Pilsen to Karlovy Vary, and onwards into Germany

The main square in Pilsen

Czech Republic and Germany, 27th – 30th June 2016

It feels strange to think that our trip is nearly coming to an end.  Here we are less than a day’s drive from the English Channel parked by a riverside in Germany, the country that we first stayed in back in April 2015 when we had just set out with no return ferry booked.  We still have no return ferry booked now so I suppose some things don’t change, but we will be booking one soon as we plan to be home before the British school holidays hit full swing.  The last time we posted we were in the Czech Republic having visited Prague, but before we left the country for here there were still a couple more places we wanted to see, starting with Pilsen.

Beer and Bones: Exploring the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic really love their beer. This is a selection
Matt bought to try when we arrived

Czech Republic, 20th – 24th June 2016

It was time to put Austria behind us and move on into the Czech Republic. We’d been in Western Europe for a long time, where there are motorhomes everywhere and things are generally rather easy.  The Czech Republic marks our first Eastern European country in a while (depending on where you define East), and for the first time in months we weren’t sure what to expect or where to stay.  There was a certain kind of adventurous spirit about the act of crossing the border into unknown territory that we’ve not felt in a while, amplified by the fact that we were in the less touristy more rural part of the country, Moravia.

Eastern Algarve: Faro, Loulé and Estói

Faro marina

Portugal, 20^th – 23rd February 2016

We’ve finally moved on from the Portimão area, and after a few weeks on the southwestern end of the Algarve we are covering new ground in the east, with the Spanish border coming ever closer.  We’ve had a few learning experiences this week, namely about the limits of what our solar-free electric setup can cope with, and also about what may drive a person to physically suck on a tap (the good news is the water pump still works, and hot showers are still within my grasp).  We’ve also been catching up with fellow motorhoming friends Matt and Ellie, which marked a special occasion in our fridge: the cans of Lidl lager were replaced with not just bottles, but branded bottles.  First bottled wine and now beer, aren’t we fancy pants?

Elephant Hunting in Cabárceno, Spain

Spain, 19th – 22nd November 2015

We’re currently parked up writing this from a campsite on the northern perimeter of the Picos mountains.  This marks the end of our 52 day No Campsite streak, during which period we’ve only been on electric hook-up once.  We could have lasted longer but after waking to bleak drizzly skies we knew we were going to be spending the day indoors, and the thought of getting somewhere where we could have electric and free WiFi suddenly became rather appealing.  The weather here has taken a real turn for the worse, with the past two days being a mixture of hailstorms, van-shaking thunder and temperatures in the single digits.  However, looking at the poor forecast for the UK, it doesn’t look like we’re missing a great deal back home. Before this though we've had a good couple of days at an Aire by a wildlife park and spending time with more new friends.

Lake Bohinj and Mount Vogel

Slovenia, 29th September – 2nd October

From Lake Bled it was on to the nearby Lake Bohinj next. This lake is much less developed and touristy than Bled due to its setting in the Triglav National Park. Any tourism from sports to gastronomy has to be focussed on being natural and sustainable, to be in keeping with the environment. I found an extract from one of our info brochures amusing; “Don’t go to Bohinj if you are looking for big hotels, budget restaurants, smoke-filled snack bars, swimming amidst shrieking hordes…a rubbish-strewn lake shore, deafening music booming out from every bar, markets selling junk to tourists…Bohinj is not a shopping centre in a desolate landscape of illegal rubbish dumps”. We really enjoyed our time here, in our opinion it’s a prettier area to Bled and we prefer it.

Lake Bled and the Vintgar Gorge

Slovenia, 25th – 28th September 2015

Today marks our third day around Lake Bled before moving onto Bohinj, and it seems bad things really do come in threes.  The first is that it would appear there is a clothing thief on the loose around the campsite and I have now been deprived of my favourite pair of jeans (more on that later).  The second was our trip across the Lake to a pizzeria we’d read offered English breakfasts ending in disappointment (short answer: didn’t sell enough, not on the menu any more).  The third was that we decided to test the durability of one of our camping mugs by giving it a collision with the ground en-route to the washing up sinks (short answer: it’s brittle, one of us will have to have hot drinks from a glass instead).  Given that these bad things are getting less serious with each encounter, I can only assume that things are on the way up.  So it’s time to focus on the positives: Vintgar Gorge, and Lake Bled.

Into Istria: Pula, Rovinj and the Kamenjak Peninsula

Croatia, 15th – 18th September 2015

The Forum (one of Pula's main squares)

In the north of Croatia lies Istria, the largest peninsula in the Adriatic sea.  Although a small part of it is over the border in Slovenia and Italy, most of the land is Croatian, and it’s where we’ve been spending the last few days.  Pula sits towards the southern end, and is the main city of the region with a strong tourist trade, no doubt helped along by its plethora of churches and Roman remains, such as a well preserved amphitheatre.

We received a tourist map of Pula from our campsite’s reception which had all of the main sites to see which was helpful (given that we saw the same map being used by others all over town, presumably it’s also the main map provided by the tourist office).  Buses run to the centre every 20 minutes for 11 kuna, but it’s around a 3km walk/cycle for anyone who is so inclined.  We took the bus, and the driver either

Plitvice National Park and Heading North

Croatia, 11th – 14th September 2015

When checking out from Auto Camp Uvala Borova in Zaostrog after two nights there this was the first time here that tourist tax has been built into the ACSI price which earns them bonus points and saved us a few Euros. We decided this would be our turning point to start heading back north with Plitvice National Park (NP) our next destination. We stopped at Lidl in Makarska to do some shopping and had lunch in the car park before deciding which way to head next. We considered cutting inland from Split but might have had trouble finding somewhere to stay the night (as it was too far to travel the whole way in this afternoon) so took the coast road for a start to give us more options. In our Camperstop book the only free overnight parking spot listed for Croatia is near Krka so we followed the GPS hoping to stay

Krka National Park and Southern Croatia

Croatia, 6th – 10th September 2015

Freecamping or no freecamping: at least the views are great

We’ve now officially been in Croatia for over a week, and have now started to warm a little more to the place.  To give the country credit, the coastline itself is very beautiful, with lots of pebbled beaches and a crystal clear sea.  The people are very friendly and the weather has improved significantly; after the heatwave and downpours of our first few days, we’ve had blue skies and temperatures somewhere between 25 and 30 degrees: perfect.  As a place to go on a holiday it would be great (although maybe not in July/August when it’s packed).  It’s just not really somewhere you can spend extended periods in a camper if you’re trying to keep to a tight budget like we are as freecamping is pretty much non-existent here and many of the campsites are still extremely busy and pricey in September.  As it stands, we’re running a little over budget.  Without our ACSI discount card, the budget would have been blown out of the water completely.

Goodbye Hungary, Hello Croatia

Hungary and Croatia, 31st August – 6th September 2015

We’ve now moved on to another country, Croatia, which was one I was looking forward to, expecting nice scenery and sandy beaches, but so far have been unimpressed. Maybe it’s just the areas we’ve seen this far, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot here, mainly a series of villages geared up for tourists with a few shops/restaurants and lots of rooms and apartments to let, along a rocky coastline, or it could be because it had a lot to live up to after Greece. Plus there’s the disadvantage of freecamping not being allowed so we’re forced to stay on campsites every night which is restrictive and not good for the budget. There are lots of campsites along the coast here, of which normal ones are huge with 400-1200 pitches, and mini-camps are the size of regular ones that we’re used to. Time’s gone quickly and it seems I’ve got a week to cover in this entry since last time.

Miles from Budapest

Hungary, 27th – 30th August 2015

The view from Gellért Hill

We’re currently parked up in Tihani on the northwest side of Lake Balaton, having just spent four great days in Budapest.  Our original plan was to only spend two nights with one day visiting Budapest as we’re not really city people and we wanted our stay in Hungary to be under the weekly budget to make up for the next country—Croatia—which we expect to be expensive.  However we found ourselves quite taken with Budapest, and after the two days we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave when there was still so much more to see.

For our stay, we travelled into the city from Visegrad (via a Lidl, where we were excited to find real bacon for the first time since the UK!) until we reached Camping Haller (GPS: 47.47610, 19.08364, 6900Ft, approx. £16/€22, including electric, WiFi and washing machines, every 4th night is free).  There were a few campsites in our

The Black Sea to Bucharest: Roaming Romania

Bulgaria and Romania, 11th – 13th August 2015

On our last day in Bulgaria, we went a little wild and allowed ourselves the luxury of a 10am lay in.    At our spot in Rusenski we were sheltered by trees and rocks on both sides, which meant the morning stayed a little cooler and made sleeping in very appealing.  I have never been able to call myself a morning person, and when we started this trip I was a little worried we’d end up spending a lot of mornings lazing about in bed because we didn’t have any schedules to be sticking to; so far

Walking, Sightseeing and Camping in Bulgaria

Bulgaria, 6th – 10th August 2015

It’s like we’ve been driving on different roads in Bulgaria to everyone else, I can’t get over how good they are after expecting pot holes everywhere from what we’d heard, but barely encountering any. They’ve been in better condition than Greece and even Italy I’d say. Either there must have been a lot of road improvements in the last couple of years or we’ve somehow managed to avoid all the bad roads. The only exception has been some slip roads off the motorway in Sofia that had some nasty potholes. I’ve been keeping a closer eye on the speedo in Bulgaria in the lower speed limits, after Greece where nobody’s bothered, as I’d heard from other blogs that there are a lot of speed traps. A one point we got flashed frantically by an Audi Q7 coming the opposite way so guessed there was Police ahead, which

Halkidiki - Our Last Week in Greece

Greece, 25th July – 2nd August 2015

Ierissos

Halkidiki to the east of northern Greece has a central area of land with three peninsulas protruding to the south. Originally we planned to visit each but later heard that the first peninsula was highly developed so has little opportunities for motorhome parking and the third peninsula is owned by the church and covered with monasteries with restricted access only for men so was out of the question too.

The Dimitrios Shipwreck and our first venture into Urban Exploration

Greece, 19^th – 23^rd June 2015

Matt and I have always had a bit of a mutual interest in derelict, abandoned things.  Back in the UK, this is an interest that we have never really indulged, partially due to never having the time to seriously consider doing it, but also due to most closed-down buildings or similar being either immediately knocked down for new developments or patrolled by security thanks to the joys of health and safety.

After leaving our overnight spot in the port of Skoutari we drove through the town of Gythio, which we found was starting to get a bit busy with the summer season.  After finding a place to pull in, we decided that we wouldn’t really be missing too much if we gave the tourist town a miss, and instead headed north of Gythio in pursuit of something better aligned with our interests: an abandoned shipwreck.

Mystra and the Outer Mani

Greece, 11th – 15th June 2015

The Langadha Pass -  60km long winding mountain route with great views

 

The Langadha Pass and Mystra

We had a 7:45 alarm so we could get over to Mystra at a reasonable time as I’d read about a 3pm closing time, however we found when we got there that it was 8pm for summer opening hours. We drove via Kalamata over the Langadha Pass winding up and down the Taiyetos mountain sides to a peak of 4265ft, stopping a couple of times to take photos and look at

The end of the Messinian Peninsula: Koroni and Petalidi

Greece, 6th June – 10th June 2015

Finikounda and Koroni

From Methoni, we continued to head anti-clockwise around the Messinian peninsula to the next main village on the list, Finikounda.  Our guidebook says very little on the fishing village other than it having a collection of campsites that are popular with backpackers and windsurfers, but we had read about a potential overnighting spot in the harbour, albeit down a few tight roads.  We arrived, parked up the van on the outskirts of town to investigate, and quickly decided that a

Tholo Beach and Methoni

Greece, 2nd – 5th June 2015

A cruise ship arrived in Katakolo in the morning so there were quite a few people about although most will have gone off to Olympia on coaches. We had a walk through the town which consists of one main street full of tourist souvenir shops, and a row of bars and restaurants facing over the port. There was a ‘Beer Bike’ waiting for some punters, a large 4-wheeled bike that seats about 12 people who pedal it whilst sat facing a bar in the middle and beer is served!

One of the cruise ships come in to dock, flooding the town with life

The main street at Katakolo

The Beer Bike!

An old ship left to rust away in Katakolo harbour - if there was  no-one about we'd have loved to explore the inside

Tholo Beach

Late morning we set off to a camper stop next to the beach near Zacharo but arrived to find it had closed down. As we

Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and Southern Italy

Italy, 24th – 26th May 2015

Pompeii

We set off to Pompeii from our spot at Cava de’ Tirreni, once more travelling through the tight, car-laden roads around Naples.  Upon our arrival, we pulled in outside one of the campsites on the main strip (Fortuna Village) and asked about parking up just for the day.  The staff gave us a price of €10, no set leaving time.  We could have paid to stay here (or at one of the nearby ACSI campsites) for the night, but in my paranoia I didn’t much fancy the idea of parking in the vicinity of an active volcano.  Vesuvius itself can be seen from Pompeii, however in my opinion it looks a lot more impressive when

When In Rome

Italy, 20th – 23rd May 2015

Happy Village and Camping, north Rome

Given that we are not completely suicidal, we decided that attempting to drive into Rome in a motorhome was a terrible idea, and so would rely on public transport.  For our Rome visit, there were three campsites in our ACSI book to the north of the city: Flaminio Village Camping, Happy Village & Camping, and Tiber.  The former has a bus and metro station just over the road from the campsite, and the latter two had shuttle buses to the nearest metro station.  Given that Flaminio wasn’t discounted during the time of our visit and Tiber’s shuttle bus was €1 per ticket, we opted for Happy Village & Camping (N42.00336 E12.45198, €18/night with ACSI discount + €2 pppn tourist tax), as their shuttle service was free of charge.   After getting set up on the site, we caught the 10am shuttle and were treated to some stereotypically Italian style driving, in a minibus with over