Aussies on Tour in Europe 2011
Martin &
Pam Williams March-September 2011
Australians Martin and Pam made a
6-month, 15,750-km (9,850-mile) motorhome tour of Europe in the spring and
summer of 2011. They visited 14 countries travelling overland from
the UK to Greece via the former Yugoslavia, and returning by a
ferry to Italy.
187 captioned images of the
motorhome, taken at the places where Martin and Pam stayed, can be found
at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/108520371100176229503/WhereWeStayed2011
Included is a Google-type map of their route
linked to these images: you can zoom in up to 50
times!
300 captioned images of the places,
people and events encountered on this far-ranging tour can be found
at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/108520371100176229503/2011HolidaySummary
Introduction
In 2009 we flew to Athens and, after
checking out the capital, hired a car and visited the key Greek icons of
Meteora, the Pindos Range, Vikos Gorge and the Pelion Peninsula; we rounded off
the trip with a few days in Santorini. It was a whirlwind tour and Pam
suggested that we 'do' Greece properly and do it in a camper-van. After buying
a camper-van last year (2010) and getting used to it in the UK, France and
Spain, we planned our return to Greece for 2011.
We left Perth at the
end of March 2011 and returned mid-September, yup nearly 6-months, so
clearly we had planned to see a few other places en route to Greece. The
following is a summary of some destinations, images, reflections and
happenings in the more than fourteen countries that we visited! This
expands on the single holiday email that we sent! Pam typed up that email
on one of the few wet days that we had. Internet cafes seem to be a
dying breed, so this time we took a small PC, a Netbook, with us and so
this year we were looking for free Wifi for connection. We used
Starbucks in Munich and a couple of yacht clubs in Croatia, but it was
McDonalds that came to our rescue in many countries. So thanks to them;
they really helped with our communication and helped us try to keep up
the news.
UK, France, Belgium, Germany
We arrived
in the UK on 31 March, stocked up the camper-van, fixed an extractor
system to the loo, visited a few friends and rellies and set off on the
ferry to Calais in mid-April. The original idea was to get down to
Greece quickly, stay for about a month and leave before it got too hot,
but the weather on the way was so good that we dallied! We even spent
some time in Calais - perhaps we were really not trying hard enough to get
to Greece quickly! After a couple of days in France, a day in Belgium
and several days in Germany, we arrived in Munich (via the Romantic
Road) at Easter to catch up with Gabi and Stefan (friends we first met
dancing in Bulgaria in 1997).
Italy
Then on to Italy
the fabulous Dolomites - followed by Venice towards the end of April.
After several previous visits we have decided that Venice has now lost
it! It seemed dirty and overcrowded and completely ruined by tourism,
with tacky souvenir stalls every few metres.
In Venice we stayed
at a camp-site (rare for us) and ended up watching the UK Royal Wedding
on the neighbour's TV! Almost all the camper-vans in Europe have
satellite TV which was also useful for us during the Tour de France
cycling race later in the holiday.
Slovenia, Croatia,
Bosnia
Then it was off to Slovenia for a couple of days and
Croatia for about a week. We have been there several times before so we
tried to do new bits, which included Trogir and the Krka National Park.
We also went into Bosnia to see the Mostar Bridge which we had wanted
to see on our 1967 visit when it was Yugoslavia - we just ran out of
time. Of course it wasn't actually the same bridge; the 1558 version was
destroyed in 1993 during the Balkan war. It has since been rebuilt and it
was really interesting to experience Islamic culture so close to the
Croatian border. From Mostar (that's 'Мостар' to you) we followed the
River Neretva ('Неретва') through 'Житомислић' and called in to the
fabulous historic site at 'Почитељ' (that's Počitelj
to you). This is also a rebuild job since the war.
Yes, you
may guess that we had some fun with the Cyrillic place names!
Montenegro
To use up our local currency, we spent our last night in Croatia
alone at a small campsite, from where we entered Montenegro at a local
border crossing. The UK won't insure for Serbia, Kosovo or Montenegro, so
we needed to buy third party insurance for the van at the border. Sadly
it wasn't available at this little local crossing! Everyone also has to
buy 'eco' tax for the environment and get a sticker for their vehicle.
Again not at our local crossing! Luckily the border guard could speak
English and made special arrangements for us, which saved us retracing
our steps along miles of unmade roads and probably getting lost, as we had
no detailed maps. Our SatNav had none of the small roads well actually
it only showed ONE road in the whole country! There were no signposts
either! The border guard gave us lots of advice about where to go and
the new roads in Montenegro, while the officials from the main crossing
drove around with the paperwork. Great customer service!
We had a fantastic week in
Montenegro and we loved Kotor both the town and the
Gulf.
Albania, Macedonia
We watched a great folk dance
display in the streets of Petrovac and then visited Ulcinj (Montenegro)
before hot-footing it across Albania in a day to get to Macedonia. The
less said about Albania the better! The litter was unbelievable much
of the country looked like a giant rubbish dump. The roads were OK but
the drivers were not frequently ignoring red traffic lights and
generally driving like idiots! It reminded us that we really hadn't
missed the driving in Perth!
We didn't stay much longer in
Macedonia spending a nice night by Lake Ohrid and then on into Northern
Greece. Since Italy we'd had no phone coverage in any of the countries so
it was a relief to finally have a Welcome to Vodafone Greece text and
know we could contact the outside world if we needed
to.
Greece
Our month in Greece was great starting
right up north and visiting the Prespa Lakes and isolated communities
before heading for the Vikos Gorge in the Pindos ranges. Here we met
quite a few other people in camper-vans we'd seen very few on our
travels since Italy and we later discovered that almost everyone else
got to Greece by taking a ferry from Venice or another port in
Italy!
After the mountains we headed for the beaches for a few
days, then back to the monasteries at Meteora that we visited 2 years
ago. And we finally found the amazing Byzantine church in Krania (the
second Krania that we drove to looking for it!). We'd first seen it in a
photo. in a hotel lobby in 2009. We stayed there overnight and the
workmen opened it up for us in the morning. In the future this will be a
tourist attraction as it is an amazing
building.
After 2 weeks we got down to the Peloponnese and had another 2
weeks touring the area beaches, ruins (including Olympia, Mycenae, Mystras),
mountain villages, mountains, gorges and monasteries. Some amazing places. One
special place we really loved was Monemvasia.
Then in mid-June we
followed everyone else's lead and put the van on the ferry at Patras, bound for
Ancona in Italy. This was a 19 hour crossing and a bit of luxury for us as the
cabin and meal were included in the very cheap fare of 107. Certainly it cost
far less than the fuel to drive back up through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary,
which we were originally considering.
We found the port of Patras very,
very threatening with lots of refugees trying to get to Italy by hiding in or
under vehicles; trucks and camper-vans seemed to be the main target vector.
Really scary.
Italy, Austria
Back in Italy we visited
several interesting places that we had never been to, such as San Gimignano for
a night of Mediaeval Festival before heading up to Lake Garda. Garda was
packed full of tourists so we ended up parking by lake Lago de Ladro, staying
in the area for a few days. Then up the amazing (but expensive) Timmelsjoch
mountain pass into Austria for about a week which was all
good.
Czech Republic
We entered the Czech Republic at
Slavonice not an exciting place and with incredibly bad roads-
before going via Peč to Telč and then to one of our
favourite towns, Cesky Krumlov. It really helps to have been to these places
before to know where to park. On our second day it poured with rain most of
the day and it was freezing (10 degrees max!). Pam went out with more
clothes on than you can imagine (including thermals and 2 beanies). The
next day was hot and balmy! We then had a long drive to Kutna Hora, where
we ended up sleeping in a farmer's field! The place name sounds like a
dance but is in fact a small tourist town, though all the shops were
closed as it turned out to be a holiday (on a Tuesday!?). Finally on to
Prague, where we had 3 nights at an actual campsite! The Czech Republic
is still cheap even in Prague if you know where to go. Prague was
packed, of course, but is still a great place to
visit.
Germany, Switzerland, France
We left Prague to
head back to Germany and return to Munich for a weekend Bulgarian dance
workshop with Iliana Bozhanova and Todor Yankov organised by Gabi and Stefan. We managed to find a
parking/sleeping spot on the road right outside the hall where it was held and
got our feet back into action again, which was quite a challenge. Then back on
the Romantic Road to Schongau and on to Schaffhausen
(and the Rhine Falls) in Switzerland and back to the Black Forest in Germany
for some 'Wanderwegs' (walking) and back into Switzerland to drive off to
France to catch the last stages of the Tour de France in the Alps. On the way
we stayed at Yverdon with a French-speaking couple we'd met earlier in Italy
at Lake Ladro and we arrived in Briancon late on Sunday 17th July to get
details about the Tour routes, times and road closures. We had a lot to
learn! Luckily there were lots of people to ask for advice like about
ten-thousand other motor homers, most of whom were big cycling
fans!
Tour de France (one of the high points of
our holiday watching as Cadel Evans won 'Le Tour')
We watched
Stage 17 of Le Tour on the Col de Montgenθvre and Stage 18 on the Col
d'Izard. This was fantastic, despite the freezing conditions. Thank
goodness our van has a good gas heater. We skipped Stage 19 as tens of
thousands of camper-vans were already parked up the mountain there (some
had been there for a week, a week that included 10 cm of snow!) and the
roads were jammed solid. Instead we drove on to get our spot for the
Stage 20 time trial near Grenoble.
This was one of the highlights
of our trip when Cadel Evans flew past up the hill to go on to take the
overall race. We watched the end of the time trial on TV in a British
campervan and then met up with 2 other Australian couples (1 from Perth)
in their hired campervans.
We all cheered the final Paris stage in
a pub in Uriage-les-Bains on Sunday waving our Aussie flags and
generally making an exhibition of ourselves!
After the Tour we
stayed in the Alps for some R&R. We picked apples, blackberries and
raspberries and did some walking. Great weather and great views of Mont
Blanc.
Strasbourg
When we were in Turkey
in 2006 we met a French family from Strasbourg. We got on very well and we
swapped emails; as you do. As we entered France this year we emailed them
and they said 'please come and visit yes we have somewhere you can park
the camper-van'. We ended up staying for a week and we had a great time;
walking in the Vosges and in the Black Forest, visiting some wonderful
'villages alsaciens', swimming in their lake, sampling the local cuisine and
touring Strasbourg. If you have never been to Strasbourg put it on your
list now. We certainly will be back.
Reflections on
the trip
Distances and Driving: OK, OK we didn't do a lot
for the atmosphere and we generated a lot of carbon dioxide. When we flew
14,660 km (PER DBX BHM) we thought it was a long way, but we then
trumped that by driving almost 16,750 km in our motorhome. Perhaps not the
sort of statistic that I should be writing on the day that the Carbon Tax
Bill went through parliament!
Overall, the driving was enjoyable,
and safe if we ignore the driving in Tirana (Albania) and in Grenoble
(which for some reason was really aggressive and uncompromising). We did
have some really 'interesting' times traversing a number of villages,
usually in Greece. Lots of the roads we travelled on were quite narrow for
our 2.7 metre wide van (that's 8' 10 in Pomish) but when it came to
villages the streets suddenly shrink and we had a lot of pulling in the
wing-mirrors and using the reversing camera which was worth its weight
in gold! The town of Leonidio probably had the narrowest streets luckily
with little traffic; Andritsena was really challenging narrow streets,
lots of coaches and a market happening in the middle of town! The locals
just sat in the cafes and watched the action! Better than TV!
We
were struck, particularly in France and Germany, by the number of
cyclists and on the cycle tracks, so often separated from the
roads. Not that the car and truck drivers were bad in fact they were,
with one or two exceptions, far, far better than Perth drivers!
To
develop the 'cycling' theme lots of countries seemed to have some form
of recycling but there seemed to be little consistency, even within
a country. Generally Germany seemed the best.
Language: Our
French got a lot of practice, and our tourist German came in quite useful
too. Overall we were surprised by the number of people across Europe who
could speak English quite well. Having said that, the Cyrillic and Greek
signposts were always a challenge!
Dance: Other than the
dancing that we saw in Montenegro and the workshop that we attended in
Munich, dancing was off the holiday-radar. There was however evidence of
dance in some of the museums such as the museum at Ancient Olympia, which
had a bronze of 'seven nude people dancing in a round' from the 8th Century
BC. Hora, anyone??
Safety: Overall it was a safe holiday;
we had no safety or health problems. We only stayed in three camp sites
and of the 134 nights on the continent, 63 of them we spent alone! Who
did the risk analysis?!
Economies and Euro problems: We kept
well away from Athens and cities in general motorhomes and big places
just don't mix well! Having said that, we were really unaware of the
problems with the Greek economy, although people did seem very pleased
to see us, especially when we were spending money!
Talking of
spending money, it was really a very inexpensive holiday. Our
flights and taxes were about A$3,700. The main cost was fuel, which
accounted for one-third of our expenditure, with another 20% going on
food and drink ($1,400). The other big cost covered insurance, road
tax and a van service. Camping, overnight stops and parking cost $140
(less than 2%). This does of course ignore depreciation on the
motorhome.
Yes, we are glad to be back: Six months was a
long time to be away from children and grandchildren, and towards the
end we did feel saturated and that we had seen everything! We needed a
holiday at the end of the trip!
One thing that does strike us
is how expensive Perth is. Bananas, tooth-paste, biscuits, bread and
paper products such as tissues are so much cheaper in the UK and in
Europe. That is, of course, balanced with the cheaper fuel here than in
Europe!
So what for 2012? Well, we've never been to
Scandinavia so we're thinking Sweden and Norway for
2012.
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