Monday 18th May - De Panne, Belgium

When planning our trip, I'd spent quite a bit of time trying to work out how to best manage the ferry back to England.  I didn't really want to stay too close, but close enough that we could easily get there in time for the trip back to the UK.  

After scouring several camping search sites, I eventually found this one in Belgium which looked ideally placed if you were looking at it from Google Maps.  I liked the location, which was right on the edge of the dunes and a massive beach.  It was really cheap too.

It seemed promising at first, when I rang, because we thought we might be late (6pm was the latest entry), the voice at the other end was easy going.  We arrived at 5.50pm, and it became obvious this site was different to the ones we were used to.  We were allocated a pitch, the reception guy (owner I think) wasn't worried about us paying until he realised we would have to leave early, so we sorted that out, and then left to set up.  

It seems this was another of those sites where it was mostly occupied by long term residents.  Some of them seemed to live there, others were not about, but definitely made sure they used up the entirety of their pitch allocation, putting fences and barriers around "their space".  There seemed to be a large number of these long term pitches.  And then the rest of the site was empty.

We decided to have a walk into the town of De Panne.  The reception guy had been extolling it's virtues when we'd checked in, so we thought it might be worth a look.  And I wanted to check out the dunes I'd seen next door when looking at the site from Google Earth. 

It turned out that there was a path along edge of the dunes, but it only took us so far, and we decided we preferred the easy to negotiate streets and paths of the town.  It took us 20 minutes or so to walk throuth through the suburbs and then we were at the beach.  And what a beach. It was massive.  And windswept.  And gorgeous in the evening sun.  We could see why this place would be a holiday location.  Quite wonderful.

But to be honest, for us, it was the only thing that De Panne had going for it.  Back at the campsite, after dinner, we decided to check out the facilities......  And they were the worst we've ever come across in a site that has them.  The loo block was not clean, didn't have a single loo roll, and hardly any toilet seats, I ddn't bother looking at the showers. We tested the washing up area too, it wasn't pleasant either,  but since we'd lugged everything over to it, we managed.  As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and this site is not one we'll come back to, no matter how cheap.  

So that was it, the last day of our European adventure.  Despite earlier worries, there were no great disasters (except maybe data usage in Switzerland), Peter managed the driving on the right perfectly, we didn't really have any language issues because everyone spoke English brilliantly, and shopping, laundry, transport etc was all easily managed as we went along.  A brilliant success then.  So much so that we have agreed that we are going to do it again next year - Norway and Denmark?  Croatia and Greece?  Watch this space.    

Sunday 17th May - La Moselle, Nancy

There's not a lot to say about today.  This morning, after a wet night, we packed up, and left for our long drive home.  We've had such a wonderful time at Lauterbrunnen, we were a little sad to leave, but it will be nice to get home too. 

It's a long drive back to Calais, so we've scheduled a couple of stops.  The first was in France, at a little place called Liverdun, on the Moselle river.  It looked like a lovely little town, but we were only there for a night and didn't explore.

It was a lovely place,  a little dated perhaps, but really large pitches and very nice and peaceful.  We took a walk along the river.

Later, we found a Kebab House for our evening meal.  After the expense of Switzerland, it seemed amazingly cheap.  The food was good too. 

More driving tomorrow.  I've picked a place near to the beach and dunes in Belgium.  Fingers crossed, it looks good from Google Earth. 

Saturday 16th May - A walk in the Lauterbrunnen Valley

Towering mountains on the sides of the valley.  All those lines are rows and rows fence like projections which act as avalanche protection (we think).  Imagine the work involved?

We took a rest day yesterday, it chucked it down with rain, and we needed a rest after the amount of walking we'd been doing.  So it really was the most sensible thing to do. We spent the day in the van, catching up on blogs etc. Today we are going out for a walk.

Looking back at the small town of Lauterbrunnen as we start our walk upward 

Because of the time of year, like Bavaria, many of the cable cars and cogwheel trains closed for maintenance.  Which is a shame, because I sort of fancied walking along the valley bottom to get to the cable car at Stechelberg going up to Murren, walking along the top of the valley to Grutschalp and then getting a cable car from there down to Lauterbrunnen.  Unfortunately, the station at Grutschalp was closed, and we couldn't work out a route around the valley that would be similar.  Instead, Peter worked something out on Komoot.

Looking across the valley at the cogwheel train on it's way up to Wengen. 

I sort of thought it wouldn't be too difficult - it wasn't a long walk after all. I'd had a look at the elevation, we'd had a disagreement about slope gradients and what was doable, and Peter had changed the route accordingly.  So although I knew there'd be a few steep slopes I didn't think it would be too hard.  My muscles were still tired from our walks earlier, and knew that today needed to not be difficult. 

What I hadn't realised however was that we'd be climbing something like 1500 ft in total.  When I did, I got stroppy, Peter didn't know why it was a problem, and we had disgruntled discussion about how I just wasn't as fit and able as he was.  Blame it on male versus female physique, or my previous smoking habit, or me just not being as fit, but Peter is much more able to keep doing these walks day after day than I.  And I wasn't a happy bunny.

Looking across to Wengen, which is 4180 ft above sea level - Snowdon is 3560 ft high

But as usual, stubborness kicked in and I refused to be the cause of not continuing. We did the walk, got to the highest point, ate lunch at a view point that I couldn't sit too close to the edge of.......

Enjoyed the views and the waterfalls.........

And enjoyed the path turning into something a little more challenging on the way down.  We felt a sense of achievement when we reached the bottom.  

As we walked back to the campsite, we eyed the Staubbachfalls, we'd been looking at them and taking photo's ever since we arrived.   It is one of 72 falls in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, and one of the highest in Switzerland.  It's a very popular tourist spot, because you can walk behind it, and there are usually queues of people trying to do so.

But it was a wet day - rain may make the falls more impressive, but it also reduces the numbers of tourists, and since it was our last chance, we decided that it had to be done. Despite tired legs after the walk, made our way up to join the thousands of people that have taken photo's from behind the falls.  Very cool.

A good day in the end.   Tomorrow we have to leave.  I feel like we have 'done' Lauterbrunnen and Switzerland, and we won't need to come back.