Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 22:10:08 -0500
Reply-To: The Bus Depot <ron@NETCARRIER.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: The Bus Depot <ron@NETCARRIER.COM>
Subject: Trip Report: Europe (Long)
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It's impossible to summarize a month's worth of traveling through Europe in
one post, and this is probably a pretty lame effort, but just the same I
thought I'd relate to you some general thoughts regarding our recent trip.
We had the time of our lives. If you can get even a couple of weeks free,
it is well worth doing this yourself. In October, airfare is cheap because
you're off season, yet the weather is still warm enough to make camping
possible. I believe March is the same way, although I could be wrong.
To recap, Evon, 5-month-old Haley, and I spent a month traveling through
Europe in a VW camper which we rented from a company in the Netherlands (see
related post). We were doing this vacation on a very tight budget, so we
spent most nights camping on the side of the road in highway rest stops.
The full-service rest areas in Germany and the UK were generally as clean as
my house is, and had free showers to boot, so there was little benefit to
paying for a campground just to sleep at if we were going to be traveling
again first thing in the morning anyway. And the savings from free-camping
were enough to pay for hotel rooms on those days that we got tired of living
in a bus, hit a particularly cold night, or hadn't found a free site with a
shower for a couple of days. List member Frank Goodrick had been kind
enough to recommend a couple of books, Travelers Guide to European Camping
and Europe By Van and Motorhome (the latter written by a couple who
regularly travel Europe in their VW camper), and these books were very
helpful in giving us ideas of where to camp, etc. We visited eight
countries in four weeks, so we sure didn't get a full dose of any of them,
but we learned enough to know where we'd like to go back next time.
We started our trip in the Netherlands, and it turned out to be a great
place to start. First of all, almost everyone spoke English, and was
friendly to tourists, so it was an easy transistion. Secondly, the dollar
is stronger there than in, say, England or Germany, so it was a good place
to go to the supermarket and stock up the camper with a month's worth of
staples at a reasonable cost. We enjoyed a visit to Gouda, and found
Amsterdam a worthwhile day trip. But Holland's most memorable attraction
was its robotic toilet. After checking into our campsite and setting up, we
went to the tiny snack bar for a quick bite before dinner. When Evon
returned from the bathroom she informed me that I had to go to the bathroom,
which was news to me. But I obliged, as any well trained husband does when
given firm instruction from his wife in a certain tone of voice. Inside the
restroom I was facing a toilet that looked perfectly normal, save for an
electric button in place of the mechanical lever that would normally flush
it. I pressed the button, the toilet flushed, and then a little trap door
opened from behind the toilet seat. Out came a little robotic arm, which
grabbed hold of the toilet seat and proceeded to clean it while the seat
rotated 360 degrees. Cool! I'm just glad I didn't mistakenly hit the
button while sitting on the seat, or I would have been in for a big
surprise. How do I get one of these for my bus?
Belgium was our next stop en route to the ferry in Calais, France, and we
blew through it in about a day, so I can't say I got a really strong feel
for it. I will say that the Belgian white beer was probably the best beer I
had all month, which came as quite a surprise to me as I am a big fan of
English bitters and was not expecting to like Belgian beer nearly as much.
We really enjoyed the town of Brugge. (I think I have that name right.
Working from memory here, on top of jet lag). Neat old buildings, a big
center town square, and great food, if a little touristy.
I had plans to meet with the folks at Just Kampers in the UK, so we
proceeded to England via ferry from Calais. After a long and very rewarding
day at Just Kampers, we continued northward toward Scotland. The owner of
Just Kampers had recommended a stop at the Lake District in northern
England, and we wanted to visit York on our way there. We were a little
disappointed by the Lake District but were by no means sorry we had gone
there. We took a small country road from York toward the lakes, which wound
its way over steep hills of green pastures. It was perhaps the most
beautiful drive we experienced on our entire trip. Lush green and blue
colors, old stone farm houses that probably had been unchanged for 100
years. It took all day to go maybe 100 miles with all of the sharp curves
and steep hills, but it was well worth it.
Edinburgh, Scotland was our next destination, as we had a friend there. As
cities go, I could live in Edinburgh quite easily, if only the weather
weren't usually as windy as our friend told us it is. When we were there it
was sunny and beautiful, but he assured us that we were witnessing one of
the three nicest days Edinburgh had seen all year. The castle, way up on
top of the hill in the center of town, is well worth the visit. It is still
used by royalty, and nicely maintained, and they provided a CD player to
each visitor, who can wander around and punch in the appropriate track
number to create his own personalized "guided tour." We both learned that
we love haggis (sp?). Haggis, in case anyone is not familiar with it, is
the local version of what we in the Philadelphia area call scrapple.
Scrapple, as its name implies, is basically everything from a pig that
couldn't be used for anything better, all mashed together into a hunk of
gray meat-like substance, and then fried up and served as though it were
actually food. Like a hot dog, it is best eaten without contemplating what
exactly is in it. Haggis is basically lamb scrapple, with a bit of a spicy
bite to it. I have to admit it was delicious!
Back across the pond, we crossed into Germany so I could take care of some
business. Mostly we traveled down along the coast of the Rhine river, which
was a very picturesque drive in places, through small towns and the like.
We didn't have a lot of time to spend in Germany, but this drive along the
river had been recommended, and was well worth it. Our tour books made
mention of the Romantic Road, a section of road that the German government
had designated as a tourist route because of the quaint villages it went
through, etc. etc. etc., so we detoured off of our Rhine route to pick up a
little section of it and see what it was like. Bad idea. Frankly where we
had been before was even nicer than the so-called Romantic Road, and at
first we were sorry we'd trusted the tour books. But we ended up being glad
we took the detour, as it led us into Switzerland, which is a really
beautiful country.
Switzerland is an expensive place to visit, but worth it. We really liked
the outdoor markets of Bern, a city which impressed us with its cleanliness,
friendliness, and picturesque view as you drove into it. And the Swiss Alps
were spectacular to say the least. We drove as high as we could on them,
but didn't do much hiking above that partially because we had Haley with us,
and partially because we were being incredibly lazy.
Once we got through Switzerland, we found ourselves in northern Italy. It
was late at night so we pulled off on a highway rest stop, planning to visit
Turin in the morning and then work our way toward the Italian Riviera. When
we woke up, it occured to us that we were on a toll road and would have to
pay a toll to exit, yet we had no Italian lira, since we had reached Italy
too late in the day to find a bank. Fortunately the toll collector agreed
to accept about double the toll in french francs, encouraged by the fact
that it was that or nothing, since we had no other currency at the time.
From there it was on to Turin. No offense intended to those of Italian
descent, but the Italian drivers were the rudest, most selfish drivers I
have ever experienced! It was every man for himself! People cut eachother
off every chance they got. Ten cars tried to push their way through each
yellow light, leaving the people with the green light sitting there because
they were in their way - so those people did the same to the next cars, and
so on. People double and triple parked, blocking two or three cars in as a
matter of course. People parked smack in the middle of the fast lane! No
kidding! If you wanted to park somewhere, it seemed you just stopped your
car wherever you were and got out, and everyone behind you had to slam on
their brakes and try to go around you. I've never seen such a bunch of
obnoxious inconsiderate drivers! The last straw was when we decided to park
our car. I wasn't willing to block people in so i drove around for about
half an hour looking for a legal parking space (not that the police really
seemed to care). Finally I found one- someone pulling out of a spot right
in front of me! So I put on my signal and waited. Meanwhile, a car pulls
up behind me, the driver gets out, walks in front of me and confirms that
the car in front of me is vacating the spot, then proceeds to tell me that I
can't have that spot because she is taking it! Even though she is behind
me, and has been all along! At that point, I just gave up and blew out of
Turin. Every Italian city we drove through was like that, and it was not at
all fun. On the other hand, we did enjoy the small towns. Much friendlier,
and saner. My cousin in Bern had recommended the Cinque Tierre, or five
towns, along the cost of Italy. These are five tiny towns nestled between
the steep cliffs and the beach, four of which are completely unreachable by
car. You can drive to the first one via narrow, twisting roads that wind
along the cliffs with no guardrails (and Italian drivers passing eachother
even on these roads, on blind curves). Finally you get to a sign warning
that larger vehicles should go no further, and if you proceed steeply
downhill from there you reach the first town. To reach the other four you
must take a mule path or a milk train. The roads to the first town were so
perilous that Evon, who is not crazy about heights, was literally begging me
to turn around (as if I could manage a K-turn in a van on these roads :-).
But it was worth it. The town was quiet and sleepy, with cobblestone roads
and small shops, and old men playing cards in the center square. It was a
great place to unwind after the frantic pace of the Italian cities, and we
enjoyed our first hotel room along the water. Our vacation was already half
over.
The next day we had planned to take a boat to one or two of the other small
towns (the ones unreachable by car), and do some walking through them, but
when we woke up it was pouring rain with no signs of letting up, so we moved
on, back over the mountains and west toward France. The French Riviera was
disappointingly built up and touristy compared to where we had been (not
that there weren't tourists at the Cinque Terre - in fact there were even a
couple of tourist busses that had made it over the winding roads!). We
bypassed Nice, which reminded me of a French version of Atlantic City, and
stayed in a nearby town, between Nice and Monaco, called Villefranche ser
Mer (sp?). The old section along the waterfront was very reminiscent of the
small town we'd visited in Italy if you pretended that Nice wasn't sprawling
next to it with its casinos and Hiltons and department stores. It was Evon's
birthday, so we spent a couple of days there relaxing before moving on
toward our next adventure. We traveled over the French alps and through
Provence, and hoteled it again, in a 12th century castle perched way up on
top of the hills. A real neat place to stay, for only about $80 a night.
Highly recommended. The name of the hotel escapes me right now, but if
anyone finds themselves driving between Nice and Paris, e-mail me before you
go and I'll dig up the name for you. Paris was of course exciting, and we
did the requisite touristy stuff. The Eiffel tower is bigger in real life
than you would imagine, and after viewing the city from the top you can have
a quite nice and relatively affordable dinner in a restaurant inside the
tower with a panoramic view of the city. We timed our visit for dusk, when
the lights of the city were just turning on. I thought it was spectacular.
Evon, who as I said isn't crazy about heights, enjoyed it from a location
slightly closer to the center of the tower. The Louvre was also a very
worthwhile visit. We visited after 3 pm, when admission is reduced in half,
but of course the downside is that you only have three hours to take in a
huge museum that could easily take all day to see. The Mona Lisa was nearly
impossible to enjoy because of the huge throng of tourists jockeying for
position in front of it while their mates took a picture of them with the
Mona Lisa behind them. I tried to take a picture of Evon but hit the button
too soon and ended up taking the picture of a random Japanese tourist posing
in front of it, beaming at me. Oh, and while in Paris you must stop into
the local version of Red Lobster for lunch, actually a Belgian based chain
called Leon's. Their specialty is mussels, mussels, mussels, mussels and
mussels. Seriously, it reminded me of the Spam sketch on Monty Python. This
place has mussels in curry sauce, mussels in roqueford sauce, mussels in
wine, mussels in just about everything you could imagine. But just about
nothing else to eat other than french fries or waffles. If you like
mussels, this is your place. Anyway, despite the French's reputation for
rudeness to foreigners, etc., we didn't experience this at all. Everyone
was perfectly friendly and nice. We really liked France.
Our last stop was a return trip to England, from where we were to fly home.
We took the ferry back from Calais to Dover, and then explored southward to
Stonehenge and Bath before visiting London. I could easily live in England.
It's really a beautiful country, with a certain quirky personality that just
clicked with me. Of course I could be influenced by the fact that I'm a
British beer affectionado, and every tavern has half a dozen exceptional
bitters, drawn up through old fashioned taps from the basement where they
await the eager palate in wooden casks. And it was a kick trying to figure
out the heck the British were talking about when they said things like
"there's a qeue on the dual carrageway due to a spilled lorrie." And Indian
restaurants on every corner - or more! On one street there were two next to
eachother with a third across from them! Besides the usual London
sightseeing, a stop at the record stores near Picadilly Circus was a must,
to pick up a ton of CD's just not available in the states. The big record
stores had 20 or 30 CD's from such relatively obscure "has-beens" as Captain
Beefheart, Fairport Convention, or Gentle Giant. I was like a kid in a candy
store! My luckiest score was a lone copy of Renaissance's Shaharazade,
unavailable in the states for years, on CD for about ten bucks. I could have
filled a suitcase with all of the music titles I will never see again, but
Evon made me stop at about ten CD's.
Finally it was time to go. With deep regret, but also a sense of
homesickness (and a backache that can only come from sleeping in a bus for
30 days straight), we drove the van to the ferry where it was to make its
lonely journey back to the hook of Holland without us, and continued on to
the airport.
With Haley growing fast (and gradually beoming less portable than she is at
five months), and the Bus Depot growing even faster, I doubt that we'll have
much chance to do a long trip like that again. I am so glad that we did it
while we could - and also that after being away from my family for so long,
wrapped up in the 80-hour-a-week-afair that is the Bus Depot, I finally had
time to see my wife again, and get to really know my new daughter, who
laughed for the first time when I was there to see it. My advice to you
is, if there is something like this that you have always wanted to do, and
it is remotely possible to do, do it rather than spend your life wishing you
had. We traveled Europe on a shoestring budget in a VW van and had the time
of our lives! There's nothing I'd have rather been doing.
I'll be happy to share more info with anyone who is contemplating a similar
adventure - just p-mail me.
Whew - this became a long and rambling trip report after all! Well, anyway,
back to work...the Depot awaits...
- Ron Salmon
The Bus Depot
http://www.busdepot.com
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