Yup, it was expected that sooner or later something will go wrong. As we were driving through a rather long tunnel without a hard shoulder, the little, red, “you’re loosing coolant mate” light started flashing disco style on the dashboard. We knew right away what the problem was as it’s a re-occurring fault that got us twice before on the English soil. One of the rubber coolant hoses loosens and pops out of a pvc pipe that connects it with the radiator at the front of the van.
From the lake we headed for the east coast. Our drive took us though The Parco Nazionale dei Monti Sibillini, a beautiful, mountainous national park.
From Pienza we headed to Lago Trasimeno in Umbria. We free camped by the lake in different locations for the next two nights.
Having left Volterra we visited Pienza a very picturesque renaissance town, which in 1996 was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Volterra, a hilltop town in Tuscany, was our next stop and we stayed in a campsite just outside the towns walls.
The drive took us though the French Italian boarder near the coast. We opted to take a toll road at this point due to the high volumes of August traffic along the coastline. Our German T3 friends had just come through this bit of coastline (without using the toll) it took them hours just to travel a few miles.
We were just around 20 minutes away from Saint Tropez and it was getting late. Cruising on local roads we were looking for somewhere to stay.
After leaving Beaune we spent the whole day driving. At this point we really got into taking local roads rather than motorways. It takes longer but makes a more pleasant drive and avoids the expensive toll charges. Because we’re travelling slower it’s easier to spot and pull up at interesting places. Handy when travelling without a plan.
We found a nice spot in a campsite in Beaune with little lizards climbing the wall next to us.
We were passing Dijon on the way south and decided to drive in, have a looksy and score a pot of that famous mustard everyone knows it for.
From Luxembourg we drove directly to Burgundy in France. We were stung 12 Euros on the way for accidentally finding ourselves on a toll road. To make some savings we decided to wildcamp and headed off down a Michelin road atlas ‘scenic route’, about an hour north of Dijon.
On route to France we drove through Luxembourg and decided at the last minute to check it out. We knew very little about the place other than the name oozing luxury and glamour.
On Sunday we left with Tom and Sophie and headed for OHM 2013 (Observe, Hack, Make, a sort of geeky festival) just north of Amsterdam.
We left London early morning to catch a ferry from Dover to Dunkirk from where we drove to Deventer in Holland.
After months of getting the van ready for a trip around Europe we are finally off. Big thanks to the East Dulwich Campers crew for helping us get her ready for the trip.
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