Where we are... Today!

... A French wine festival. :-) Today we woke up by a small river, it was very nice and probably the best nights sleep we have had in ages. Consequently we overslept. Even so we managed to roll on into Buis-Les-Baronnies by midday. We stocked up on groceries which we then failed to consume when we saw a quaint and quintessential French creperie. Yum. Buis was a lovely village, with a dramatic and rocky backdrop courtesy of the drome de provence region. After this pleasant pause we headed straight for Cairanne to their 38th annual wine festival. Now some of you out there might think this part of the proceedings would be a bit of a jolly. But no! Wine is serious in these parts and much time was spent tasting, considering and writing comparative notes such as, "NICE!" and "mMy mum would like this." The village feast and jazz band is about to start, so we will stop using the handy touris office's wifi and get back to the cheese and wine.

Catchup #2: The Italian Dash

What has Italy ever done for us? Well, the Romans for one. A great one at that. Worth multiple holidays and a lifetime of study. You would have guessed that we would spend a good chunk of our time here wouldn't you? Well, you would have guessed wrong. We did a mad dash across the top of Italy to cover the space between Trieste and the south of France as quickly as possible. In doing so maximising our time sunning ourselves in the Riviera. Great.

The morning after arriving at the campsite began again with the sound of Crickets. Our constant backing track from this point onwards in the journey. Not quite as annoying as you get used to them.

We left around half 9 with the aim to see both Trieste and Koper. Unfortunately Koper was so full we were unable to find an appropriate parking space near the centre, though we are told by Ma and Pa Ford that it is a lovely place. We then headed off to Trieste. Which was nearly as full as Koper... nearly. We found somewhere to park and had a stroll around the town. It was nice. We had our first (and it turned out only) bowl of Italian pasta and saw the docks and old town square. A quick snippet of history, both Slovenia and Italy had claims over Trieste after WW2 and it could quite easily had been a prospering Slovenian port town not Italian.


We left Trieste after a couple of hours and made a monumental decision. Though the potential for Italy was great we both were looking forward to France too much. So we aimed to try something new, two days of driving due west on the surprisingly good Italian Motorways to eat our first Baguette two days earlier than planned. And it worked. We drove. We slept at a service station carpark (for free, with showers!). And we crossed the French/Italian border mid day on Friday 13th July. Lucky for us!

Catch up #1: Slovenia

Good evening! Sarah here, communicating from a farmyard somewhere in Provence. Really! Tonight our van finds itself at Camping le moulin de cost, where we are pitched next to a pretty stream and currently in the campsite restaurant - which is the yard directly next to the farmhouse, ie the farmyard! Rural living at its best.

Anyway, more about that later. This is the first in a series of catch-up posts filling you in on our journey over the last 10 days or so. It's been, well, pretty great to be honest, so to sum it all up will take a long time, therefore we'll just do a few highlights of each. First up, Slovenia!

After coming down from the Grossglockner we went through the Karawanke tunnel into Slovenia and pitched up for the night at Bled, right on the shores of the lake. No bleeding in sight but just beautiful, clear, blue lake water which we used for swimming, boating and lakeside strolling. That was a very HOT and sticky day and we were very hungry after our arrival, so we went straight to the pizzeria recommended to us by the campsite's receptionist and had a very yummy dinner. Our first experience of Slovenian Grapefruit Beer was absolutely delicious and we were hooked!

Next day was spent lolling by the lake and we extended our stay a night longer than planned as it was so beautiful. Anthony rowed me around the lake in a boat which was fab, and we continued our Magnum Survey by eating some on the lake shore. Note: if only we knew then what we know now about the increase in Magnum prices as you head west across Europe! That night we probably cooked at camp (can't remember) and readied ourselves for a move across the country in the morning.

From Bled we headed to Camping Menina with an afternoon's rafting on the Savinja river planned. However, on arrival we were informed that since it hadn't rained for 2 weeks, the rivers were dry and there was no rafting to be had. Anthony was quite upset about this so to make up for it we hired bikes and got some exercise another way: cycling through pretty local villages until an ENORMOUS storm hit, including rain, hail, strong winds and some very impressive lightning. After a sodden and freezing cycle ride home we jumped straight into hot showers and by the time we got out of them, the storm had passed and it was sunny again! That was the last time we had the internet till now and so we wrote our Grossglockner update that evening.

Next day we had a city-fix in Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital. A really pleasant city on the river, Ljubljana served us well as it was hot and sunny, easy to navigate and had an excellent laundry where we did a ton of washing! It was great to be in a city again and we had some breakfast at a market square cafe while waiting for the laundry, and after that we hiked up to the castle and looked around there. Highly recommended for the views and the castle itself, if you are ever in Ljubljana. We stocked up on market veg for our planned dinner of couscous and stuffed peppers, and then planned our afternoon drive to Italy, via Slovenia's most famous caves at Skocjan, which were WELL worth the visit. If you like caves, this is the place to go! They have 20km of caves under there but just 2km are open to visitors, and we took an underground train deep into that part of caves and then had an hour's walking tour. It was really excellent, so much to see and such beautiful formations. Well worth the stop.

Finally we made it to Italy where we pitched up and listened to our first sounds of cicadas, this is a sound which has accompanied us on our journey ever since then. Our campsite was San Barcoleo or something like that, right out on the little part of Italy just next to Slovenia and before Trieste. It was a most strange campsite with people who seemed like they'd lived their whole lives there, Anthony commented it was like the setting for a horror movie! Luckily we did nothing more scary than muck out the van, and have a brief chat to our late-arriving German neighbours just before the next storm hit. 

I will hand over to Anthony for his description of the 'mad dash' across Italy. Keep an eye out for the next of our catch-up series!


EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA - Videos! Below is a video of our arrival at the Italian Campsite. We have just booked in and are retuning to our van to find out camping spot. Enjoy.

Incoming! Lavender! Run!!!

Hello everyone, just a quick update. We are Still in Provence, France. Loving the markets, the wine, the weather and the laven... Wait, we haven't found any lavender yet. This needs to be sorted quick!

It has been an eventful few days. We had a fantastic time on the beaches of pampelonne, near st tropez, and could hardly drag ourselves away. Campsite of 'les eucalyptus' highly recommended. Eventually we headed to carpentras, where we had a NIGHT IN A HOTEL!!! as there was no site, so that we could go to the Friday morning market. That market was massive and a sight to behold, and I think we don't need any more markets for a while!

Today it's roman ruins at vaison-la-romaine, and then we are driving the lavender fields trail. Tomorrow we have tickets to a local wine festival complete with banquet dinner and jazz, in cairanne. After that, well... who knows?!

Apart from a few frustrations with lack of wifi, and stuff breaking, and stuff being sold out, all is very well. We are tanned and a little hungover (Sarah's turn today!) so the hol must be going successfully. Photos to follow soon or whenever we next get a connection.

S&A x

Very quick update from... St Tropez

Hello one and all. Please forgive us for the radio silence. It seems as though all WiFi connections across Europe have been broken during the past week. Especially those at the various campsites we have visited.

We are currently at St Tropez! more beautiful sunshine and wonderful beaches. All is well. Here is a picture of one of our previous campsites in Provence. It had a pool as you can see, Sarah loved it.

Ciao for now.

Grossglockner Plus.

Pictures of what Sarah was scared of... The Grossglockner. 

Have YOU done the Grossglockner drive?

Hello! Sarah here, it's a while since I've written - as you know, I try to stay away from the internet on holiday but Anthony has convinced me that blogging is a good idea this time - so I leave most of the postings to him. But sometimes I just have to write to recount some of the experiences we've had, and this is one of those times.

So, two days ago we found ourselves needing to get from Austria to Slovenia, and it just so happened that the best route for us included one of the most famous drives on earth - the Grossglockner mountain highway. So, of course, we took it! I wasn't convinced that the SnuggleTruck would make it up and down all those mountain passes and round all those hairpin bends, but hey, we decided it was worth a try! So with some trepidation we shelled out the entrance fee to this National Park and hoped it was worth it. And, it was.

This was definitely the scariest drive I have ever done. We experienced many, many hairpin bends and switchbacks, with stunning mountain views on either side, and reached heights of around 2500 metres above sea level (6000 feet? for all you imperials). Mostly I was very, very scared but Anthony helped me through by providing reassuring comments and helping me count the bends to see how close to the end we were! Having a British-side-drive vehicle was not ideal, as I got the scariest views of all when taking bends round to the left, but at least Anthony was protected as he's the one who's scared of heights! We stopped for a brief lunch stop (when I could find a reasonably level parking space, as I was scared of having to do hill-starts in addition to all of this) and enjoyed a slice of good old Austrian bread with some cheese (me) and ham (Anthony), and took in some mountain air. Mostly, however, I was just scared. So we continued on up and eventually started the downturn, and all the while Anthony was snapping away and taking in the views. I was glad that he, at least, could enjoy them! On the way back down we stopped at a roadside restaurant to explore a bewildering display of stuffed animals and have a reassuring drink of Almdudler local lemonade (me) and beer (Anthony). Finally after a good couple of hours we arrived back on level ground and headed through several beautiful valleys on to Slovenia. More about Slovenia later.

What did I learn during my Grossglockner experience? Well, how to use the gears in an automatic, for one thing! We read in the advice leaflet given to us at the park's entrance that it was best to use engine braking on the descent and to only use brakes 'in an emergency'. 'But, Anthony, how do we do that? We have an automatic!' I asked in probably a scared voice... However it seems that below D there are 2 other gears, called 2 and L, which on reflection we remembered the rental agent telling us we would only need 'if we were going down a very, very severe gradient' or something. So it turned out that the Grossglockner was the perfect learning curve! - straight up, and then straight down...

To summarise, we had a great day driving the Grossglockner and now we are convinced that Austria's scenery is particularly spectacular. Note to M&D Ford and to Grandad Lamb: you are correct, we are sure we won't see a more beautiful country.


More photos of this brilliant mountain drive to follow, courtesy of photographer/navigator/all-round excellent co-pilot Anthony. :)