Mental Verdon.

So, as we check out, Madam assures me that the best route round the Gorge du Verdon is the Route des Crets. "Tres dramatique." And its ok with a large van? "Oui, oui. Maybe thin here or there".
Merci beacoup. Lucky for Madam we didn't return to Camping le Source, or peut etre there would have been some tres dramatique strangling by Helen.
It starts innocently enough, all pretty fir trees & properly marked macadam. But quickly & quietly it creeps up on you. Til before you know it, every hairpin threatens to steal the bike rack, or throw you V6 first into the chasm. Even the white lines chicken out and leave you with a vague fraying tarmac edge.
For Helen, shes obviously thrilled. Sat gorge-side of the van, 3ft up from the road, and above the front wheel, makes the straight 1000 ft drops seem imminent with every car, corner or cyclist we have to lurch to evade.
Hanging on to map, breakfast & sanity proves a challenge, and by the first pass at 1200m we need a medicinal stop.
The best & worst are to come after alpine-esque Palud sur Verdon. Climbing to the absolute edge of the gorge, we stop for lunch & recovery. A silty turqoise ribbon is about 1500-2000ft below. A couple of guys are climbing this wall. I'm well impressed, while H thinks they're daft as arseholes; until we discover its all bolted. Pah. Still, it really brings home the scale. And the dozens of commanding Egyptian vultures soaring around the cliffs add to the drama too.
So, cinq pointes to madame thus far.
Unfortunately, as we climb further, the traffic thins, the cloud thickens, and the road seems contorted into a continual mobius strip. And then it starts to descend too.
To Helens credit, at no point did the ensuing colourful language actually describe any kind of actual death. But the point was clear.
Only, my brilliant driving skills, and a robust 1st gear rescued us.
And eventually we came out of the fog to the rim of the lower gorge, where we could kind of enjoy the view. Kind of. Once we dared look.
Back for the evening in Moustiers, the food seemed to taste even better - perfet chevre chaud, pink lamb etc - though I suppose that could have been the ambience, and the well-chilled Chateau le Seuil, not just the relief.
Stumble back to the van to compare notes on whether the faces in the cliffs round the chapel on the hillside are a giant protective dragon or a huge gorilla. Good job the local tourist board has lashed out on those expensive floodlights then, or lushes like us would never have seen them.

Pilgrimage to Moustiers-Ste-Marie.

Totally blown away by a jewel of a village at the mouth of the Gorge du Verdon, complete with its own tiny mountainous chapelle that perches citadel-like on the crags above.
Flint-cobbled streets, pastel coloured terraces give way to a steep climb up a chasm, to this incroyable little church to Notre Dame des Beauvoir. Temple steps out front, tall cypress trees and a crumbling bell tower. All gloom, gold, candles & solitude inside. Its like Indiana Jones does a week in Provence.
Back in the village, they've even managed to do the crap exhibition thing well, with decent modern art tastefully scattered around the place, including an igloo thing made of car bonnets. Brings the tourists of course which means Yanks & Japanese get on my tits though.
Hanging on to inspired state, we drift down to lakeside campsite at St Croix and build our own crap Goldsworthy installation on the beach with big pebbles and a cheap Cabernet Sauvignon.

Round & about Verdon.

Cool, blustery Mistral reduces otherwise obvious thrill of lying on beach, so try our hand at a few autoroutes round Aix.
Eventually make it to tiny hamlet of Esparron-du-Verdon. Local private chateau in hands of local dons, the Castelllane family, is tres des res - looks like they've funded/strong-armed the new road.
Steeply terraced lake with rock stratas make it pretty dramatic. But reception from local gal is pretty grumpy. H thinks she's been left to close site up for the season & clean the bogs, when she clearly rather be practicing for Sat'dy night's country & western do at le village hall.

Un Village en Var.

Beautiful, serene campsite on the banks of the River Argen.
No English spoken (what's that, you say) but Madame welcomed us with open arms, and we became her oldest friends.
Nature-tastic site. Spotting an Otter as soon as we pitch is a surprise. Soon the ducks are laughing away, and we find trout, a merganser or a gargagney, kingfisher, dragonfly, freshwater clams & mussels, french poodles & english labradors.
We seem to be between Ying & yang Dane couples - typical danish... One side raisins, one side sugar. Maybe simultaneously celebrating & sulking over Bergman.
A few English here too - politeness makes it seem a bit like a p.o.w. camp sometimes..."Hello, hello. Er, hullo. Yes, hello. Good morning" etc. But they're harmless enough.
Roquebrun-sur-Argen itself is a very pretty Medieval provencal place near St.Tropez. We push the bikes around for a pleasant hour or so, admiring hidden alleyways & a 16th century eglise (st.pierre).
There's always some crap exhibition on in places like this. We bumble in hopefully, then back out, cursing the art classes our parents innocently attend.
The local Wine Cooperative saves the day. Through garbled French (some'ing about grapes) we guzzle tastings of 4 reds & roses, buy un couple de bouteilles at about 10pence each, then wobble back to the van to polish them off before the Mistral sets in.

Roquebrun-sur-Argens

Brown rock. Well, red, really. Big, too. Very impressive.
And great vin rose from the local wine cooperative, only 1.5 euros.

Cote d'Azur parte deux.

Sand etc.

K9 rides again.

Entering France, the sun comes out, the air is cleaner, and there's less tail-gating. So, the obvious giddy response is to drive a 23ft van into the centre of Monte Carlo.
After we were whistled at by Eric Estrada, PC Plod of the Principality, and gently but firmly assured we couldn't park such a vehicle ("you must go to France") we took our winnings over the final border to Cote d'Azur.
Spent a pleasant hour on the beach, but neither of us could see what all the fuss was about, and headed back to the hills.

Liguria & bust.

The Lake Garda marathon closes our options for more travel around Malcesine so we break for the border. Scruffy wild west Liguria gets in the way, as does some dirty Italian gesticulating to us at the motorway toll who Helen nearly leaps out & punches. Go on!
As you can see, our beautiful campsite was "in a wide green space". Not.
DFIBs.

Prawns & crispy lard-krebs.

Post-wedding excitement/trauma is eased with a long lazy lie in, a luxury after 2 weeks in the van - despite partial enforcement due to hangover.
There's always an afternoon breeze - maybe the mistral - so the lake is choppy enough to add some difficulty to the "most painful bellyflop" competition from the swimming platform, with Anna & Dave (who wins on redness and thwackness points).
Riva is buzzing this week with the local society's 31st annual Festivale di Micologica, a display of 2-300 odd mushrooms. We're thoroughly entranced for at least 5 minutes. No psilocybins (spp?) there, for the experts amongst you.
In the evening the sun goes down quickly behind these steep hills, and in the dark a tiny chapel lit high on the hillside floats eerily & romantically. Barbara sorts us all out with a lovely family meal (prawns & crispy lard-krebs?), and plied by the friendly waiter's heavy hand with the Limoncello we are soon all contemplating our own navels...

Clare and Dan's Wedding.

Congratulations to both.
An incredibly picturesque setting at the castello in Malcesine, with plenty of amazed tourists gawping at us in our glad rags.
Fascinating civil ceremony by a very sincere registrar, based on the Italian wedding articles. Despite the administrative language the sentiments are very positive & loving.
We have a champagne cruise back, followed by a great evening meal, and Dan's display of break-dancing!

Malcesine.

The Castello perched dramatically on the shore of Lake Garda.

Super steep biking at Passo Tremalzo.

Ants in me pants gets to me quick of course, so I'm eyeing the bike with a kind of twitch, when H backs my plan for a quick blast.
From the previous day's "short sprint" up a fire-road so steep I had to surrender, I should have guessed another expedition in these parts would turn out to be an epic Capt Post-it would be proud of.
The trail I was aiming for appeared to have a long but "green graded" ascent, then some decent single track downhill. Maybe 20-25km.
I started out at 2200ft, & was 12km & 1000ft of climbing in, when I had to abandon trying to pace with another rider from the local club. At that point he said it was only another 10km to the top. Aaggh!
Do I give up? No, of course, I just become more (blindly) determined to get to the top now - not competitive or anything me. This is why people die on the Hilary step of course.
And not accurate either. After a stamina-testing 3hrs, 24km & 3700ft of climbing to just below the summit of Mt. Tremalzo (1972m) I could finally sense an end to the madness.
At this point I decided for sure there was no way I was gonna let a bunch of armor-clad, full-face helmet, minibus-&-trailer-ascending, stamina-less, tourist-tripping, ride-it-once-carbon-frame, cheeky-bastard Jarmans get the better of me, and despite feeling totally shagged, ripped a pace through the final summit tunnel & piled down into hairpin heaven.
The descent was almost worth it. Steep, twisty, loose rock on an endless high trail heading down into the pine forests above Lake Garda. Scared most of the folk I overtook or passed on the way down, and burnt out my front disc pads.
I'd have probably enjoyed the last couple hours more - finishing the 47km (!) loop with a pretty lakeside path - if I hadn't been anxious for Helen expecting me 2hrs earlier.
She in the meantime had been for a cooling swim, but got some allergic welts from the wetsuit - now, my fault of course :-)
Still, at least the Jarmans never caught up with me.

La Dolce Vita.

Pleasant & relaxed though Riva was, while we were in the van, our free-spirited approach somehow didn't sit comfortably with the unavoidable tourism-oriented nature of Riva.
So we retreated a dozen hairpins into the hills, to the charming and serene Lago di Ledro.
Beautiful clear waters, chilly but fantastic for swimming (with wetsuits) surrounded by broken, rocky hills - pine forested and thrusting steeply up to about 6000ft.
We hung out with Bob the funky beagle puppy, and Mr French Fixit, who helped us with an ingenious repair to our collapsed awning.
Met the nicest, friendliest pizzeria staff - beats all those other super-cool grumpy Italians.
Also met "allergic man" who sneezed at everything & anything, and insisted on a rambling explanation in German. Apparently.
Got some washing done, barbied some huge steaks, sat in the sun, sheltered from a mini tornado.
Generally chilled out really.

Viva del Garda!

Finally made it to the farthest point on our journey, and one of the reasons for coming at all.
Passing through the posh chav resortville as we came up the West bank of Lake Garda somehow reminded us of one of those summer special episodes of "only fools & horses"... "awright del me old son, just fought i'd let you know that me an the missus are in Riviera del gardina" etc etc.
Fortunately, Riva doesn't have quite the same class. Its much more low key and has a generally pleasant if slightly tourbus feel to its quaint old town & port.
The campsite was nothing to write home about - so I won't. The interest was really only in the storm that whipped up overnight and the ensuing awning collapse as a few 100kg's of water pooled up and then popped one of the supporting legs with its weight.
Arse! We managed to bodge it back together and take a little solace knowing that the tented folk fared worse than ourselves.
Helen found the old Hotel Perla, where she'd been as a kid, and had revised for the 463 O'levels she got.
Great spot for the windsurfing crew - clean water & a good breeze. One of the days in Riva, must've been 2 or 3 hundred windsurfs out.
Lots of Irish people around too - never did get to the bottom of that. Ryanair maybe.

Bloody tunnels.

Beautiful arched roofs. Horrible arched roofs.
Tunnels really should be round & big enough, not pointy and sloping and hungry for motorhome damage.
Came through unscathed but definitely ready for a break in Riva.

Café life in the chi-chi resort of Iseo.

Wondering into the cute little town of Iseo, with its neatly cobbled piazza, designer shops and waterfront cafes, you could see why it was so popular with locals, though apparently relatively (surprisingly) undiscovered by the (German) tourists ubiquitous elsewhere.
Salads, gelati & coffee. Lambos, Porsches & Harleys. These were the slightly incongruous themes. Still, we settled down for a molto bene lunch at the local pizzeria.
We watched the world go by, and soon spotted an opportunistic young floosie on the arm of a much older, greyer and wealthier fellow. As she pushed him into a gelateria, Helen figured out she must be, the ice-cream heart attack killer bimbo... trying to secure an inheritance by shocking his heart with a super cold cornetto. Despite our strong suspicions though, we just didn't feel we could approach her to challenge her motives - after all, we didn't really know the correct form of address... Bimbo, bimbino, bimbinetta, bimbinora?
Things moved further from the sorbet to the ridiculous when we came across Derek the diving dog. He was a beautiful spaniel who needed only the slightest nudge from his owner to leap the 9ft from quayside to lake to fetch his stick.

Switzerland to Italy: Heights, hazards & hardships

Made it through the Bernina, Julier & Aprica passes. The Swiss roads were fantastic, and trundling up & down in 1st/2nd gear the van performed brilliantly. In Skye we'd freaked when we got the brakes smoking in the Cuillins - none of that fortunately.
Near the top of the Bernina pass in a high valley we stopped and took the Diavolla cable car to the summit. Plenty of glacier action to take in as we supped a decent local minestrone.
Passing down into Italy the relief of successfully navigating the passes quickly wore off as we approached our next two hurdles.
First we hit the Swiss border, naively expecting to breeze through, having already been given a onceover by the border guards on the way in. Now, they started to take a very active interest in our vehicle weight. With no real documentation to prove anything we resorted to an old Roadtrek sales doc we had. In the end it seems like we were saved an HGV tax purely because the very pleasant guards just didn't know how to operate their weighbridge!
Worst was to come, as we hit the Aprica pass & insane Italian drivers. The map had made this part of the route look a doddle compared to Bernina. No no no. Several arguments, screams, sharp intakes of breath, a litter of kittens but mercifully no actual scratches, later we had only made about 20km after 2 hrs or so.
We took a tactical decision to divert south to bigger roads. We landed on our feet again, winding up on a lakeside pitch at the pretty Lago d'Iseo.

Switzerland: Mt. Bernina

Pontresina campsite above St Moritz provided us with this stunning
backdrop to our camp in the forest. I said below it was Chunetta, but
I think actually its Bernina & Pula at around 3900m.
Unbeatable - made the nightly frost and freezing worthwhile.

You can take a 4 ton van to Europe but you can't make it blog.

Plenty of technical problems appear to be conspiring to stop me
posting here at the moment, which is a shame cos I know you're just
waiting on my every word.
Anyway, we've come down through belgium, luxembourg, france, germany
so far, into switzerland, where we are now... in an unbelievable spot
- in the alps above st moritz, camped up by a river river on the edge
of a forest, sat in the sun, idly watching mountaineers on the snowy
flanks of mt chunetta.
So, more later hopefully, if I can get some photo posts sorted via flickr.

Heidi land ?!?

Heidi-land (!)
For real!
No sign of Peter & Clara, or the proverbial Swiss hippy though - just
these cute goats. Maybe they'd eaten them.
This place is at a fancy service station near Lichenstein (the hills
in the background) which had amazing food and the poshest toilets
you've ever seen - granite work surfaces, stone tiling & pristine
stainless plumbing like a chic boutique hotel or something. Except for
the grumpy truckers.

Heidi land !?!

Gateau hunting

Can you see a cherrykierschtort whatnot anywhere? Neither could we...
Black forest was lovely - all beautiful rolling meadows and deep pine
vales - but somehow seemed to lack drama.
Lots of fancy clock shops, but we ended up at Aldi for the food shopping !!
Did manage to get Helen spinning around doing a Julie Andrews though -
youtube soon... that certainly woke the hills up.

Vianden: Haworth of Luxembourg.

From Musselly Brugge to meatilicious Vianden, we navigated the web of
neat euro-motorways passed Brussels & Liege, with their clipped
herbaceous borders and sleek concrete spans.
A minor GPS error by GS meant we were 20km in the wrong direction
before we realised Ypres wasn't gonna happen. Doh! Have to try again
on way back.
Headed down to Luxembourg via the exciting border tax haven of Hosen.
Lux seems rolling & pleasant in a hygenic & tellytubby version of
Wales kind of way, until we hit the dramatic hidden valley between
Stolzburg & Vianden. At the reservoir we see Otter ducks befor
glimpsing the impressive Castle.
Victor Hugo's connection with this quaint cobbled town has ensured an
ongoing literary & book fair, a diverting backdrop to our stroll up
the hill. Watching a Kingfisher hunting as the lights come up on the
chateau really makes the evening at the campsite.
Hugo and Victor. (Well that's what I think anyway).

‘Allo allo

Belgium:
Helen says its famous for lace, chocolates, catholics & avoiding the
war. And there's Tintin & Poirot of course. Neither of them were
around so we settled for a wander in Brugge's picturesque straats &
pleins. Its a very pretty place, perfect for a coffee on a terrace in
the warm afternoon sun where we could congratulate ourselves on how
unusually organised we'd been getting a full 6 hours of tourism in on
our very first day.
And now mes amis, I predict a murder - the moules et frites were
partners in crime, but it was the steak hache that got a grilling ...

Full steam ahead

Full steam ahead, originally uploaded by gavin_sweet.

Highway 61 ...

This is roughly the route we're planning to follow.

Basically get off ferry in Zeebruges, and head south, stopping in Bruges and mostly avoiding France.

Find the Black Forest somewhere in southern Germany, then head over to the Swiss Alps.

Smoke the brakes down into Italy, then cruise to the Lakes.

Go to Clare and Dans wedding.

Catch some rays and olives, before heading over to Cote d'Azur.

Head west along French riviera then turn north up through eastern France via Beaune, etc.

Get back on ferry...

What a spanner!

What a spanner!, originally uploaded by gavin_sweet.

Preparations for the big trip - gavin is happy pottering-as long as he has his tool in his hand