So just back from France ... what did I learn?

We like the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to st malo. It is a bit pricey but gets in for 8am giving you a whole day to travel south and starts you off fealing fresh.

Yes we prefer that route. After the long drive down from Lancashire, it's nice to be able relax and be up early for the next stage of the journey.

Hi Tim sounds like you had a brill time in France, we are off to Orkney on Wednesday getting a couple of non ignition keys cut sound like a very sensible idea you always have great ideas!!! would i get one cut at the ordinary key cutting place ? or specialist key cutter? thanks again for you help Brenda

Enjoy Orkney bonnie blue, we were there a few years ago, may need to revisit now our camper has a colour!

Last year we stayed at Le Moulin Fort campsite in the Loire for a couple of nights. English run site by the side of the river Cher near to Chenonceau one of the loveliest chateau in France. Lots of balloon flights low over the campsite so great fun.

Technical note, that's a real spare tyre on the front. The camper van Sadie is air cooled.

Lovely pics. We also learned that the French love Brazi Bays, judging by the number of waves and positive comments we received. One young guy and his family turned their car around and stopped us for a chat! From what we could understand, as he spoke little english, is that they prefer their big modern motorhomes, and we saw lots of those. That may be, but I personally think they are in denial!

Kaz wrote:

Lovely pics. We also learned that the French love Brazi Bays, judging by the number of waves and positive comments we received. One young guy and his family turned their car around and stopped us for a chat! From what we could understand, as he spoke little english, is that they prefer their big modern motorhomes, and we saw lots of those. That may be, but I personally think they are in denial!

Also the Germans love looking at them. We were parked up beside the Moselle river in France on a large campsite. There were a group of Germans in some beetles and a black decal covered Bay van on their way to Majorca for a meet. About 12 of these skin head leather wearing guys surrounded the van and poked about the engine discussing the differences in their very little broken English. They looked scary but were very nice people.

So I wonder why there are so few on the roads over there, considering the amount of interest we encountered? We saw two T2's in two weeks, one of those was on the return ferry and owned by an English couple. Or is our love of quirky, retro vehicles a peculiar British trait?

Kaz wrote:

So I wonder why there are so few on the roads over there, considering the amount of interest we encountered? We saw two T2's in two weeks, one of those was on the return ferry and owned by an English couple. Or is our love of quirky, retro vehicles a peculiar British trait?

Generally it relates to the difficulty in registering a BraziBay on the continent.

Is that it? I was hoping for a deep, philosophical reason....

We took our T2 to the South of France last year - driving on the Peages. On the way down we were charged as a car, on the way back, at times, classed as a van/lorry. Anyone else experience this? Stayed on a campsite and yes, the Germans were very interested and asked to take photos. Only saw one other Danbury in 3 weeks - same colour (pale blue) as ours too.

First time I have heard the toll roads being called peages. Being a stickler for accuracy the peages are the toll plazas on the roads not the roads themselves. The machines can be a pain when you have a right hand drive vehicle and you are on your own. Kept having to jump out and run round the van. (after a breakdown I went back & collected the van after getting my wife home)

We always use the ACSI card and have rarely failed to find a site. The Dutch also like a wander round the van and are very curious. Apart from other VW vans, the vehicle we seemed to get most recognition from was Rolls Royce; we saw a couple in northern France and they waved enthusiastically.

Can write it now we are back from Europe. Tim's logic of taking all the spares then you won't need them we apply to paperwork. We take anything we may ever be asked for, and yes, yet again no one asked to see anything. Our experience is that the probability of being stopped by the police in western Europe is slim, but certainly in France, they are likely to go through everything if they do stop you.

But it does not work in Hereford! Pulled over yesterday morning in a vehicle examination exercise along with most of the sheep wagons in the County. They stopped everything that did not look like a standard car and checked lights/tyres/indicators just the basics. We don't exactly look like a farm vehicle, but gave them some variety. No problems of course.