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Published: April 7th 2007
on the road
bought some local bakery goods, Yummy! Needless to say we skipped the drink and went for a nice walk along the canal then Renee made diner of rice and fish, which was quite good, after diner we had a few drinks and were off to bed this time I tried the 3rd bed without any mattress and Renee tried the front to see if she could stretch out, neither worked lol I ended up in the bed and Renee was just as squished in the front lol.
The next day we headed out in to the country on the back roads towards Dijon. We stopped at a really nice little riverside lunch spot😊 and I went for a bike ride around the village and found a really cool bathhouse type thing, was really temped to swim I was in my togs and all but soon as I was up to my knees in the water I quickly changed my mind, and went for a brisk bike ride to warm up. We hang around the river to an hour or so did a bit of reading and Daniela tried to teach us contact juggling, really cool but difficult to role the ball around your hand and
arm with out dropping it or loosing contact! So after a relaxing lunch we headed off through more of picturesque France and even through the wine district area, unfortunately most things were closed as the season hasn’t really started yet. Nor had the grapes for that mater the vines hadn’t really even stated growing yet, but it was great to see all the neat rows of vines and see the blue/purple wild flowers(I think) growing in between them.
After that we headed drive the rest of the way to Dijon stopping once for a coffee which ended up being something like a short black with just a shot of coffee but was very nice none the less. When we arrived we drove past a really nice looking lake complete with a sandy beach! So getting out priorities straight we headed off in search of an internet connection to contact home and book tickets back home for both Daniela and Renee. After that we went in search of a shop and a Laundromat, finding only the shop and a nice English speaking (she ran the local English language school) who gave us very friendly but incorrect directions. So after failing that
we headed back over to the lake and found a great parking spot right near the beach and the lake. And Renee decided to do her washing in the vans sink and was nice enough to do some of my essentials as well(aren’t I so lucky!! =) And I took the opportunity to go for a bike ride around the lake which was both amazing and beautiful, unfortunately I managed to destroy the bike a bit so had some fun fixing it afterwards. That evening we ate Gnocci (potato type pasta stuff) with scrambled eggs which was really nice, That evening just before we started dinner and Renee was rinsing the cloths at the bathrooms cold showers, some really dodgy middle age French guy kind of stared at me through the ”kitchen” window, so I smiled at him and ignored him. About 2min later he came up to Daniela and asked if we wanted a Threesome!!!! Which we promptly told him NO, but he just stood there for 5 full min just waiting and looking at her with a stupid smile on his face…. So I came out of the van and nicely told and gestured for him to go
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grapes.... noth quite yet away. Not 15min later he was back again just hanging around the van! So this time I went out and again told him to go away, which he seemed to listen to. So we started diner and we saw him out the front window talking to a random guy in a blue car? After which he cam back again and just kind of stood there and looked at us through the window, but this time I was getting a little angry. So I got out the van a started walking to wards him telling him to fuck off! And pushed him away from the area!! He finally got the point that time and didn’t come back. After diner the car park was empty and things had calmed down nicely, so we thought…. About 30 min after it got dark(9.45 ish) a few cars started pulling up with a single guy in it, he would park get out of the car and put on a dark leather jacket then start slowly walking around looking at all the other guys doing the same thing… what the … so we were quite intrigued by this time, dinner and a free show lol. Every
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grapes.... noth quite yet, nice flowers tho now and then a few of them would disappear around the corner, or the whole group would disappear. Just to come back later. This went on for at least 2hrs and the van seemed to intrigue them no end, but as the circled round and noticed the cloths hanging up at the back and would realize no we were not a travel bed for them to take advantage of but an actual camper and they would promptly disappear. Looks like we had unwittingly stumbled on Dijon’s gay (or something) covert no strings meeting place lol
After considering moving a few time they all disappeared and we had a comfortable nights sleep, waking up to another warm and beautiful day.
Being me I decided it would be a good idea to go for a swim in France as it was a nice warm day and the lake looked rather inviting, So I put my foot in and it was rather brisk temperature… but as it was going to be the last day in France I decided it would be worth it and dove in and started swimming towards a floating platform thing, about half way I thought my skin was
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testing the water(it wasn't warm) starting to freeze lol. Needless to say I was on the platform for a full 5 minutes I even did some karate to try and warm up before facing the swim back. But all in all it was a rather nice swim and now I can say I have swam in both England and France(and froze my ass of after in both)
It was an enjoyable day of driv.g around small villages and generally taking it easy we arrived in Belfort in good time and seeing a fair we decided to stop and check it out. Well after going into there campervan/sleeping area and having to reverse out we finaly found a parking and had a look around it wasn’t overly great but we did get some marchmallows for the fire😊 so well worth it haha. After consulting the maptop I found what looked like a nice lake that looked promising, as we drove around the lake we found that there were a lot of local fisherman set up in there full camp tents and gear ready for some sort of a fishing competition of something. And it seemed a lot of them were not happy to see the van
intruding on there space lol, so we headed to the other side of the lake and found a nifty track type road that was on the line of 4x4ing(at least for the van it was=) and found a really nice spot near the lake and semi secluded. So we went for a walk found a bathroom for ht girls and checked out the local campsite which was alright but very fenced in and separated from the lake so not that nice. On the way back we found a something that would suit quite nicely as a fire pit. So back at the van we started the fire and being the impatient and hungry people we are we but he potatoes and onions strait into the fire lol. But they turned out great and tasted amazing. We also put the cookies, chocolate and marshmallows to good use and has Smoors!! Yummy!😊
After that we tried to make flavored beer but kind of failed lol there were some interesting concoctions but all in all a great night with a fire and way too much sugar😊
We woke up in the morning to a banging… turns out the local park ranger didn’t
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stained glass really appreciate our parking spot, but he was quite nice and pretty much said pack up because if the cops see you they won’t be happy at all. So we quickly packed up and I put the legend new fire pit on the bike rack lol.
After out rude early morning wakeup we headed along the motorway and because I wasn’t really thinking encountered a toll!! Another one! Anyway was only €3.50 or so but soon found a service station and a shower, this one only hot water no cold it was a new experience. The girls were flying out the next morning so we headed to Basel which was a surprisingly short trip. Upon arrival and checking out the airport as we weren’t convinced it was the right one, Basel is in Switzerland and we hadn’t crossed any boarders. Turned out to be fine so we headed into the city and that is where the boarder was, we had to pay for a road tax motorway thing at €30 but it is valid for the whole year….lucky van buyers lol. So after a quick drive through the city we parked and went for a coffee it was an extremely
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stained glass hot day so we had an iced coffee/chocolate thing which was absolutely delicious but at 9 Fr (Swiss currency) it was the last time I’d get one. Daniela was great as she is from Austria she could speak German so we had no communication issues at all lol
After that we went shopping for some food for dinner and headed out the city to find a place to park for the night, now when there are two girls with you finding the right place to park is a rather exacting Science😉 there has to be a bathroom(not so easy) and I prefer not to much light and to be a perfect spot you need wireless as well(hasn’t happened yet) an on top of all this it has to be somewhere were your not going to annoy any locals. As it was on this particular afternoon I was having no luck and for some reason the roads were just not cooperating with me, I tried to drive though the airport the roads were there but because it is divided into Swiss and French they were all fenced off! So after about 30min of looking I was getting a little annoyed to
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french village say the least, so I stopped at a nice little place buy the river we had some lunch and pretty soon we were off again. Top priority a bathroom, after driving though a lot of little villages and finding nothing we finally found a Soccer (sorry Football) field and they were playing a game on. So after a quick bathroom break and watching one half of there game we headed off to find a good parking which ended up being right behind the football field next to and abandoned building. Which we of course explored which was quite cool.
We had a nice diner, with a lot of locals doing a quick drive by to see what was up, but they were all very nice. The next morning and a terribly early hour we got up and dropped Renee at the airport. Daniella and I (after another couple hours of sleep) then headed off in search or a shower. After which we went for a nice walk in one of the forests and I dropped her off at the airport as well.
Next stop Bern😊
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Laura
non-member comment
Wish I was there
Pity we can't join you Mark- it's so much fun