Yesterday we travelled the length of Denmark, through the middle to the extreme North. It’s been mostly rural flat farmland in the South, but gradually changing to undulating hills and woodland in the North. On the way we stopped at Rabjerg Mile which is a large area of shifting sand dunes.
Today our plan is to visit the extreme tip of Denmark, then travel South to Friederikshavn for the ferry to Gottenburg in Sweden.
our focus in the last two days is to travel North to Denmark which we have achieved. On the way we have past through mostly flat lands crossed by canals and ditches but also through the heavily industrial city port of Hamburg.
We have changed the date of our ferry from Denmark to Sweden from this Sunday to this Friday. We have been looking for things to do in Denmark and because the big noisy city of Copenhagen does to appeal to us, we have decided to travel through the middle of Denmark to the Northern tip and then down to Freiderkshavn where we catch the ferry to Gothenburg. This will not take the 4 days we originally planned.
This afternoon we have been exploring the historic old town of Aabenraa with buildings dated from 1711 onwards.
I successfully picked up Patty from Schipol airport and we spent the first night together in the van about 1.5 hours North East of Amsterdam. It was a nice little campsite in the middle of the very flat and rural Dutch countryside. It gave us an opportunity to catch up and to organise the van.
Day three we started West and almost immediately found this windmill and shop..
It was a farm shop full of local produce, at very affordable prices. We stocked up with a few essentials such as goats cheese 🧀 😀.
We spent the rest of the day driving into Germany and are now in Bremerhaven on tge North West German coast. We went for a lovely meal at a fish restaurant in the port last night (thank you mum 🥰, who paid for it 😘).
I am on the Brittany Ferries ship Guillaume de Normandie half way across the English Channel.
This is a very new ship (2024) and i am very impressed. Everything is clean and bright, there is plenty of room aboard and the food excellent, and is not expensive. I have had Breton fish stew, a raspberry and blackcurrant dessert and a Pepsi for less than 20€.
I haven’t seen any small dinghies full of people going the other way yet 🫣.
I should arrive in Caen around 3pm and plan to drive toward Amsterdam. I will probably camp roadside close to Amsterdam, ready to pick Patty up from Schipol airport Around 10am tomorrow. She is flying in from Cordoba Argentina, via Madrid, she is probably in the air by now.
Hi everyone, and welcome back to my travel blog. I am preparing for a 4 week trip in the camper van, leaving in 2 days time.
Patty will be joining me on this trip and we will be blogging here with notifications going to my facebook page.
The itinery is:
After our camper van trip to John Ogroats and back, we flew to Thailand for a month long tour of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. On the second week, we met and travelled with Jet and her family.
After leaving Hungary, we travelled through Slovakia, Austria, Czechia to Bavaria in Germany. We only stopped in Bavaria.
Bavaria was stunning, I would not have been at all surprised if Hansel and Gretal had come skipping down the street holding hands. We had a meal at a local restaurant. What could be better than eating sausage and sauerkraut in Bavaria? Well, maybe it could have done with a little less of those tummy bugs. I was sick for 24 hours, luckily Patty ate something different.
We had a short drive the next day for obvious reasons. We stayed at the Grimm’s family farmstead. A working farm with a restaurant and selling their own wine. I had bread and water, Patty had a flan, which turned out to be a thin crust pizza.
We left Slovenia for Budapest, it’s a beautiful city, we found campervan parking within walking distance of the arena, we had tickets for Ed Sheeran.
John went to the house of terror. It’s a museum dedicated to telling the story of Budapest under the Arrow cross (Nazi afiliated) when Jews were rounded up and sent to a gheto and then on to extermination camps and later when they were ‘liberated’ and came under soviet control. This was a time of fear, suspicion, reporting your neighbour, people disappearing, anything but free. I have often wondered how much of the news we heard in the West of soviet oppression was western propaganda, and how much was true. I have no doubts now it was as bad as we were told, if not worse.
On a lighter note… Ed Sheeran was great.
We have decided that Slovenia is by far the nicest Country we have visited so far. It’s beautiful, clean and well cared for. Most residents seem to take great care over their gardens and window boxes.
We visited some limestone caves and a castle built in a cave entrance. The caves were massive, they use a train to take you deep into the mountain, then there is a 90-minute guided walk through a labyrinth of caves.
The castle was 9km away and equally spectacular.
Next was Croatia. The plan was to cross the border, stay in Zagreb for a day or two, and then on to Hungary and Budapest. After the beauty of Slovenia, we were unimpressed by the dirty, industrial, graffiti ridden Zagreb. We stopped long enough to get something to eat, wander around a market, and drive back to Slovenia.
The bright note about our day in Croatia was seeing a billboard advertising an Ed Sheeran concert. Patty found out he was also playing in Budapest Saturday, and she managed to get some bargain tickets online.
We have spent the last two days at a winery, and we plan to cross to Hungary tomorrow.
We spent about 4 nights in the Dolomite mountains walking, relaxing in the river and skinny dipping in a water hole.
We are currently at an animal sanctuary near Ljubljana. We plan to cross Slovenia from West to East and go into Hungary toward Budapest.
Slovenia has been really nice. It’s clean (it scores well on the Patty clean scale), it has well maintained roads, and it appears to be doing well economically. The scenery is stunning, and with only 2 million people, 60% forest coverage and lots of mountains, it’s stunning.