On the drive across from Slovenia we saw a significant difference between the two countries, the Hungarian landscape flattening out into broad farming lands and there seemed to be much less wealth in the villages. As the previous blog explained, the drive took a little longer than planned, so we arrived in the dark at the caravan park in Heviz. With the cute instructions of the old man guarding the front gate we managed to still find a place for the night. Heviz is home to one of Europe’s largest thermal lakes, with the surface temperature averaging 33 degrees, with around 80 million litres pumping out everyday. There is of course a huge complex of baths set up around the lake where many visitors come to plunge their bodies into the reputedly healing waters. We ... read more

Italians: Lovely people face to face but put them behind the wheel of a car and they become wanna-be F1 drivers with the temperament of a Doberman in a used car yard at night. We encountered some of the worst drivers in Italy, passing on double lines making their own centre lanes only to brake suddenly in front of you and turn off 50m ahead!! In fairness they weren't as bad as we had heard they could be...only got beeped and flashed a handful of times when we couldn't go any faster. We entered Italy via the Dolomite mountain range. A spectacular rocky range in the North of Italy. Spent a night near Sesto at a camp ground with the most amazing ammenities we had ever seen. All marble with huge shower rooms and heated floors....something ... read more

There isn’t really that much to see in Lichtenstein but seeing as it is its own country (the 6th smallest in the world) we thought it at least deserved its own blog. Actually we mainly just wanted to tick it off the countries visited map! We spent a night just out of the capital Vaduz, which was pretty and very small. We walked up to the Prince’s castle but as he actually resides there we obviously didn’t get a look inside. Unfortunately neither of us needs dentures just yet which was a huge shame, Lichtenstein being the world’s biggest producer of dentures! ... read more

It felt great to be on our way again as we headed into France once more. We enjoyed the drive along the rugged Costa Brava and then a brief visit to the tiny fishing village - now a major tourist mecca- of Coulliour. This village was famous for it’s anchovies which have to be skinned and beheaded by hand due to their delicate flesh. We sampled some at a local restaurant and were suitably impressed. Next stop along the way was the ancient Cathar Fortresses in the Roussillon region. These fortresses were built before Cathar times but are well known as the places of last stand for this religion, all of it’s people being killed in the early 1700s. Clancy coped well with a very steep climb up to Peyrepertuse, one of the bigger fortress where ... read more

Forty degrees and a climb from sea level up to around 3000m. This and the fact that we very stupidly had not realised that one of the many extra switches on the dash was actually a manual switch for the radiator fan, made Clancy quite hot. Very hot actually. To the point that when we pulled off the motorway into a little town called Mondujar, she was boiling with steam hissing out the back. As we couldn’t get the temperature and flashing warning lamps to come down after some time we decided to call the RAC for assistance. By the time they finally arrived we had established (to much relief) that she was still starting and had gotten the guages back to normal. We decided it wise to have someone have a look at it, ... read more