Category: Uncategorized
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We reach Fantastic Fiesole – A Tuscan Treasure
It is always sad saying goodbye to my old school friend, Pina, and her family. It’s also always sad leaving the grandeur of the castle-topped peaks of mountain-walled Aosta Valley. We plan to break our dash down the A1 to Tuscany’s Fiesole, which perches on the olive grove covered hills just above Florence, in Parma. …
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Beautiful Bionaz – A Mountain Haven in the Aosta Valley
Crossing into Italy’s Aosta Valley is always a stunner. Castles impossibly balanced on canine shaped mountain peaks, vines lining the sides of the mountains and thousands of walking tracks – it’s a hiker’s heaven. This time, with my great school friend, Pina, we’re heading up to Bionaz, in the Valpelline Valley, at its head the…
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A Meander Through France to Italy
Our first stop from Calais is less than an hour away. We pull onto the municipal campsite in Aire-sur-la-Lys in Pas-de-Calais department, not expecting much. Our view is of the River Lys, behind us is the canal, the whole watery world peaceful. Barges and houseboats line the banks; ducks quack from sunlit rippled waters and…
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Normandy’s Creux and Veules-les-Roses – From Monks to Artists
In the past, we’ve had a tendency to rush through Normandy to hit the sunny south, to where our battered old caravans were in storage, in France’s Loire, the Ardèche and Italy’s Lago di Maggiore. But since having our campervans we’ve learned to slow down. So it is that we pull into the campsite in…
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Dusty Springfield, Deux Chevaux and Rare Gulls in Vendee’s Fromentine and the Île de Yeu
Our next stop off on our rambling route to the ferry port of Dieppe, is Fromentine and Camping Sandaya de la Grande Côte, an all bells and whistles site, with bars, pizza cafés, an army of young entertainers running booming discos and water aerobic workouts for everyone from tots on shoulders to grandparents. The first…
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Zarautz – Where the Iconic Camino de Santiago Weaves Together the Atlantic Coast, the Pyrenees and Superlative Food
After parking up in Gran Camping Zarautz, we walk down the steps along the Camino de Santiago to the long arc of silver sand, serenaded by a Zitting Cisticola. We pass the old debarkation docks for the precious metals mined in the nearby mountains, which you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re Roman ruins. A snake…
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Nuvilla – A Rustic Rest
The Santoña docks in Bilbao at 8 a.m. The plan is to find a camperstop in Bilbao for the van and head off to the Guggenheim Museum in the centre of town. I’ve always wanted to go to the futuristic designed art gallery by the estuary. We bowl up to the camperstop on the edge…
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Ireland’s Southernmost Port, Rosslare, to Spain’s Basque Bilbao
Rosslare Port has been a feature of my life since the years of the old St. Columba, without stabilisers, bucking and ducking on the wild stretch of sea between Fishguard and Rosslare. The port was a small little shed in those days where Uncle Scotty would chat to the dock workers before strolling out to…
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The Slow Road to Kilmore Quay – A Wonderful Meanderings
We leave Cashel in Tipperary and drive along the River Suir, through Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir, a route that connects historic sites such as Cahir and Ormond castles. The river valley itself is tranquil with kingfishers and herons swooping over its waters, wild salmon swimming, and kayakers paddling down it. We swing by New Ross on…
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Walking in the Footsteps of Kings, Bishops, and Monks in Cashel
Yet again, we pull into a favourite stop off of ours – O’Brien’s Camping and Caravan site in Cashel, overlooked by the famous castle and rock. The castle was once the stronghold of Brian Boru, the first High King of Ireland. My father used to say we were related to royalty, which always confused me…
