Day 65 – Home Again

And so our mini adventure ends. There’s not much to say about the day itself and I’ll leave the conclusions to further posts where I hope to pull some more considered thoughts together about the trip.

However, for today, we did manage to get off from our one night stop reasonably early, by 8:30.

And then it was just a slog up to Calais and then slog again back to Bristol.

SatNav said it was 409 miles (658km) back home.

The roads of northern France were as quiet as ever. There’s traffic around the larger cities but the peages in the countryside were as quiet as ever. We probably spent another €40 on tolls again today.

How did that artic manage to jack-knife on a straight road in perfect weather?

We also had some fun and games at an aire where we stopped for diesel and a bite. We played musical diesel pumps. There were three left hand pumps at the stop. All of them were out of order. So we eventually backed into a pump so the hose would reach. Luckily the site was really quiet.

Once we got to Calais, at about 12, we called into the Cite Europe complex and had a wander around the Carrefour Hypermarche. But to be honest, nothing drew our interest. We bought half a dozen bottles of assorted wine, but nothing expensive and we certainly didn’t fill our boots.

Once over the channel , the weather was mostly fine until we hit the M25. And then from about Swindon onwards it was pretty bad. Then we got to Bristol it was torrential. Hey ho, it’s good to be home.

But I can’t leave you with that. What was the trip like.

Well, it was a blast. We loved it.

There were times when Sue and I had a grumble at each other, but in the whole we got on well. And we laughed a lot too.

Most of the places we visited were epic.

Standouts were:

• Ypres war graves,
• Munich,
• Berchtesgaden,
• Plitvice Lakes,
• Trogir,
• Dubrovnik,
• Arlberobello,
• the view over Palaiokastritsa,
• Lecce,
• Matera,
• Paestum and
• Pompei.

If I had to pick a best three places then it would be Berchtesgaden, Paestum and Pompei. Sue may stick her faves in here somewhere.

Some other data points:

• 31 stops – campsites, friends and family, apartments, hotels and a villa
• Over 3000 photos. You’ll be glad to hear we’ve only posted a few of those. But we also took way more than the 3000 we kept, probably 50% more
• 4300 road miles covered in Ollie. I thought it would be more when we set off, but the change of route away from the balkans made a big difference
• In addition to that we also did over 560miles (900km) by ferry (excluding ferry day trips)

Other big take aways…

• The van was awesome. It just did everything we asked of it and never missed a beat.
• Having said that, for such a big trip we could have done with a bigger van. It was fine, but certainly for any longer trip away, we’d want something bigger
• This sort of trip is sooo much easier now that SatNav can guide you anywhere you want. Trying to do it with physical maps would be much more stressful. Especially around cities you’ve never been to before.
• Similarly, Park4Night and Search for Sites were a game changer. We could sift through campsite pictures and reviews before deciding where to head for. These apps also allowed us to be way more flexible than say 20 years ago where it would have been so much more difficult.
• We were (at least I was) surprised at how many people spoke English. I think this is a big change. The people we met, unsurprisingly, put this down to YouTube, TikTok etc. We did bump into a few people with limited or no English in southern Italy, but usually we managed to get the message (across).
• Electric Bikes were a real positive for the trip. They gave us great flexibility and extended our range from the van when we were in camping mode
• Everyone was so friendly and helpful. It surprised me. I was expecting to get a lot of reluctant acceptance. But most locals we met seemed to be genuinely happy to help us.
• And almost all the travellers we met were also genuinely interested to chat.
• There’s a massive Campervan and especially Motorhome scene across Europe… they’re everywhere!
• Pack more underpants and socks! 🤣

And that was it. The 2024 European “Where’s my…?… And we’re just getting a flavour” Tour has ended. Better get planning the next one!