Month: October 2023

At 8.05am on the 10th March 1915, in an attempt to break the stalemate which had developed the previous year, after a 35 minute artillery bombardment British Forces attacked the German lines at Neuve-Chapelle. The plan was to capture the high ground at Aubers Ridge opening up the opportunity to recapture Lille.

The battle lasted 3 days and was only a limited success. The Allies failed to seize the ridge but did drive the Germans back from Neuve-Chapelle. This was the first big offensive action by the Indian Corps and the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

It was also the first major action of the year for the Gordon Highlanders. The 2nd Gordons Battalion were involved right from the start, the 6th Gordon’s became involved on the second day.

I only discovered recently that my great uncle, William Dustan, died at Battle of Neuve-Chapelle. He was in the the 6th Gordons Batallion and sadly killed on the final day of the battle. At the age of only fifteen!

His body was never found so he is commemorated on a plaque at the Touret Cemetery, on a long list of fallen Gordon Highlanders, less than 5 miles from Neuve-Chapelle.

When we planned to finish our trip with visits to Arras and Ypres it was pure luck that we discovered that the Touret Cemetery was about half way between the two, so it was a journey that just had to be made.

Arras and Ypres, both frontline towns during the entire duration of World War One, are fascinating places to visit. Both were badly damaged by German bombardment and have been extensively rebuilt.

We stayed at Aire de Camping Car Park, Arras only a short walk from the city centre. It’s a new, easy to access, has large pitches and at 10€, including electricity, is good value for money. Arras is a lovely town and the Place de la Heros and the Grand Place are worth wandering around. The Cathedral is huge and worth seeing and the Belfry has a lift if you don’t fancy stairs. The belfry one of the first buildings to be completely destroyed by German Artillary, as the French were using it as a observation post!

The Battle of Arras (9th April – 19th May 1917) began when British troops attacked the German defences on the outskirts of the city and was part of a wider plan with the Canadians attacking Vimy Ridge to the North and the French attacking along the the Aisne River to the south.

The attack began after a 4 day bombardment on the German positions and when 25,000 troops emerged from tunnels dug under no man’s land. These tunnels, which linked existing medieval caverns, were dug out by New Zealand miners specifically shipped in for the task.

These tunnels can be visited through an excellent tour organised from the Wellington Quarry Visitor Centre. As you walk through the tunnels, through stories told using headphones, film shown on the quarry walls and the guide himself, the story of the attack is told. The tour culminates at the steps of one of the exits where the men would have emerged into battle.

The Canadian Monument on Vimy Ridge is just a few miles from Arras just off the Road to Ypres and a moving place to visit. The Canadians have built a large but very tasteful visitor centre which offers free tours of the trenches and tunnels every half hour.

One of most remarkable things about the site is how close the Canadian and German trenches were to each other. Their supposed to be about 25-30 yards apart but in reality they seem even closer than that.

In Ypres, we stayed at Camping Jeugdstadion which again was only a short walk away from the centre of the town. Ypres is a walled town with much of the formidable wall still standing. The Tourist Information Centre offers an excellent map for a self guided tour of the Ramparts.

Inside the walls, it’s all charming buildings and lovely cobbled streets which mostly radiate from the centre and you have to remind yourself that most of this was rebuilt only 100 years ago.

The Lackenhallen with its grand Bell Tower and the beautiful Cathedral are at the heart of the city. The Bell Tower, for those of you who like going up these things, unlike Arras doesn’t have a lift. Instead you have to climb the 231, mostly rather narrow steps, to admire the view. The excellent, thought provoking, Fields of Flanders’s Museum is housed in the Lackenhallen and not to be missed.

The Menin Gate is the most famous landmark in Ypres but unfortunately at the moment is undergoing extensive renovation and it will be March 2025 before we see it again.

Since 1928, every evening at 8pm, the fire brigade stop all traffic entering the city through the gate and a group of buglars play the Last Post. The only break for this remembrance ceremony was during World War Two when Ypres was under German occupation.

Unsurprisingly it’s a very evocative and a girls choir follows the last post with a very haunting song of remembrance. It’s a very wet October night but despite this there’s a bit crowd come to witness the ceremony, which as you see makes getting a decent photo a bit challenging!

So perhaps symbolically the Last Post brings down the curtain of this year’s adventure. As we write our final post, the Silver Machine is current parked up in Calais, at our usual stopover, although it’s changed it’s name to Aire de Camping-Car Rue d’Asfeld. We’re just here for one night before catching the Ferry tomorrow morning at 10.40am.

As usual it’s been a very action packed trip but somehow it has felt even busier than usual.

By the time we get home we’ll have driven around 3,750 miles, travelled through 9 different countries, which is a record for us, and stayed in 22 different towns and cities. Apart from two stops, which were picked for convienience rather than interest, the remaining stops have all been really fascinating. During this time we visited 10 Castles, climbed 7 bell towers, visited countless museums and historical, usually Roman, sites.

It’s the first time we have stopped in Austria and Switzerland, and the first time we’ve ever been to Croatia and Slovenia, although we were just passing through Slovenia.

There are to many highlights to mention them all but ending the our adventure at Arras and Ypres was special and the tour of the tunnels in Arras unmissable. Croatia is a beautiful country and needs to be explored more thoroughly. Rovinj, in particular, was special place. Saltzburg is a really captivating city and of course the “Original” Sound of Music Tour just had to be done. Switzerland which is beautiful, is also eye wateringly expensive. We’ll have to save up before we go back there again.

…… and as ever we met some really nice people, which I guess is what it’s really all about.

The Battle of Sedan (12 – 15th May 1940) took place after the German Army launched an offensive through the Ardennes to reach the English Channel and encircle the Allied Armies in North Eastern France. To succeed the Germans had to capture Sedan and prevent the French from destroying the bridges over the River Meuse. With overwhelming force the German Army quickly secured the bridges and within days had reached the sea. On the 26th May, Operation Dynamo was launched and the first of 338,000 Allied Soldiers were evacuated from the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk.

The Silver Machine has landed at the Aire de Camping-Car Park in Sedan over looking the river Meuse next to one of these very bridges. It’s not why we’re here, in fact we’ve only just learned of the significance of the town at the beginning of World War Two. The reason we’re here is firstly, it’s on the way home and, secondly it’s got the Chateau Fort de Sedan which, covering an area of 8.5 acres, is the largest Fortress in Europe.

Sedan is a town in the Ardennes in the North West of France and it’s only about a 90 minute drive from Luxembourg . The town is pleasant enough to wander around but, with the population currently about 17,000, but on the decline, the buildings do generally look a bit jaded.

We thoroughly recommend a visit to the castle and at 11€ for adult admission it’s reasonably good value. It is absolutely enormous and although the visit can take a couple of hours, you still only access about 20% of the castle. There’s even a 4 star hotel incorporated into the structure.

The castle itself is impressive but what makes it really stand out is the amount of effort that has been put in to bringing the past back to life. Many of the rooms have been imaginatively recreated with good use of light and recordings of the sight and sounds you would expect back in the day.

We hadn’t initially planned to visit Luxembourg this time round as we had been here for four nights last year. However the forecast suggested there could be some heavy rain for a couple of days so we thought that at least there were some things we could do in the city if this turned out to be the case. So we pointed the Silver Machine in the direction of Camping Kockelstreuer and set off on the three hour drive. As it turned out the weather remained dry but it was cold, oh so cold.

The city of Luxembourg is famed for its medieval fortifications surrounding the old town which is perched on sheer cliffs overlooking the Alzette and Pétrusse Rivers. The great Fortress of Luxembourg was dismantled as a result of the Treaty of London 1867 which guaranteed the full independence and neutrality for Luxembourg.

Little remains of the Fortress on the Bock Promontory, but beneath the surface, the Bock Casemates, an immense underground military defence system with 17kms of tunnels remains. We’re not sure why we didn’t explore the Casemates last year but it was great to do it now and at 6.50€ for a senior ticket (8€ for adults) good value for money.

Described as the Gibraltar of the North, the tunnels could accommodate not only thousands of defenders with their equipment, but artillery, workshops, kitchens and bakeries. Not unreasonably you can only access the limited area of tunnels which probably offer most interest and most dramatic views from the openings cut into the cliff face.

We visited the Notre-DameNorte-Dame Cathedral because, to be honest, we couldn’t remember being in it the last time we were here. Even once we were in it we weren’t too sure.

Once we checked we had actually been inside. Maybe it’s a sign we’ve just seen too many churches.

The ornamentation is perhaps best described as restrained. What gives the interior its impressive appearance is the large stained glass widows dominating three sides of the building.

What we definitely hadn’t discovered the last time was the interesting crypt. It contains a small chapel and the tombs of members of the royal family.

While we were in Luxembourg, the national football side played Slovakia in a European Championship match. We only discovered this when I looked it up after hearing loud cheering close by. It turns out the Stadium is only about 15 walk from the campsite. Oh and despite the cheering Luxembourg lost 1 – 0.

The weather continues to be variable with regular showers. The temperatures have dropped so much that, as you may have noticed, the padded jackets are out, the shorts have been tucked away for another year amd the hearings on in the Silber Machine. Its a bit disappointing but I guess it’s all part of a gradual withdrawal process from the 31°C temperatures of only last week to whatever it is we’re going to face when we get home early November. “Winter is coming!”

Lucerne turned out to be a really amazing place. It is claimed to be the most beautiful city in Switzerland and one of the most beautiful in Europe, and it’s not difficult to see why. It is a striking medieval town, surrounded by impressive mountains, on the shores of scenic Lake Lucerne.

The colourful Aldstadt, is bordered by the Musegg Wall, a 16th century rampart, to the north and the the River Reuss to the south. It’s picturesque squares flanked by buildings covered in historical frescos are a unique feature.

You can walk along part of the Musegg wall and access four of its nine towers. The clock in the Zyt tower dates from 1535 and not surprisingly perhaps is the oldest in the city. We had the misfortune to arrive in the bell tower at exactly midday.

The wonderful Kapelbrücke and Spreuerbrücke, both roofed, wooden bridges, were built as part of the cities fortifications in the 14th and 15th centuries respectively and join the Aldstadt to the south bank of the river. Both have painted panels added in the seventeenth century.

The Lion Monument, according to the local guide book, is one of the worlds most famous monuments. It might only be us but to be honest we had never heard of it. Carved out of the rock face it commemorates the bravery of the Swiss Guards who died in combat in 1792. Apparently Mark Twain described the Lion of Lucerne as “the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world.”

There were three churches recommended in the local guide book given to us when we arrived at the campsite. The Franziskirke, which was built towards the end of the 13th century, boasts a pulpit with the most elaborate ornamentation in Switzerland. The Jesuitenkirke established around 1666 was the first large baroque building to be built in Switzerland. And finally the Hofkirke with its lovely facade is Lucerne’s parish church.

On our last night we went out for a couple of beers and something to eat and ended up at the excellent Rathaus Brauerei, on the banks of the river. We ended up sitting next to a couple of local guys who spoke good English and were very pleasant to chat to. The food was good, the beer made on the premises even better, but at nearly £10 a pint you really have to feel flush before you come to Switzerland for a night out.

As in Venice we were keen to see Lucerne once darkness fell, and we were not disappointed. With the shimmering reflections doubling the impact, walking back to the bus stop along the river is really fantastic It’s was like you’d been transported to a different place entirely.

So we’re now in back in France, in Andlau, a village on La Route des Vins in the very heart of the Alsace region. It’s a very attractive village which, with nine different wine vendors and being completely surrounded by vineyards, exists only because of the wine industry. The residents are very friendly, without exception they say bonjour in passing, and the shop keepers all give you a cheery welcome as you enter their shop.

The Silver Machine landed in an new aire run by by the Camping-Car Park Organisation on the edge of the village, next to a leisure park. There are only 13 pitches and it’s full most nights but if you’re a member you can book ahead to secure a spot.

The weather is beginning to turn colder now and it has been a bit showery in the last couple of days. Luckily we have managed to get a couple of walks in since we got here. The first just around the village and the second a six mile round hike to a ruined castle which you can just see from the village.

It is an excellent walk which starts by zig zagging steeply up through the vineyards with some amazing views and finishes in woodland. There are some excellent views over the village and surrounding vineyards and the castle is well worth the walk.

We head off to Luxembourg next, about a three hours drive away. According to the weather forecast it’s not going to get much warmer than 10°C, so we’d better look the winter woolies out.

So we’re now in the land of mountains, cuckoo clocks, cheese, chocolates and William Tell….oh and yet another complex motorway toll system.

Before we even entered Switzerland we had to decide from how we were going to pay to use the motorways. The choice is basically pay for a vignette which lasts a year, or buy a digital pass which opens up a number of options. In fairness once we went down the digital route we discovered that you can buy a 10 day pass for about £30. You can use your 10 days at anytime over a year, you just have to remember to open the app and validate your pass on the day that you want to use it. It fairness, it must be the cheapest motorway toll system in Europe.

The Silver Machine has landed at TCS Camping Luzern Horw in the outskirts of Lucerne and next to the Lake. It’s a bit rustic maybe, but it has a very nice feeling about it. The Swiss kids are on holiday at the moment and the site has quite a number of them here running about in packs. The bus, which is free, is only a few minutes walk away and takes you straight into the centre.

It’s now been five nights since we left Venice. We headed first for Verona for two nights before crossing the border into Switzerland where we stayed at Maroggia again for two nights, on the shores of Lake Laguno.

Verona was really, really hot. On the day we visited it was forecast to reach 31° and it could easily have reached that. There was no breeze and the heat just seemed to drain your energy. Towards the end of the day we began to miss out things we had planned simply because the walk just didn’t seem worth it.

The Silver Machine was parked up at Camping Verona Village, a brand new site on the outskirts of the city. It’s very well laid out, it’s very well organised and it’s all a bit soulless really and it’s not cheap at almost £40 per night. It’s all about location though and you can get the bus from the gates all the way to the centre.

Verona is a large and vibrant city, boasting many Roman ruins, ancient churches colourful piazzas a fine Renaissance garden and an impressive castle.

We followed a route suggested in our guide book, which started at the Roman Arena on the restaurant lined Piazza Brà. Although it was only 10 o’clock, being Sunday, the the restaurants were already busy with people eating breakfast. The arena, built in the first century AD, is third largest across the Roman Empire and dominates the Piazza. It still entertains large audiences these days but with opera rather than blood sports.

Our next stop was the impressive Castelvecchio and the Ponte Scaligero both built about the same time in the 1300’s. You get good 360° views from the castle walls which are accessed through the keep. The bridge was destroyed in 1945 by the retreating German Army and was rebuilt after the river had to be dredged for the bricks.

The two churches we wanted to see, Sant’ Anastasia and the Duomo are quite close together and to get there we had to pass through the very beautiful, and very busy Piazza Erbe. The square is built on the site of the Roman Forum, and very much remains the centre of the city. It has been used as a market place for two thousand years and clearly still draw in the crowds.

It’s tricky to navigate your way through the narrow winding streets to find the the ancient churches, but a very pleasurable walk. They’re both very old, building was started on Sant’Anastasia in 1290 and the Duomo was only about 50 years later.

You have to cross a Roman Bridge, the Ponte Pietra to reach the Teatro. Both were built, like the Arena, in the first century. Again the bridge had to be rebuilt after being destroyed in 1945.

Very little remains of the stage in the Roman Teatro, but the seating area remains largely intact. There is a temporary stage in the place of the original to enable plays and concerts to continue to be held here. The museum is located at the top of the site in a former Franciscan Monastery. As well as having a lot of interesting Roman artefacts the building, and particularly the small cloisters, is well worth seeing.

It was a last minute decision to visit the Giardiono Giusti which are about a 10 minute walk from the Teatro. We’re glad we did go, because although quite expensive to get in, about £20, they are lovely. This unique Renaissance garden was first laid out in 1580 and was described at the time was described as one of the finest gardens in Europe.

By now we were beginning to flag so we decide we need to get an ice cream urgently on the way to the bus to head back to the Silver Machine. We were hoping that things cool down a bit in Switzerland.

We thought we might stay longer than two nights in Maroggia and get some cycling done. But as we approached Camping Monto Generoso Milano it quickly became apparent that the roads around there were just too busy. Nevertheless it’s a nice campsite right on the shores of Lake Laguna.

At about £48 a night it feels a bot overpriced but we’re beginning to learn that just about everything in Switzerland is expensive. The other thing we learned is that they use a completely different power sockets than anywhere else in Europe. I must say I was a bit taken aback that I didn’t know this but, there you go, you learn something every day. The Swiss sites are well used to people pitching up with the wrong fittings and almost assume that your going to need borrow an adapter. Again as it was the school holidays there were lots of kids around so it always injects a bit of life into a site.

We took the train to Laguno, on the shore of the lake just a bit further north. Laguno is regarded as one of Switzerland’s great seaside resorts and is a centre for finance and banking. It’s a beautiful town with strong Italian influence. Indeed Italian is the main language spoken here.

The train station is at the top of the hill and all roads lead down to the Altstadt and shady promenade along the edge of the lake. When we emerged from the station we were met with a magnificent view, over the city towards the lake with the cathedral bell tower in the foreground.

We wound our way down the narrow cobbled alleys to the Piazza Della Riforma, the central hub of the city, lined with tall shuttered buildings and lined with cafes. Which was handy because we fancied a coffee.

The Piazza opens out onto the promenade which allows a pleasant walk with great views of the lake, surrounding mountains and the city. There a lovely park at the eastern end where we had our picnic lunch.

The churches in this area are very highly decorated with elaborate frescos particularly in the Franciscan Church which apparently is typical of this part of Switzerland.

For our last night we thought that we’d eat out at the local restaurant. The local filling station has a bar so we thought we’d pop in for a beer on our way past. It is well used by the locals as it’s their only bar in the village.

Anyway after giving us our beers the barmaid brings over a basket of sandwiches and a basket of crisps. This has happened to us before, particularly in Italy. Of course after you’ve eaten all of this you really can’t face a meal so instead we just ordered a pizza, along with another beer, and shared that in the bar. Excellent! A cheap night out in Switzerland, who would have thought.

It’s you’ve got to face life after Croatia then what better place to start than Venice. This is our third time here and yet, every time you see the Grand Canal you still go Wow! It has been described as the most beautiful street in the world and who are we to argue. It’s certainly the most unique. You could stand all day on one of its many bridges, just watching the boats go by, soaking up the noise and atmosphere and watch daily life for the Venetians play itself out on the water. Even the huge number of fellow tourists cannot take away that feeling of awe and wonder.

Everything about Venice is of course amazing and it’s thee city to simply wander about the narrow cobbled streets, crossing countless canals on small stepped bridges, to discover lovely piazza’s surrounded by astonishingly beautiful old buildings. The gondoliers, in their striped teeshirts manoeuvring, their boats along the narrow waterways, just adds to the spectacle.

The Silver Machine landed at the excellent Camping Fusina, a campsite situated in what is basically an industrial estate, next to the new cruise ship terminal and only a 20 minute ferry ride from Venice. There are pitches right on the waterfront which can be booked for an additional fee if your motorhome is no bigger than 7 metres, otherwise your told you can park anywhere on the rest of the wooded site. There are no marked pitches so basically you do just park anywhere.

We parked facing the sea and it’s very entertaining. Cruise ships literally sail past the top of the site and dock next door. Generally they arrive first thing in the morning just as the sun is rising, which can’t be a coincidence and leave late in the evening when it’s dark.

The first time we went to Venice we took the train, on the second occasion we took the bus so this is the first time we’ve taken a boat and it’s definitely the way to go.

We didn’t book anything the last time we were in Venice, and that was a big mistake. Venice was extraordinarily busy and the queues for the top attractions were enormous. Although we only decided to visit Venice a few days prior to pitching up, we still managed to book tickets for the Doge’s Palace, the Camponile on St Marks Square and the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. We had no chance for tickets for the Basilica though. As I remember the first date we could get was the 14th October which was exactly a week after we were planning to leave Venice. On the day the queues for tickets was, for us anyway, prohibitally long so we still haven’t been in the Basilica. Oh well next time!

On our first day we caught the early ferry from Fusina to the dock at Zattere at 8 o’clock to get to the Rialto Bridge before the crowds got there. After that we had planned a route which took us to a number of churches, recommended in the guidebook, and to parts of Venice we had never been to. The aim was to get to St Marks Square in plenty of time to visit the Campanile and the Doges Palace at our allocated slots.

On the second day we had the Peggy Guggenheim Museum booked in the afternoon and the Hard Rock Cafe booked in the evening. This meant we could chill a bit in the morning at the campsite and head to Venice for a picnic lunch. The museum isn’t far from where the Ferry docks at Zattere so we were able to explore another part of Venice we hand the been to. We ended up at the start of the Grand Canal opposite St Marks Square and the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute before following the canal to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum.

The Doges Palace is spectacular and well worth the admission fee. The added bonus is of course crossing the original Bridge of Sighs and down to the prison on the other side of the canal. Casanova spent time as a prisoner of the Doge here before escaping via the roof of the Palace.

The Campanile is enormous and we were all psyched up for a fair old hike up the steps to the top to be astonished that in fact there is a lift. I’m not sure if the reward for reaching the top is quite the same but the views across Venice are amazing.

We were looking forward to the walk home from the Hard Rock Cafe, because by that time it should be getting dark and hopefully we would see a different side to Venice. And we weren’t disappointed. It wasn’t as busy as it was through the day, it was still quite warm, and the lights were just beginning to pick out the details of the buildings, and as the day drew to an end this final walk through Venice felt a fitting way to our most recent visit.

Krk Premier Camping Resort must be the poshest site the Silver Machine has ever landed at. Even the name is fancy! We’re about 100 miles further south from Pula, on the western side of the Island of Krk which is linked to the mainland by a bridge.

The site has 300 pitches laid out on terraces which drop down to the stoney beach. We have an excellent pitch, only one row back from the shoreline, with an excellent view across to the island of Plavnik.

It has an small shopping area, an excellent restaurant , a beach bar, a swimming pool, an infinity pool and another two play pools but the real jewel in the crown must be the toilet block, dishwashing and laundry area. In fact they must be the best facitities we’ve ever had in a campsite. Then of coarse is the beach itself which well used by swimmers, paddle boarders and sun worshippers generally.

The town of Krk, with a population of 6,243 is the largest town on the island and is a lovely 2 km walk from the campsite, along a rocky coastal path, with fine views of the approaching town and the inviting Adriatic Sea.

Krk is a walled town and from the direction of our approach you get the best views of the wall, the castle and cathedral. The old town is entered though one of four gates. It’s narrow cobbled streets are simply laid out, radiating out from the town square and eventually taking you to one of the gates.

Krk is maybe not as spectacular as Rovinj and doesn’t have the Roman presence of Pula but it’s still a lovely place. Perhaps it’s because it’s quite small and there’s no pressure on you to see lots of stuff. Instead it’s nice to just wander around soaking up the atmosphere and stopping for a coffee in one of the many cafe terraces.

The Castle and Cathedral are situated next to each other, separated by a narrow alley, and were both built in the 12 century, it is believed at the same time. The castle is built mainly to defend the town against attack from the sea. It’s rectangular, with huge walls linking the four corner towers, creating a large courtyard, which is empty except for a well.

You can still climb up two of the four towers and walk around the walls for some fine views of the surrounding area.

The Cathedral is relatively small and, apart from the baroque pulpit, like most churches we’ve seen in the area quite simply decorated. The pillars are topped with fine carvings.

We’re been here for four nights and sadly this is our last night, not just at the campsite but in Croatia. We’ve travelled 1951 miles to get here and we’re turning for home now. We’re giving ourselves about three weeks to get to Calais, so we’re not hurrying by any stretch of the imagination. So we’re off now to treat ourselves to a meal at the restaurant to mark the occasion.