Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary *Updated

[Stu]

....... where would you go??

We have 2 weeks in Europe coming up and don't really have any specific direction, we are free to go wherever. I think we've missed the sun so that's out and there are a couple of other considerations -

We have Karl who is 2.
We aren't great walkers.
We won't be skiing or undertaking water sports.
We may take our bikes but we aren't great cyclists either.
We aren't fussed about being in one place all of the time but equally don't want to be 'site hopping' every day. A couple of days at a location would be fine.

Where would you go?? What would you do??

I have a vague plan in my mind but I'm interested in your thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

 

[Californiaman]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

I'd go to Switzerland where Freeley has just been. Sounds stunning!

Failing that, I would head for the Western end of the Pyrenees at this time of year to see if I can catch some of the raptor migrations. Nothing like a gigantic raptor passing by 10' overhead. I can't remember the name of the pass but there is one mountainside where the birds are apparently funelled through right next to a good carpark.

Or head north, through Belgium - camping memling is nice for a few days (you can ride into Brugge) then maybe down to Ypres. Visit some of the WW1 sites. Very moving but perhaps a bit dull for the little one!

Black Forest is great!

Or south, down the Cental Massif to Millau. Visit the bridge, and then head north east, to Grenoble and that way, the Northern Italy/Austrian border is stunning.

So many places - want to go NOW!

There, I have a route now. Two weeks. 3000 miles. Big drive down to Millau. Up through Grenoble and across to Styria or the Alps. Through Austria via somewhere like Kitzbuhl. Race through Germany flat out into the Black Forest, North into Belguim (via Luzembourg for some cheap diesel).

Rock on'

 

[smgcowfoldparts]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Can recommend Croatia (Split and Dubrovnik), Lake Garda in Italy, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. You could do Slovenia, Croatia and Italy in two weeks no problem.

cheers

 

[choplee]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

I pray for 2 weeks off at one time ... So jealous guys ..:-(

 

[Freeley]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Loads of good ideas there for you stu.
I'll stick by grindelwald as although its a walkers paradise there are 3 cable car stations in and around the town so you can get to the top of the mountains without lifting a finger!
You also get a free local bus pass for the duration of your stay (which we didn't use) so you can do as much or as little walking as you want.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Some great ideas so far, thanks.

Did have a look at Grindelwald last night but I don't think it would be for us. I have an idea for a site nearby.

I'm posting via iPhone at the moment so I'll give a better account after dinner but briefly my suggestion involves Calais > Saint-Quenten due to late tunnel booking. Then 6 or 7 hours directly to Switzerland and a few (2-3) days there. On to Venice area for another few days and it's there it becomes a little cloudy.

Perhaps take in some of the countries such as Croatia etc and then return via Germany to take in a VW or Audi factory tour if I can manage it.

 

[Californiaman]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Venice smells.

 

[JockMacMad]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

A lot

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Venice smells.

... And how will that differ from sleeping with the wife?? :laugh2

 

[CannellWalker]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

That's a lot of miles clocked up to get over to Venice. The Italian Lakes are good. We have been down that way three times now with the nipper.
This year we turned the other way to Normandy and on to Brittany.
A couple of sites we used, both good but very different.
www.campinglebrevedent.com
www.campingduletty.com

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

So......

for Italy we have - http://www.veneziavillage.it/en/

for Switzerland we have - http://camping-miralago.ch/en or http://www.voyages-tcs.ch/travel/fr/hom ... glish.html (Muzzano - Lugano)

Having spoken to SWMBO this evening she likes the sound of cable cars at Grindelwald - Day trip maybe??

I've got to research the car factories but I suspect it may be Ingolstadt again which could mean coming up through the tip of Austria and into Munich

I potentially fancy dipping my toe into Budapest just to say I've been but I suspect it may be a step too far.

We love Milau but have been a couple of times before and we also love Mt Venteux, but again we've been a couple of times already. I think we'll save those for sunshine next year.

Any other thoughts??

 

[Californiaman]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

If you are heading to Munich, it may be worth going a little further north to see Ulli. He has one of the first production turbo's that he races - a Corvair. I think he is in Friesing but I'm not sure he has a traditional 'shop'.

 

[malc]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

When do most of the sites close down for winter. Is there a book or something to say where to camp from Nov or is it a painful search thru the books. Just a bit idle!

 

[Californiaman]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/articles/view.asp?id=248

 

[John]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Stu,

download Next Time we are Flying Somewhere Sunny by Steve Roach for your Kindle or download the Kindle App for your PC if you don't have a Kindle.

The book is about travelling around Europe in a old T2 VW Campervan.

For £1.56 It will give you a lot of laughs and a lot of ideas about where to go.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... here+sunny

John

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

When do most of the sites close down for winter. Is there a book or something to say where to camp from Nov or is it a painful search thru the books. Just a bit idle!

We use ACSI, we have the DVD and you can set parameters such as opening period etc.

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Stu,

download Next Time we are Flying Somewhere Sunny by Steve Roach for your Kindle or download the Kindle App for your PC if you don't have a Kindle.

The book is about travelling around Europe in a old T2 VW Campervan.

For £1.56 It will give you a lot of laughs and a lot of ideas about where to go.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... here+sunny

John

Thanks John, I'll tell the boss she is the Kindle freak but thankfully that keeps her away from my iPad.

 

[Freeley]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Another recent ACSI disciple here.
I have the books and the app on my phone, use them both to cross reference as there are some annoying omissions from the book such as country map regions etc

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Well we did it!!

Left UK on Friday 5th October via Euro Tunnel.

A late arrival in Calais on Friday night followed by about 3 hours driving we stopped at an Aire on the E17/A26.

A long drive on Saturday saw us at -

Aaregg Familiencampingplatz

What an amazing site and one which we will almost certainly be visiting again. The ablutions facilities are a thing of beauty!

At the border to Switzerland you'll need to purchase an annual Vignet for 40 Swiss Francs, it's worth having cash for this as the Border Control can take cash, for cards you'll need to park up and go into the building.

Next stop Italy. We had planned to stop in Milan for a night or two but on arrival at the site decided it wasn't going to be for us and wasn't in a very nice area.

Campsite Città di Milano

So we checked the oracle that is the ACSI DVD and decided on -

Campsite Bella Italia

Right on the shoreline of Lake Garda. Another great find and well worth the ACSI rate of 16 Euro per night and again should we decide to visit Lake Garda again it would be our destination of choice.

Split due to 3 URL limitation

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Whilst in the region we took time to visit the Museo Enzo Ferrari as well as the Ferrari Museum in Maranello. If you start the tour at the Museo Enzo Ferrari they operate a bus at a cost of 10 Euro per person for the 30 minute ride to the Ferrari Museum which we used however experience would now suggest that if you have your van with you it's better to drive it yourself.

Next stop was Venice. Once again ACSI to the rescue and we found -

Venezia Camping Village

A quite new site, small but perfectly formed. Great pitches on hard standing with modern and very clean facilities. This place also has a small indoor pool / sauna which is at an extra cost of 4 Euro per person per use but worth a look if you fancy a dip.

Great access to the bus service for the 10-15 minute ride into Venice bus station. About 1 Euro each way.

From here we opted to drive through Austria towards Munich and stopped for a brief overnight visit at -

Camping Maltatal

A little bleak at this time of the year but a lovely site none the less and another one with hotel like modern facilities. For Austria you'll need a tourist Tax Disc which costs 8 Euro for 10 days and can be bought from various places along the route.

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

A few hours of lovely scenery saw us in Germany. We had planned to visit the Audi Factory at Ingolstadt (something we've done before so knew what to do/expect)

Audi Forum

7 Euro per adult for the 2 hour Over View Tour which is a circa 3km walk so wear good shoes. There are no age restrictions for Children and for toddlers they have buggy's available. We also took Kidz EarDefenders.

English tours run daily at 11.30. Take up is strong so advance booking may be an idea. We booked on the day we arrived for a tour the following day but it's off season.

The museum and showroom etc are all free to view and we covered that on the first day, returning the following day for our tour.

At this plant they build A4 and A5 derivatives (A4/S4/RS4 Saloon/Avant, A5/S5/RS5 Saloon/Coupe/Cab & Q5) as well as TT and A3.

We love this place, the welcome is excellent and you get really up close and personal with the cars being built as you walk the live production line. A few years back we did a more comprehensive tour following the build of an A3 from the cutting and pressing of the steel to driving it off the line.

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

As our visit of the factory was to be over a 2 day period we opted to stay close to Ingolstadt -

Campsite Bauer-Keller

A great little site. Simple but everything you could need for a short stay with excellent facilities. There was a charge of 50c for a 3 minute shower and 50c for hot water to wash dishes.

A word of warning though, this site is what you might call conveniently located for the motorway and you can't fail to hear it.

Bar and restaurant was excellent and very hospitable.

We moved a short distance to Nurnburg to meet with a friend. Another short stopover at a very nice site -

Knaus Campingpark Nürnberg

Next up was the mammoth drive through Germany, The Netherlands and then into Belgium and more specifically Brugge.

A gem of a site with top line brand new facilities conveniently located for a short 2 euro bus trip into Brugge -

BVBA Camping Memling

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

From there it's a short trip along the coast to Calais and onto the tunnel to come home.

For those that are that way inclined and didn't already know about it there is a pretty well setup Tobacco emporium en route at Adinkerke -

http://www.stopshop.be/e/adinkerke/

Fuel is cheaper on the French side of the border and we used a place in the Dunkerque area -

e-leclerc.com

They also show the current fuel price on their website.

We also found, probably a little too late, that we could buy 500ml bottles of Tuborg Pils at Lidl in Germany for 36c a bottle and when you recycle the bottle at their automated system they give you 25c per bottle in vouchers to spend in store.

Oh and venice didn't smell. :laugh2

 

[Stu]

Re: Ok, so you arrive in Calais with no fixed itinerary ....

Stu,

download Next Time we are Flying Somewhere Sunny by Steve Roach for your Kindle or download the Kindle App for your PC if you don't have a Kindle.

The book is about travelling around Europe in a old T2 VW Campervan.

For £1.56 It will give you a lot of laughs and a lot of ideas about where to go.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... here+sunny

John

The boss read the book while we were away John, very good I'm told so thanks for the tip.