Welcome to our motorhome travel site. Our current travels are documented on our sister site at http://paulandalisonstravels.wordpress.com/
This area documents our extended European travels in 2012 and 2013. We hope you find your visit here helpful. We do keep returning to Europe at least a few times a year but none of these trips match the duration of our earlier trips
Please let me outline what my blogs are all about. In 2012/13 we travelled through France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium and of course England, Scotland and Wales. All those travels are detailed here together with information about sites and aires, the routes we took and some of our antics en route. We are keen classic car enthusiasts so some of our travels take us past, and into, car museums and car shows.
As we are interested I old cars we happen to have owned and still own a few older, classic cars. I have a separate blog site with details of our ‘garage’ and some of the car shows that we bumped into on our travels – feel free to have a nosey about there too.
http://thirteenotwo.wordpress.com/
Our more recent travels are separated in our ‘paulandalisonstravels’ blog – again worth a look in 🙂
We have just got back from France and Germany – the details of that two week trip are here: http://paulandalisonstravels.wordpress.com/2014-travels/
Many of my regular visitors to our blog already know the background to our travels and what we are up to at the moment, but I thought it useful to provide an update. Since starting the blog we have been on two longish tours, several shorter ones and many weekends and odd one night trips out in the VW motorhome. That motorhome has now been sold to make way for a Mercedes Hymer Starline 510 which now better suits our current needs. The addition of a grandson to the family meant the need for a vehicle with three proper seat belts and a bed for him too!
Arriving in Cheshire!
I named the site ‘2012 tour’ when I set up the site and hadn’t thought about the fact that after 2012 the site might seem ‘out of date’. Its not possible or practical to change the name of the site so I just have to remind people that it is still maintained and has become a place to post information about our further travels through 2013 and more recently. Our ‘long’ trips have ceased but we still use the motorhome on a very regular basis. We plan to visit Germany again in September but that trip will be just under three weeks in duration.
As a quick re-cap we have visited France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium and of course England, Scotland and Wales. We covered approximately 18000 miles during those trips in the VW. We will be racking up more in the Hymer and will keep you posted.
We managed another weekend out in the Hymer over the weekend – this time taking my mother along with us – something we certainly couldn’t do in the last van as it had just two berths. We got over to Castleton and one of our favourite localish spots at the Caravan Club site. The weather was unkind mostly but we did manage to walk into Hope on the Saturday and watch the locals partaking in the Well Dressing festivities. We even managed a BBQ thanks to the full size awning that was fitted by the previous owner. I think my mother – a stranger to all things caravanning wise – was quite surprised at what facilities were available to both in the van and around the site. We usually travel up the big hill over Winnets Pass but given the extra few inches that the Hymer has in its width we went the ‘log way round’ back into Hope and around through Bradwell.
Sunny enough to need the awning too!
Like it says we have had our first weekend away in the Hymer. Complete success as it ticks every box. On the Friday night we snuggled down to a very cosy night in the memory foam mattress bed over the cab. Very cumfy 🙂
The next night our daughter and grandson Finn joined us so we gave up our bed and let them sleep up top whilst we shared the floor and the single bed. When I say ‘shared’ – Alison had the floor whilst I had the single mattress bed. It is a great motorhome and we will have a great time with it I am sure.
This sums up the weekend for me 🙂
A bit of an update as we have just spent 11 days in our favourite holiday destination. Eleven days is nothing compared to the four months we spent there in 2012 but it was enough to remind us how much we love Portugal. Although we flew in and out this time there is a ‘slight’ motorhome/caravan edge to the update as we did spend two nights in a 20 year old Dutch caravan whilst in the village of San Martinho whilst visiting Manuela who we met whilst in Cabanas back in 2012 – we kept in touch since and thought it would be nice to see what Alantejo offers. It offers a lot so we will certainly return.
We kicked off the break with a week in an apartment we booked through Owners Direct and that was lovely – everything you need, and more! That was in Cabanas where we called in on our old friend Wolfgang who has stepped up his motorhome site from an idea he gleaned whilst we pitched up in his orchard for four weeks in August 2012. He now has a water tap, electrics and space for five units currently occupied by (mostly) UK motorhomers.
We drove up to San Martinho after our stay in Cabanas where we did our spot of ‘vintage caravanning’ at a site which accepts motorhomes and tents with good facilities including a kitchen, WC and showers and even WiFi (http://www.montemaravilhas.com/camping-portugal/). Manuela showed us some lovely beaches – tucked away from the tourists and showed us some real ‘home Portuguese food’ at her local restuarants.
Us, at a quiet beach 🙂
Our last two days were spent at Gale and we popped in to see Ju and Paulo at Parque da Gale ( info@parquedagale.com ) where we spent over seven weeks at their superb site. Its expanded at little and can now take a few more units with some of them offered at reduced rates as they are not near the electric points – that suits some people no doubt. The weather was kind and although we would have loved to stay longer enjoyed our stay very much.
We have been hunting for some time now for something that has an ‘easier’ bed arrangement. Whilst away for long periods we got a bit fed up of making the bed every night. Whilst on those long ‘stay put’ ventures we also realised that you could, with an end lounge arrangement, leave the bed made up and still operate at the other end of the motorhome. The problem for us is that our driveway, whilst wide enough, isn’t bery long and we are limited to a 6 metre long motorhome. Few and far between – but at long last we have found a Hymer on a Mercedes base that is under 6 metres and has a pull down bed that resides above the cab seating area. So today I drove 632 miles round trip to view it and left a deposit for collection later in the month.
Admittedly, its not as pretty as our VW but it offers a much more practical layout inside, especially fortrips with the newly appointed grandson 😉
I’ll put up more details once we have got it home – along with details of how to go about buying our Calypso off us 🙂
As Alison didn’t update the home-page – I will. She did her sponsored walk and thank you to all those who sponsored her – it meant a lot to her, and me, and she and her sisters raised money for a very good cause. We are potentially off for a night out in the motorhome this weekend as we are hoping to look at a Mercedes based Hymer in Preston and might as well take our motorhome up for them to have a punt at and kip out for a night whilst we are at it. The Hymer in question offers a layout that suits us down to the ground and is ‘future-proof’ in terms of Grand-children and possible future travel plans It may amount to nothing but you never know. I know I come across as a big VW fan but a Mercedes would be OK as a VW alternative. They are after all the same vehicle underneath thanks to ‘platform sharing’. I’ll let you know how that weekend goes.
Hi all, I am doing the starlight walk to help raise some money for the hospice,that took great care of my mum in her final week. I would be very grateful for any amount, please see link below.
Thank you
Alison
I will let you know how I do 🙂
paulandalisons2012tour 