Ending Up Anywhere

Tuscany, the furthest yet we've travelled in Cleopatra, was to be our second campsite for our three week European tour. We set off from Huttopia Le Plage Blanche in France's Jura region at 6.50am. We stopped once for diesel and a wee. One difference between driving in France and Italy is that Italian motorway service stations are not self service. We arrived in Marcialla at 3.45pm. The coordinates in Tony's Google Maps sat nav were a little off and we had to reverse back up a narrow stoney track to get back to the main road before navigating the narrow streets of the town all over again to come out on a different side. When you know where you're going, the campsite, Camping Chianti Panorama, is just two minutes out of town. When I'd emailed a reservation to the site the previous week the reply came back addressed to 'Miss Cleoptra' with the prices for her and her two human friends. That was a lovely touch and showed they'd clicked the link...

We used Huttopia's La Plage Blanche as a convenient stopover on our way south. The intention was we would go to Switzerland but the forecast for rain all week prompted a change of plans. Quite a major change of plans since Tuscany, where the sun is, is quite a distance further than Switzerland. Anyway, this blog post is about Le Plage Blanche, which translates as the white beach. The site is nowhere near the sea, being in the east side of France, not far from Dijon. We spotted the beach just as we arrived, at the bank of a river where many people were swimming. There is a perfectly good pool on site so I have no idea why. Our pitch for our brief stay had a countryside view across fields. You can pay slightly more for riverside pitch. Opposite our pitch was a trailer tent with a couple who drove away with their bikes on the car roof just as we arrived. To our left a British motorhome was our nearest neighboring three pitches away. I knew them to be British when the mo...

We booked a site we return to again and again, Town Farm in Ivinghoe in the Chiltern Hills. We've always bagged a pitch on the hilltop overlooking the valley below. The sun sets over the valley and it's just beautiful to sit and take it all in with a glass of wine. On this occasion I'd managed to book a pitch with electric, I've no idea how. However they didn't mind us ditching the hook-up and parking Cleopatra at the field edge. It's often very windy on this site but winds kept below 15mph this weekend and we were able to leave our awning up for the duration of our stay. As has become our weekend ritual when we stay here we cycled to the cafe on the Ashridge estate for a full English breakfast before continuing on to Berkhamstead and back via Aldbury where we discovered a second village pub we've not spotted before. Saturday afternoon was spent relaxing in the sun with our Kindles and some bottles of real ale. On both evenings we sat in front o...

This weekend we met up with our friends in their campervan, Daisy, at Dodwell Park campsite near Stratford upon Avon. It was a perfect, fun-packed weekend with eating and drinking in the evenings and a lovely walk along the river into Stratford upon Avon during the day on Saturday. Stratford upon Avon is a lovely town so it's a real shame neither of its two campsites are particularly nice. Last year we stayed at Riverside caravan park with its endless regulations and long lists of what is and isn't acceptable. One of the more bizarre rules is that you cannot put up a windbreak, but there any many more things you might expect on a campsite that aren't allowed. The final straw was when the on-site bar told us they didn't serve real ale. So we thought we'd try Dodwell Park. I have to say that the site staff could not be more friendly and welcoming, but the campsite is right next to a mobile home park and we ended up pitched right next to the fence that divides...

We visited Karma Farm eco campsite this weekend. It was our third visit to this back-to-basics campsite near to Ely in Cambridgeshire. We love it for its simplicity and rural countryside location. The 20 per cent discount on site fees for returning guests is a great idea and lovely reward for loyalty - we'll certainly be back next year. We spent a relaxing weekend exploring the local countryside by bike, particularly enjoying a riverside walk in nearby Mildenhall and a few pub stops along the way. We tried something novel to eat when we whipped up stinging nettle pesto to go with spaghetti. I'm in no hurry to make it again! Watch highlights from the weekend in this YouTube video

After three glorious sunny days at Domaine Les Gandins in the Auvergne we packed up to drive west, following the sun to Ile d'Oleron on France's west coast. One of the benefits of holidaying with your campervan is the ability to plan your trips around the weather. The forecast had been correct in predicting the sun and it was to rain shortly after our departure. However the expected storms had already passed over the west coast and so we booked, just a day head, into Huttopia Les Pins. This was our fourth trip to Ile d'Oleron in three years. On the previous occasions we've stayed at Huttopia Chenes Verts and we'd have liked to have stayed there this time but unfortunately the site wasn't yet open for the season. Huttopia Les Pins is at the southern tip of the island and had been open just a few days prior to our arrival. When we entered reception you could have been forgiven for thinking that the staff had only started on site that day. A hand written si...