Club Motorhome Bloggers

Trip to Sicily – Blog No 1

Well, here we are in the sunshine in Palermo!!

It was a (mainly!) straightforward trip, and it’s not till we’ve downloaded the photos we took en-route that we appreciate how much we’ve seen, even on what was more the ‘getting there’ part of the trip.

We left home about 18.00 last Tuesday and headed for the Chunnel. We were pleased, even though we were about 10 hours early, that we were allowed into the security area, where we spent a quiet night. (Thanks Anne & Will for the tip). We were also able to take an earlier train than we had booked, so by 9.00 am our time/10.00 in France, we were on our way, taking a new route for us on non-toll motorways to just south of Lille, then on excellent N roads (now often renumbered as D roads), but the sat-nav knows the best route, so we don’t have to worry about the fact the road numbers keep changing in an attempt to confuse us!

We managed to find Aires either within just 100s of yards (metres!!) of our route, or right on it. At Dole, where we were one of 6 motorhomes spending the night there, we had a walk round the historic town, dressed up in its Christmas lights - a lovely town in an interesting area - one to keep in mind to revisit. This was our view while we stayed there.

We don’t normally plan much for upcoming travels, only the destination and an idea of the route along the way.

This trip is a little different because we will be touring in a big loop with the start being the same as the finish. That is, we’re not just going from A to B, we’re going from A to A! - With loads of places in between…

There is no real time pressure on this trip either other than a couple of commitments in December, although still in the motorhome and at the tail end of this trip. So that’s a good 3 months to wander about.

So we set off mid September(ish) from south of Valencia for the rest of the year…

A week has gone by since our last update and it seems a while since we were in the Swallows Nest.

 We visited the Turda salt mine, wondering if we would see anything much different to what we had seen in the salt mine we visited in Poland last year.  It was well worth visiting, as it was very different, having been excavated centuries later as one huge cavern rather than a series of interconnecting smaller excavations

Most surprising was that the bottom was given over to an entertainments area!

A couple of other photos from our train trip

First,  a reminder of how the borders have changed – just to the north of the area where the train runs in Marmures is now firmly in Ukraine, but only since WWII.  We remember the guide at Malborg Castle in Poland telling us how his grandparents had been given 24hrs by ‘Uncle Joe’ to leave – leaving all their land, possessions livestock and forebears in the cemetery – and there was still loss, and anger about it.

Travelling to the ‘far’ north, Marmures County rural land of tradition and (more!) churches.  The variety of Church Architecture goes on and on.  There are Greek Orthodox, Romanian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Uniate, non- conformists and …., who’s churches have been influenced by everything from Gothic to Byzantine influences and everything in between.  A few more examples

News No 5 

The Danube Delta is a very special place.  We hired a boat and guide to take us out on the Delta; we opted for a 2 ½ hr trip which took us just a little way into it.  This is such a remote and peaceful place; we have never seen the like.  And of course, it is a haven for wildlife - especially birdlife.  We were lucky to choose to go late in the afternoon, as by then most of the other boats were returning, so when we got out into the open areas we were alone.  Our boatman was kind enough to shut down the outboard motor a few times so we could experience the quiet – and it was absolutely quiet save for the birdsong and the frogs sitting on the lilypads. 

Dracula’s Castle – so called; the castle at Bran with a tenuous connection to Vlad “The Impaler” Tepes.

As castles go it’s actually a rather cosy palace which you could imagine living in quite comfortably – providing you could keep it warm in the cold winters!

It’s a week now since I last updated, and a lot has happened.  We arrived in Timisoara after a quick pass through the border.  Timisoara was the scene of the events which led up to the overthrow of Causcescuae in 1989.    A pleasant surprise was that we were charged only 7 euro when we expected to pay 52!  The rate for >3.5 tonnes was clearly shown as 52, but presumably as we are not a commercial vehicle we were charged as a car – a good welcome to Romania. 

The next good thing was considerable surprise at how good the road was – something which has continued, but not without exception!  We talk about letting the potholes do the job of traffic calming – we have seen this a couple of times, once in a serious way.  The road up to the town was excellent – yes truly excellent – and the same when we left town.  But the town itself was truly terrible and required a slalom course to avoid the many potholes and not inconsiderable number of craters!  Apparently the EU has funded the main roads but the town itself is the responsibility of local government.  Secondary roads, seem to be funded by national govern and aren’t bad certainly no worse than equivalent roads at home.

 Timisoara reminded us of Ghent in Belgium

 because that’s how Ghent was when we visited some years ago

News No 2 

We spent 4 nights/3days in Prague.  It is, as those that know know, and as we had been told, a beautiful city.  All very walkable, and we did walk it – about 9 miles each day (measured, not guessed). 

These are some of the sights [apologies to those who have seen it for themselves] 

Wenceslas Square

One week into our travels and today we have arrived in the Czech Republic.  We stopped in Belgium (just!) the first night, then on to Antwerp, where we spent a full day visiting the city.  We have been round the bypass – a worthy rival to the M25 as a car park - many times, so it was good to stop and see more.  We had obviously never looked at the maps properly before, as we didn’t appreciate just what an important port it is and always has been.  We approached it along the coast this time and it was strange to see large ships across a flat landscape with no port or coastal infrastructure to obscure the view or set the scene; unfortunately we were too slow with the camera to get a picture, but it will stay in our memories nonetheless.

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  This place - ‘Deutches Eck’ [German Corner, we wonder how they thought the name up??!!] should be well known to river cruisers; it is the confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine.

 We visited a church which was interesting enough [we’ve been spoilt – it takes quite some church/cathedral to impress us now as we’ve seen a few!], but it did have an excellent example of something we saw a lot of while we were in Germany