Camping it Europe Style (Andrew)

Well, with the family and friends visited, it was time to start our adventures around Europe.  Moving on from Julianadorp, we drove to Amsterdam which is quite an interesting city! It has only 750,000 people, way less than we were thinking and it is very cosmopolitan.   First stop, brownie town cause we were feeling a little peckish…..   There are a whole heap of “coffee shops” where you can get what you like in Amsterdam.  We found them down most little alley ways, some were a little seedy but there was the odd one that had a good vibe.  The “edibles” as they are called are cheap, about 4.50 Euros each and they are oh so tasty. 

 

With the first prerequisite out of the way, it was time to lap the town.  Finding your way around Amsterdam is a blast, although I have no idea how many times we trekked the same spots.  All good though :)  There are plenty of places to satisfy your hunger pangs, especially with Amsterdam being frites-central (frites is the Dutch name for chips served with a ridiculous amount of mayonnaise), the beer is pretty good too. 

 Frites in a paper cone, mmmmmmm

We toured our way around the red light district which is a bit of a must for visitors.  I think Dids was a little upset at all the attention coming my way….  Those pushy ladies :)  One thing was for sure, we were pretty surprised by how good looking most the girls were. 

All in all, Amsterdam was really COOL!  Man I woke up parched (and about 5 hours later than usual)!

Moving on (unfortunately) we made our way to Belgium to a region known as the Ardennes.  Dids told me that Belgium was consistently voted the most boring country to visit which needless to say had my expectations running high.  Well if it is boring, then I am really keen for the rest of Europe!  The Ardennes is beautiful and its beauty is added to by the fact that the beers are all good in Belgium (all 800+ of them!) which I guess is not a little known secret.  The people are pretty sour faced around there though, which is a bit unwarranted.  I guess speaking French will do that to a population.  We took the chance to camp out in a little town called La Roche-en-Ardennes which has a lovely river running through the middle of town along with medieval chateaux and amazing cured meat shops.

 The Belgium campsite in La Roche.

 One of the zillions of castles we are set to discover.

In the morning we decided to do a bit of a tour around the nearby villages before heading for Luxemburg which we were thinking would be a quick pass by before entering France.  Well weren’t we wrong, Luxemburg is definitely a surprise and the sights along the way like the little town of Esch are spectacular.  This is the joy of our trip; the discoveries and the flexibility to make the most of what we find and like.

 The little town of Esch in Luxemburg.

 The local tour guide.  Notice the wrist Inge...

 We ended up camping for 2 days just 4km South of Luxemburg city in a friendly little caravan park with some cool amenities like an outdoor ping pong table.  Luxemburg’s ancient city fortifications and food scene were pretty interesting and one thing was for sure, for a country renowned for its bankers, they do a mean fondue….so much cheese!  That much cheese actually got Dids a little loopy; she was convinced we were camping next to an ice skating rink before we finally went across to find out it was just a sauna….  Too much cheese will do that to a person.  It’s alright Dids, I thought it was an ice skating rink too...

Check out some of the photos of Luxemburg. 

 Luxemburg is a real mix of old and new.  The city is built around a whole heap of old castles and forts.

A little home style BBQ cooking in Luxemburg on my trusty mini Weber.  Best 10 Euros eva. 

Our final destination before Zurich was a little campsite about an hour south east of Strasburg.  Taking in Strasburg along the way we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral and walked around the old town which is absolutely gorgeous.  Strasburg is a place that I think I could have spent more time, simply for the food and scenery, but unfortunately this is what the rest of the world believes too making the town a bit of a tourist trap.  

 This is Notre Dame Cathedral, the size of it is hard to photograph.

 Inside Notre Dame Cathedral

 This is part of the Strasburg old town area.  The old buildings are very different and nice from what I am used to.

 Just pausing at a cafe for a beer.  Sooo lovely. 

Our campsite for the night ran on typical German efficiency.  Everything was smart card activated from the entry gates, toilet blocks and even the showers.  Programmable logic controllers activate every gadget under the sun making sure the buildings were well ventilated, super energy efficient and so on.

Now to the topic of showers in Europe which has been a bit of a pet peeve of mine.  What the HELL!  Europeans seem to want to mess with my daily cleaning regime, I am sure it is all part of some sort of weird fetish they have!  At our first camp site, the showers were coin operated and would run for a set time before just cutting off.  Very cool when you don’t know how long this time is, you’re not quite done yet and it is 4 degrees without the water running.  The next campsite had free showers but you had to keep pushing the tap button to keep up the flow.  If you pushed before the tap button timed out the flow would be interrupted but if you waited for the tap to time out (every 5 seconds!) the flow would be interrupted!  ARRRRGGG!  So you basically worked out a little rocking action just to brush the tap timer which seemed to not interrupt the flow and keep the button from timing out.  How convenient…. This left you feeling like a bit of a go-go dancer.

Finally, the piece de resistance…. German showering…. Well, the showers at our last campsite as mentioned above were smart card operated.  The lady at the desk gave us an elaborate run down of the workings of the shower on a test module she had prepared earlier.  So much for technology making our life simpler…..  The deal goes, put the card into a holder in the shower cubical, push the button and you have 10 minutes hot shower credit to chew through with a little timer letting you know where you are up to.  Sounds great, so I put the card in, pushed the button and away I went with a wonderful hot shower.  About one minute later, all lathered up with soap the shower stops, what the hell!  So I looked at the box only to find it is reading Error 32!  Frigging fantastic!  I tried taking the card out to reset the timer but with my soapy hands I dropped it onto my foot sending it scooting along the floor.  Double freaking fantastic!  So there I am butt naked and soapy walking around this shower block looking for my smart card, because without it I’m having an even worse day.  I finally found it and managed to get back to the shower and finish up.  Now just as I’m about to get dressed, the lights go out…blackness…. Fun, fun , fun…..so there I am again butt naked in the middle of the shower block waving around trying to activate the light sensor to so I can get dressed….  Can’t wait for the next place!  The irony of it all is that all these sites have elaborate fully articulated hair drying systems and other gadgets that I can run till my heart’s content chewing up as much electricity, water etc as I want but I can’t get a bloody decent shower!

Well off to Zurich to stay with Helen, one of Did’s old school friends who hopefully has a working shower.