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Published: August 26th 2008
I cannot believe how fast our 3 weeks in a campervan went. It feels like we blinked and it was over! Alot of the time was spent driving though, infact we covered 3700kms. Our van came equipped with kitchen, bed, toilet (ant emptied most the time😉 shower and dining table. Starting from Munich we spent a night next to beautiful Lake Chiemsee before driving on to Salzburg. Pauline was working there at the same time so we met up with her and her friends and hosts Helmut and Karin. We spent two nights parked outside their house, the first night they took us out for dinner and showed us around town which was lovely. The following day we visited the largest ice-caves in the world called 'Eisriesenwelt: Werfen Ice Cave' situated about 30mins outside Salzburg. We bused/walked/cablecar up the hill around 1650m before we entered the caves in the side of the mountain. It was crazy going from about 30 degrees to freezing point in the space of 30seconds.. Then there were another 1400 steep steps to climb up and down a futher 1km of the cave which tested my fear of heights big-time! They were amazing though, a must-see.
After
Salzburg we drove to Slovenia, we were initially only planning on driving though but ended up spending about 4 days there including one on the coast. Its a beautiful country, we especially enjoyed Lake Bled. It was the only place we couldnt camp in public places. From there we drove to Lake Garda top of Italy. That was truly gorgeous though there were heaps of tourists! But for a good reason! We bought two 'lilos' there and 'smash-player' (see pics) so most time was spent enjoying those.. We drove from there to Lake Como which Ant remembered being a great spot from a tour round Europe with his family 15 years back. We were planning on spending a few nights here but when we turned up we were dissapointed to see the place was run-down and the lake was filthy. We made the decision to drive straight to the coast of Italy on the same day, so was a big day driving! We spent a night in Genova, a place we had visited in last years road-trip of Italy, before heading to Monaco and back to the sweltering heat. We stayed 3 nights in a campground the bay around from
A drink before dinner
Helmut, Karin, Pauline and IMonaco called Menton. Great spot and far less crowded! Most time was spent at the beach and a day-trip round to Monaco which was smaller then we had thought, but pretty cool. Lots of bling!
From there we drove to lake Geneve in Switzerland passing through Monte Blanc (on French/Swiss border). Monte Blanc has a tunnel that you have to drive through at a cost of 45 euro. Were not impressed! Ended up spending around 90 euro in road tolls that day, the one downer to driving yourself round these parts of Europe.
From Geneve we drove to Interlaken which was really cool. Charming little town surrounded by two lakes and beautiful mountains. There's just a good vibe there, can't really explain it. We camped near one of the lakes, it was perfect. Around that time we got in contact with Cara and Mathias who were also travelling in a van, we decided to meet them in Germany near the border of Switzerland and Germany. It was so nice seeing Cara again and meeting Mathias, was fun times and we introduced them to the new craze of smash-player.
We said goodbye in Munich and Ant and I madly cleaned the
van for drop-off the following morning to get our deposit back. No problem there!
Overall we had a great time, it was tiring more so for Anth with all the driving, but when we stopped all we had to do was grab our books and lilos and a glass of wine and we were set. I def reccommend hiring a van and doing the same, just be warned about the road tolls, very pricey through Italy, Switzerland and France. Also great having everything we needed in the van! As long as someones ok to empty the waste (its a mans job), you're set and don't have to pay to go to campgrounds unless it's to fill your water tank.
Next blog will be Dublin and LA, then no more. Times gone so fast. Good times though! Ciao x
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Angela
non-member comment
Wow!
Beautiful pic's guys. I love the Italian lakes so much. Great blog!