Day 8 - Saturday 30th July

Stayed the first night in the hostel last night. Did not sleep well as there is a lot of road noise and alot of travelers in and out all night.
Woke up about 8am and went down for the free breakfast which consisted of cereal and some bread. Not the best but free so got stuck in.
After breakfast we got the funiculaire (tram) to the top of the old town to see the old church. Very impressive both inside and out with great views of the city.

View from church on the hill

Once we were done there we decided to go have a look at the food market which was on the side of the river bank. We had decided to get some food and head to the park to eat it for lunch. The market was lovely. Loads of fresh produce. We bought some bread, cheese and tomato for lunch as well as getting some bit for dinner later in the evening.
Once we had got lunch we started on the walk to the park which was not meant to be far. It was! It took us about 45 min to walk which was a mission since we both had back packs and the food.
The park itself was huge and very nice. Apparently it is France's biggest recreational space within a city. We sat and ate lunch which was very nice . Bread cheese, salami and tomato. You can't go wrong with that combo.
After we had eaten we decided to hire some bikes and cycle round the park as we were too tired to walk anymore. The bikes were fun but were very heavy. We thought it was going to only cost us 1 euro but I think we got it a bit wrong and it ended up costing us 5 euro's for just short of 2 hours which was not bad.
As mentioned before the park was huge and contained a free zoo which we looked at bits of but it was pretty busy as it was Saturday.

Lunch in the park

After cycling round the park we headed back toward the hostel and dropped the bikes off. We then had a quick beer before heading up the hill to chill out for the evening.
Made a quick dinner of pasta with chorizo/salami and had a few more beers on the balcony enjoying the view of the city. At around 9ish we headed back into the old town to have a wonder around. The old town is a lovely bustling place in the evening and lovely to walk round.
We then headed back up the monster hill to the hostel and decided to call it a night.
Hopefully we will be picking up the van on Monday as we have pretty much exhausted all the sites in Lyon. Not sure what we will do tomorrow (Sunday). Will post again at some point. Sorry there are not many photo's but the internet is so slow at the hostel it takes 5min to upload each one.

Over and out

Day 7

Woke up early in our dodgy truck stop style hotel and went down to have breakfast. Croissants and jam with some juice.
We had decided that we did not want to wait round at the hotel to here about the van, which turn out to be a good call(read on why).
So we packed up our stuff and tried to get the bus to Lyon town which at first proved unsuccessful but at the 2nd attempted me made it onto the right bus and were in Lyon in no time.
As we no had no van to sleep in we had to check into a backpackers/youth hostel which was at the top of the old town and required some serious sweating to get the big bag to the top. Rooms are OK. Same sex, four to a room so could be worse. Great views from the bar balcony. Will try post a photo later as don't have one at the moment.
After dumping our bags we headed down to see the town. Lyon is a very pretty city. We saw all the main tourist stops in pretty much a couple of hours as we hoped that the van may be ready to collect. This proved not to be the case as when I phoned at 4 pm the van had not even been looked at by the new garage which it had to be towed too. This pretty much meant all hope of getting out of Lyon was gone and we would be here till at least Monday morning.


We ended up spending the evening wondering around the old town. We were not too hungry so just got a quick bite from a boulangerie. We both had some sort of pizza effort which was only 3 euros and was lovely. Then back to the hostel and our seperate rooms where we met another british couple who were traveling by rail for 3 months. Very nice but seemed like they had not planned much really.  I watched a bit of ricky gervais and then hit the sack.

Lyon Square

Breakdown Update

Just to update anyone who may be reading this I have heard back from ADAC (my breakdown company) and they have said that it is a broken wheel bearing so not too bad. Unfortunately they only managed to make this assessment late on Friday Evening which meant they were unable to get the parts and we have had to stay in a youth hostel for the weekend. Hopefully they will have it fixed early on monday and we can head off to Nice.

Day 3 Evening, Day 4,Day 5 and Day 6

Day 3 Evening

At the end of day 3 we headed to Beersol which is outside Brussels. Was about  a 2 hour drive with lots of rain. Arrived at camping beersol which was a bit of a step down from the last site but not awful. Chatted to bar man over a few beers and he explained how we got into Brussels. Also explained they had homing pigeon there and betting could get up to 200000 euro’s. 

Belguim waffles

Day 4

Up early to get the bus/tram into Brussels. Met another German couple that were also going to town. Finally made it to town after working out(thanks to Rachel’s bad French and Google goggles) that there was a replacement bus service for part of the tram journey. Brussels town centre was nice. Weather again was not great but we still wondered around and saw the sites. Rachel bought lots of chocolates and we went for a really nice lunch at a place that did massive burgers. Was really nice place and the food was awesome. We then headed of to try find the brewery which was unsuccessful and had us walk through what must have been the worse part of town which I did not enjoy. Saw a few more bits then headed back to the site. No dinner for us as we were full from the huge burger. Had another beer in the bar and had a shower. Played cards and then went to bed.

Day 5

camping in Nancy

Up nice and early again and left the site heading for Nancy in France. Stopped of at a really nice village called Rochefort for lunch. Had a nice pizza in a proper wood burning oven. Would have liked to spend more time there but we had a lot of miles to cover so we ate and go back on the road. We arrived in Nancy around 5ish and there was a huge q for the site which was not a good sign as we had not booked. We went to the office to find there was loads of space but we would just have to wait while everyone was booked in.

Nice site if a bit commercial. Set in loads of trees and right by a park type area that we went and rode out bikes round for about 30 min which was fun. We then returned to the site and had dinner. Pasta with chorizo and a bottle of wine. We then hit the sack as we had about 400km to cover the next day.

Day 6

We got up and packed up the van and set off for Lyon via Dijon. Was good going in the morning and got to Dijon around lunchtime. Was a nice church but apart from that nothing special. Ate lunch in the car park. French bread and cheese and then got back on the road.

Used the toll roads which were quiet but expensive. We spent about 25 euro’s. Just outside Lyon we head some strange noises, which at first we thought was on the roof rack so decided to pull over. Had a look round the van and sure that the front right dust cap had come off which was strange so I jack up the van to have a look. Once the van as up I gave the wheel a wiggle and could feel there was excessive play in the wheel and that was not a good sign.  Phoned the breakdown and they said that they could not pick us up from the French motor and we would have to call the motorway break down so we pulled back onto the motorway and called. Half an hour later the pick van arrived and we were towed to a Renault garage where he look at the wheel and communicate in not such great English that he did not think he could fix it. He said he would look at it again in the morning. So we left the van and were taken to a nearby hotel where we would have to stay the night. The hotel was a bit local but cost us 82 euro but there was a good dinner, which included 4 course and wine, so can’t complain. Went back to the room after dinner to watch some house on the laptop as all the tv channels were French as you would expect. Watched 2 eps and then went to bed. 

Broken Down

DAY 1, 2 and 3

Day 1

Well we arrived safely after a made dash to dover in the morning, which included me hitting myself with the bike rack as mention previously.

We were unable to get into the campsite we wanted to stay in which was just outside (3km) Brugge as I did not book when I should have. We ended up being directed to a camp site on the Belgium/Netherlands border which was about 30km from Brugge. Although initially disappointed it turn out to be a really chilled and lovely site and gave us time to relax after a crazy few weeks getting the van finished. The site was called camping de soetelaer

Day 2

We decided that we would take it easy and went of a leisurely bike ride of about 20km, crossing into NL and back into Belgium. Not much else to report. Just chilled and played some UNO, oldskool I know! Also finished off odd jobs on the van.

Day 3

We were up bright and early and packed up and drove to just outside Brugge. We parked up the van and then rode the bikes into the town. Initially it was very quiet but soon was packed with tourists. Saw Madonna and child and Christ’s blood and then just generally wondered about. Lovely old city although we read that most of it had been rebuilt in the 19 and 20^th century to reflect medieval times.

After seeing all the sites and sounds we returned to the van and set off for Brussels which is about 100km away. Arrived safely thanks to jane the sat nav who is performing very well after we had lost her charger cable and had to rely on map’s alone for a few hours.

As I write this it is day 4 and we have just spent the day in Brussels but will write that post later as I going to get a beer out the camper fridge as it should be cold by now.

I have attached some photo’s of the trip so far. Hope you like them.

Not the best start.

As I write this we are on the ferry to France. Was a very rushed pack up and go this morning which included me hitting myself with the bike rack in the face. Give me a nice little gash which is prob going to need stitches at some point but for now I have just put some steri strips on.
First stop tonight is brugge which should only take us an hour or two from dunkirk. Will keep you update.
You can contact on my usual UK number or via Facebook.

UPDATE
As I have not been able to connect to the internet on my phone the last two days I was unable to post.

We made it fine to brugge but could not get into the campsite we wanted so had to drive 30km to another one which is really nice and chilled out. It is on the border of the Netherlands which is cool as we went out on our bikes and manage to do multi nation cycle and only had to do about 10km.

Chin has healed fine as got some steri strips on the ferry so should still have my good looks when I return.

We are up early tomorrow to visit brugge where hopefully I will be able to get some internet and post this.

I have attached a few pics. Pretty rubbish ones bit am posting from phone and all the decent pics are on the camera.

Packing complete

Off to Kent for the night.

The Van

DSC_0138, a photo by mattrsa on Flickr.

Let hope he can get us round europe without too much trouble

Welcome

This is the first test post for a blog which I am going to attempt to write while traveling round europe in a 1982 VW type 25 homebuilt campervan (Ron Burgundy)