First days in the campervan

Checked in for our Eurostar train from Brussels to London.  Another comfortable train trip.  2 hours and your walking out of the St Pancras station in London.

We booked a night's accommodation at a hostel near to the campervan depot where we collected the van on the next day, a quick stop for petrol, another stop at Ikea to pick up some bedding and towels, then we were on the road to our first stop in Brighton, Sussex.

We spent my birthday at Brighton and enjoyed the evening on Brighton Pier, which was a lovely way to finish the day.

Breakfast on our second morning in the camper overlooking Brighton beach in Sussex.  We met some lovely English people who were in the camper parked next to us also having breakfast.  They gave us lots of tips on places to see on our way to Land's end.

So off we set to travel through the counties of Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Gloucestershire before making our way into Wales for more amazingly beautiful scenery.

We have been truly blessed to be enjoying the most beautiful weather.  The locals that we speak to have all said that they have not seen weather like this during summer in almost 10 years.  (We secretly believe we brought the weather from home to share).  Our memories of the English country side will be so great as everywhere we have been has been bathed in sunshine.

While travelling through Weymouth we visited the areas that hosted all the water sports for last years olympics.

We took in the beauty of the Jurassic coast with the dramatic coastline and the rock formations dating 240 million years.

There were lots of cute villages and delightful bays looking very pretty in all that sunshine.

 Because we were close by to the part of Cornwall where the Eden Project is situated, we stopped in for a look.  We didn't buy entry tickets to the whole complex as it really needed an entire day to fully explore,  so we just had a look around at all the information at the front of the project.

There has been lots of time for relaxing, a new skill for us that has taken time to develop.

And so finally we reached the westerly point of Britain at Lands End.  Not much there really but the coastline is spectacular and beautiful. It was good to tick it off the list.  

So having reached Land's End, it is time to turn and head north towards Wales for a brief tour through the southern part before making our way to Fishguard in the south west of Wales to take the car ferry to Ireland.

Will bring you some highlights of that part of the world in the near future.  Continue to take care as we are here.

Bye for now.

Belguim and beyond

Hi to everyone from the happy travellers.

On to the last destination for the European leg of our journey.  Belguim.  We left Amsterdam bound for Belguim.  With the train ticket we purchased we could take a stop off in Anwterp near the northern border of Belguim. 

After a change of trains in Rotterdam, we boarded the train that would take us to Antwerp. We hopped off  there and found luggage lockers to use for a few hours.  After storing our luggage, we set off to see a little of Antwerp.  Sadly. the  diamond museum we had hoped to see was closed on that day, so after taking some time to view the very magnificent building which is the railway station in Antwerp. We walked down to the area of the old town and the river.

A beautiful old town with an ancient cathedral and some amazing ancient buildings.

After our look around we made our way back to the station, collected our luggage from the lockers and waited to board our train to Brussels.

Seemed strange knowing this was our last stop on the European part of the trip before heading back to the UK and being able to understand what people were saying to us.

We found our way to our accommodation and were pleased to find beautifully renovated rooms in the guesthouse.  It was a really nice finish to the European leg of the journey.

Having only 3 days in Brussels we spent the days having a wander around seeing the main parts of the city.  During our wanders we happened upon some TV programs being made.

Just near to our accommodation was the first day of filming for Belgium's Got Talent.

 There was the filming of the Top  Chef program.

Just near by to the filming of the Top Chef program was the restaurant which is known as Dinner in the Sky .  The dinners are seated and the chefs prepare the food in the centre of the seating, then the whole restaurant is raised 45 metres in the air for the meal to be served and eaten.

On the middle day of our 3, we took the train to the west to an historic town called Brugge.  There we took a boat ride through the canals and then a walk through the historic centre.

Later in the day of our visit to Brugge, we took another short train trip out to the coast to see the longest tram route in the world.  The tram travels the entire coast of Belgium for almost 70 kms. We had decided to ride the tram for some distance then to take the train back to Brugge before setting off back to Brussels.  It was good to see a little of the coastline and the towns dotted along the section that we rode.

While exploring parts of Brussels we visited the famous Manaquin Pis statue and of course had a sample of the very delightful Belgium waffles.

For our last day in Brussels, being the first Wednesday of the month, some of the public museums have free entry from lunch time on.  We had a quick look around the art museum and the music museum which we enjoyed.  Seemed a bit strange that our 10 weeks of travel through Europe was at an end, but  then the next morning arrived and we headed to the Eurostar train station for our journey back to London.

And so it was off on the Eurostar for the next leg of our planned journey, which is to collect a camper van in London and begin our travels through the UK.

We are moving closer to our return home, so until next time, I will bring you some highlights of life on the road in a campervan.

Amsterdam (and all those bicycles)

This is the city of bicycles and bicycle riders.  The hotel we stayed in was even called The Bicycle Hotel.

It is the perfect city to embrace the riding of bicycles for the majority of the population.  It is a city with a small land area and is quite flat.  There are almost twice as many bicycles in Amsterdam as there are people.

We had planned to hire some bikes in Amsterdam and join the general population, but they are hard core and zoom around the city roads at a very fast clip.  We had to be very careful even on foot not to be run down.

Storing all those bikes during the day is a very serious matter and we saw many bike storage places in our travels.

All over the city, as far as the eye can see, there are bikes parked in every direction.

We loved our time in Amsterdam and feel it is a city we could easily return to and to also see a little more of Holland.

We extended our stay from 3 days to 5 and could have easily spent longer, but it was time to head south to Belguim and our planned return to the UK.

We strolled the canals, and of course like every visitor to Amsterdam, took a look at the famous red light district and the "coffee shops" selling their cannabis and all the paraphernalia.

We went to the Van Gough Museum which was really interesting and we learnt a lot about his life and his art.

We did not get to see the Anne Frank house museum as there were no online tickets available and we didn't feel we had the time to queue for the necessary time.  We did stop by and saw the actual house which even felt strange, having studied the book back in high school and then actually seeing the house where she hid during the war for over 2 years.

We had some day trips to some of the smaller towns near to Amsterdam.  We visited Harlaam with it's 12th century central church and town centre and we then continued on to the coast and had a quick look at the beach and the coast line.  By that time the weather was starting to close out on us and the wind had turned into a gale force, so we didn't stay long looking at the beach area.

The 12th century church at Harlaam

Inside the church

We went by train on another day to  a village just outside of Amsterdam which has restored some of the windmills which once were the life blood of Holland along the river ways.  What has remained of the village has been faithfully repaired and is in full working order.  Gives you a great look at what life would have been like in Holland generations ago.

 

So that is a little look at our time in Amsterdam.  All too soon it is time for us to pack up and head to the station to catch a train to Brussels in Belguim.  Our days in Brussels will bring to an end this stage of our travels.  Will update some pics of our travels south to Brussels in the near future.

Until then, take care and love to all.