Saddle sore and sunburnt…
When we usually set off instead of the excitement of getting on our way we usually have a couple of days of being absolutely exhausted, so we’ve learnt to allow for this (3 days this year as we’re grandparents) and head from the Hook of Holland straight to Klein Amerika car park in the centre of Gouda and chill out on cheese fondue, champagne sundaes and chips ( not together, though that does sound scrummy) We happily filled up with diesel en route at the bargain price of £1.10 and navigated the roadworks in Gouda to arrive at a disaster zone reminiscent of a world war 2 bomb...
Read MoreT minus 4 and counting…
With only a few days to go to departure, our house now looks like we’ve been burgled by particularly fussy kleptomaniac, there are boxes everywhere piles of stuff to go to the dump, others to the charity shop and some bound for the cellar. The pool house floor is bare concrete and the boiler has a computer attached to it trying to figure out what’s wrong with it, still, not ones to be easily put off (except for anything with mushrooms) we’ve now moved out of the house and are in Taffy in the drive, mainly because you can no longer find our bed under the piles of...
Read MoreFarewell to the intrepid Bikers
Jacques and Mandy recently departed for another trip – this time to Eastern Europe, still on a bike, only this time it has a rather large engine!
Read MoreThey think it’s all over….
1000 km for the trip Lubbenau Spreewald Festival And in the knick of time Potsdam Malbork – the largest castle in the world Welcome home from Tilly! I always feel a bit of anti climax when we return to the EU, whereas Linda feels relief but I have to say I wasn’t sorry to see the back of Kaliningrad. After a smooth border crossing we headed to Malbork in Poland, another UNESCO World heritage site and allegedly the largest castle in the world. It’s remarkable and the camp site was on the river bank opposite – perfect for a couple of days R&R. We seemed to have caught the culture bug...
Read MoreKaliningrad
Another swift border crossing into Russia, briefly threatened by a surly border guard shouting at us as her colleague had forgotten to give us a piece of paper with a stamp on for her, saw us arriving at Kaliningrad in early afternoon. The roads were brand new from the spit to the Moscow road, absolutely nothing to do with Putin having a villa built in the spit, and the hotel actually had a camping area with hookups by a lake! We were so on a high we decided to go into the city that evening for a wander around and perhaps a meal. The taxi ride was, as is the custom in Russia, terrifying and...
Read MoreBack to the Future
After an overnight en route from St Petersburg to the border with Estonia we arrived expecting the usual Russian bedlam of border controls, but to our pleasant surprise a very well organised and efficient border crossing actually saw us leave Russia in under an hour. Almost immediately you seem to go forward in time as the fields suddenly became more organised and the villages more welcoming and homely. Houses were more well kept and gardens better tended. It is amazing the change you get in such a short space. Russia seems like a country where everyone has to look out for themselves, public...
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