermarket car parks, which are few and far between in Switzerland.
We get to the airport early and suss out the best way to do the pick up – decide we’ll drive by the airport hotel to pick them up. We end up parking George in a construction site next to a gas station, recommended to us by a kind airport parking attendant. Then we wait … for 10 hours inside George without power. After 11pm we get the text from the guys, we head to the hotel. We end up driving near the hotel, not able to stop, we’re like a get-away car – Han and Scott come running towards George, I jump out open the doors, all while George is moving … we all jump in and Mark zooms away back on to the motorway.
By now it near midnight, there are no lights on the roads, lots of road works in the area, many detours and bendy roads. Its a slow careful drive to Interlaken, part way to our next campsite in the Jungfrau region. We drive around and through mountains, we drove through our first spiral mountain tunnel – quite a weird feeling.
Around 1am, tired and excited for the weekend ahead, we stop in a small village and find a space large enough to park George, not knowing whether we are blocking any morning traffic. We set the alarm for 6am in case we need to move on quickly.
Driving to Zurich
Zurich
Water polo and kayaking course on the river
Lots of Tesla cars around
Camp Zurich Fischer Fritz
Like Lucerne, Liechtenstein was a last minute stop – we were nearby so why not. The drive took 2 hours but seemed longer. The mountain ranges, snowy peaks, a lake or two are now common sights on the drive. We past a number of tunnels through mountains, the longest was 8km.
Crossing the border from Switzerland to Liechtenstein was a seamless non-event, the flags of the 2 countries and a billboard indicated we had crossed over.
At noontime we arrived at Camping Mittagsspitze in Triesen, southern Liechtenstein, half an hour too late to formally check-in. Reception re-opens at 6pm so we parked George in a pitch and cycled to Vaduz, the capital.
Tomorrow the big event is Liechtenstein is playing Spain in the World Cup qualifying tournament, right here in Vaduz. We cycled to Rheinpark Stadium where media were setting up. Mark said hi to some of the local players as they arrived for practise. We were tempted to stay another night to watch the game but Zurich beckoned. On the cycle back we gave in and stopped for a McDonald’s lunch – 14 Swiss Francs (NZ$20) for a cheese-burger meal and extra burger.
Liechtenstein is a mountainous alpine country making it a winter sports destination. This explains the large number of apartments we saw and many more in construction but there was not many people around. The capital has many modern architectural designed buildings.
Liechtenstein is not part of the European Union and Swiss Francs is used here. A former tax haven for the rich, Liechtenstein has abandoned much of its legendary bank secrecy in order to become compliant with increasingly draconian EU and US government guidelines. Interesting fact – Liechtenstein is the world’s biggest manufacturer of false teeth.
Tomorrow we are driving to Zurich.
On the drive to Liechtenstein
Water flowing from the mountains
Crazy power & telecom lines …
Home for the night
Vaduz Castle, the royal family residence
Vaduz, the capital, population 5,500
Cool office building
Museum of modern and contemporary art 
After 2 days in Tenero, Lake Maggiore, we decide to head north to Lucerne located in central Switzerland.
The 2 hour road trip to Lucerne was amazing and eventful. First up not long into the drive, George was overtaken by millions of dollars worth of supercars zooming along the motorway in convoy, there were about 50 cars – Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Bugattis, Bentleys, Maseratis, Porsches, Mercedes, a Formula 1 racing car, and 2 McClarens – for them it looked like a typical Sunday outing, for us it was magnificent to see and hear these cars on the road. Next up we drove through the 4th longest road tunnel in the world, the Gotthard Road Tunnel, nearly 17 kms long – in the tunnel there was count-down signage of kilometres remaining. Out of the tunnel we past magnificent mountain ranges and the Swiss Alps with its peak covered in snow. Then we drove along beautiful Lake Lucerne crossing over the Reuss river to Lucerne city and onto Lido area where we stayed at Camping International Lido Lucerne. Plus George joined the 10,000 miles club !
The drive to Lucerne
the tail end of the supercar convoy
entering the Gotthard Road Tunnel
Swiss Alps in the distance
10,000 miles !
We arrived at the campsite at noon then got on our bikes for a cycle to the city. The cycle path along the river is great for cyclists like me who don’t like riding on the road with traffic. The lakeside is filled with plenty of walking paths, beautiful gardens, sculptures, benches and petanque playing areas. It was Sunday and with temperatures in the 20s celsius there was plenty of people out and about. Lucerne is a very pretty city and great for wandering around.
We walked around the old town and saw the traditional Swiss architecture details on buildings, we visited the the “Lion in the Rock ” monument which pays tribute to the Swiss mercenaries killed in the French Revolution while fighting for France – quite moving sculpture. We walked the famous Chapel bridge (aka The Kapellbrücke), the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe. The bridge is known for its interior paintings dating back to the 17th century, many paintings were destroyed along with a larger part of the centuries-old bridge in a 1993 fire and subsequently restored.
We met up with fellow kiwis, good friends and camper-vaners Kasey and Gavin at the campsite and had dinner together. It was great to catch-up and share road adventures – can’t believe its nearly 2 months since we last saw them in Dubrovnik.
We’re eager to move on and see more of the surrounding area. Tomorrow we’re going to the little land-locked country of Liechtenstein, the sixth smallest country in the world, nestled between Austria and Switzerland.
Cycling along the lake towards the city
Lake Lucerne
Lucerne
beautifully ornate …
The Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge)
The Lion in the Rock monument
pronounce this …
Mark & Dee's 2017 Summer Adventure 