Day 14: Off to Europe

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After 30 minutes delay leaving London and a further 30 minutes in a holding pattern over Frankfurt, we finally arrived in Germany. Going through immigration was a breeze as was Customs as none of the booths were manned so it was a walk through! We picked up up our camper from McRent and we are not impressed. It is NOT the internal configuration we choose and we couldn't change it. It is really small inside but we will just have to make do. Their comeback was that it is brand new, we are the first to use it.... so what, We need the space!

We entered the Street address of the supermarket into our trusty friend Tomtom GPS and off we went. Very stressful for Mark driving a left hand vehicle on the wrong side of the road. Judging distance was a small issue as we wiped out the outside right hand mirror only a few meters from the McRent Depot 😞 Next challenge was the road we had to go down to the supermarket was closed due to road works, so diverting to another direction as Tomtom had re-planned our route, we discovered this road was blocked also. After a lot of deep breathing and counting to 10 many times, we finally got our selves to the supermarket!

Okay, next problem was buying the food. Trying to understand the labels and finding the items we wanted. There were 4 supermarkets at the one stop, thank goodness. The first supermarket we went to was big inside but the contents were like the corner dairy at home, so we went to the supermarket over the road which was better stocked but strangely laid out.

After going through half a dozen times we finally left after getting a reasonable grocery shop.

We dialed in the lat and long for the campground and headed off. Driving on the motor way was an experience! There was no speed limit so there were vehicles passing at huge speed. We tucked in behind large trucks traveling at a more civilized speed. Never having used the lat and long function in the Tomtom before we were greatly impressed and relieved when we arrived safely at the campground.

At 25 Euro per night, we won't stay at camp grounds often..... but until we are familiar with the van this is our best option.

We parked next to a lovely German guy named Klaus who spoke perfect English. He advised us that traveling through Austria and Switzerland at the moment is not a good idea as there is still large snow falls. So a slight change of plan was called for, we are reversing the direction of our trip and heading to northern Germany first instead of last, that's the beauty of motor home travel.

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Comments

[Aunty Glenys]

Hi Everyone, Sounds as though you are having a few challenges. I am sure you will all become familiar with European travel, a lot different to home in NZ. I enjoy all your blogs, but don't get to answer them all, as I am extremely pressed at the moment time wise. I am working three mornings a week 3 hours a day. Really enjoy getting out, only doing irong and housework, but who cares, it gives me money for holidays. All good here, a sunny day today, first one in months. It is awfully hot and humid though, 32deg and 80% humidity, roll on winter. Love to all Aunty Glenys, keep safe !!!