Round up of the ‘Post It’ stories April to June 2014.

After leaving Rouen nothing of real significance occurred to warrant a separate story but I think worthy of mentioning just for peace of mind is to be careful where you stop for lunch. The road north from Rouen, when avoiding the tolls, does not have many places to stop for lunch with a reasonably large van and although there are a number of layby parking areas immediately at the edge of the road on the D901 I don’t like to use them because the speed and proximity of the passing lorries means you shake as each one passes you by. There is only one signed large off road layby with picnic tables as you get closer to Boulogne and we had used it before so decided to stop for lunch there. Unfortunately shortly after stopping a man in a very scruffy car which had inches of dust all over the interior entered the layby behind us and as I was stretching my legs I noticed that he was far to inquisitive with our presence for comfort. He drove slowly by, stopped and turned around and then drove back stopping to speak to me. I do not have a clue what he said but his appearance and that of the car gave me concerns about his intentions. I made sure he knew I was watching him and he eventually drove off back from where he had come, which was strange in itself, so we decided to move on and had lunch at the side of the road in Samer instead. Better to be safe than sorry and I am convinced his intentions were not honourable, whatever they may have been.

Wimereux was pleasantly sunny and the views of the white cliffs of Dover were magnificent. We enjoyed a stroll along the busy prom and treated ourselves to a very large ice cream once we had reached the end before shopping along the main street. I dawned on me that this was the very first place we had stopped where we could walk to the coast from the campsite. This, I think, is a very first for us as we generally spend quite a lot of time on the coast wherever we go on holiday.

Abbey Wood on the Thursday was a welcoming change of types of site and the warden, Peter, was welcoming and helpful in determining where we may best camp to have a barbecue with our family on the Saturday. It was nice to see the almost manicured grassed areas, which we only ever seem to get here in the UK.

Now for the only bad part of the whole holiday, that night I awoke to being extremely cold and shivering violently. I won’t bore you with the details but it looks like I had contracted a virus somewhere and it had caused a fever. Here we are more than a week later and I am still getting over the effects and am still exhausted and having ongoing tests.

For us the best discovery was Camping Cheve Grande in the heart of Portugal. Our 10 days there were truly relaxing and in beautiful surroundings. We shall definitely return there and Portugal was a real joy, especially the friendliness of the people.

The biggest disappointment was the book fair ruining the view of the Plaza Mayor at Salamanca but I can confirm the buildings were outstanding and rightly gave it the title of being the most beautiful plaza in the whole of Spain. I shall have to go back one day when there is no book fair and just take in the beauty of the whole plaza. It certainly made Madrid’s look poor by comparison.

It was a very different holiday for us with so much sightseeing and the ability this time to just change our plans when the weather looked wet was a real bonus. I think perhaps we could have stayed for a shorter time on some of the sites in the middle of Spain and visit more places instead. We met lots of very nice people, mainly Dutch, and it was good to catch up with our friends at Aranjuez.

The weather had been exceptional I feel, we had a total of about 5 days on which it rained out of the total of 65 so that is good. The heat was a little too much at times to sleep properly so now we are considering having an air conditioning unit fitted.

Now to the bit I know some followers like to read because it equally affects them and some are a little afraid to do such touring for fear of the unknown costs. We had a really good exchange rate using our bank direct and were often getting 1.25 Euros to the Pound. We travelled a total of 3261 miles home to home. Spent £597.20 on diesel at an average cost of £1.08 per litre and we averaged 27.38 mpg for the whole journey. Considering we were fully loaded at 4000kg when we set off I am pretty pleased with those figures. We spent around £7 in tolls, although I have only been debited one charge of 2 Euros so far for all the electronic tolls in Portugal. I believe I should have paid around £15 so can only come to the conclusion that the cameras are not working properly.

We spent an average of £12.66 per night on site fees for the 64 nights camping and whilst trying to be accurate and removing the costs of gifts and un related holiday spending on ourselves the whole holiday cost is an average of £52.03 per night including everything else, again I think it works out at a cheap holiday.

No hic ups with the van mechanically and only one strange intermittent noise to resolve at the dealers in due course. Overall an excellent holiday and I am looking forward to going away again to warmer climates next September for some pre-Christmas sun. I hope you have enjoyed reading the stories and the photographs we have been able to upload. Thanks for all the comments too.

Regards, Roy