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I'm off ...

Mel B

By Mel B
in Motorhome Matters

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Mike B. Mentor

Mike B.

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sambukashot - 2013-05-16 10:01 AM

 

Im on the Camping Spa Natura and it's sunny today :)

 

Know it well-Nearly fell off the bike on that hump by the side entrance by the car wash-It's forever in my brain! Lovely place Peniscola

Have fun

Mike

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mildi Community Regular

mildi

Posted
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TOOOOO late we did that on the 12th and not coming back till end of November, who needed jobs anyway!!! me the boss and the mad springer are are in Normandy now for the next few days till we move on somewhere else.

Hope the weather gets better.

Mark.

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sambukashot Rising Star

sambukashot

Posted
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Mike B.
sambukashot - 2013-05-16 10:01 AMIm on the Camping Spa Natura and it's sunny today :)
Know it well-Nearly fell off the bike on that hump by the side entrance by the car wash-It's forever in my brain! Lovely place PeniscolaHave funMike

They have a chain blocking the wash area now, don't know why?

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Mike B. Mentor

Mike B.

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Posted
sambukashot - 2013-05-17 8:35 PM
Mike B.
sambukashot - 2013-05-16 10:01 AMIm on the Camping Spa Natura and it's sunny today :)
Know it well-Nearly fell off the bike on that hump by the side entrance by the car wash-It's forever in my brain! Lovely place PeniscolaHave funMike

They have a chain blocking the wash area now, don't know why?

Probably to stop motorcyclists killing themselves on that speedhump! :-D
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Mel B Grand Master

Mel B

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JudgeMental - 2013-05-16 4:59 PM

 

Jeez.......where is she! :-D Very poor comms Mel! Moi's flabber is aghast *-)

 

Missing me already Judgey!!! :D :D This thread was my last visit to the forum before we went hence why I haven't been on since! We've had a gentle tootling couple of days and at present are on the very nice aire by the river at Mouzon on the D964, south east of Sedan (road from Sedan to Verdun). We're parked opposite the river with its pretty canal boats etc in a lovely aire with proper bays for each motorhome, individual water and electric points, just across from us, about 20ft away is the 'office' which has very a nice shower (we used in on a trip previously a couple of years ago) and best of all WIFI! This is all for the princely sum of 8 euros ... yes we do occasionally pay!!! It is a very nice spot and very peaceful ... some 'non-aire' users may actually like this one! :-D

 

Weather hasn't been too bad, warmish when we arrived on Wednesday teatime just in time to hit the Calais rush hour ... must remember not to book crossing at that time again! Yesterday it turned colder especially overnight, and today it has been cool and overcast with some rain and drizzle on and off all day. Lots of the rivers are high so they must have had a lot of rain lately, just hope it gets better soon - I'll have a look a the weather link you posted and see which way to go next, either directly into Germany and across to the east side and along the border or go down a bit further before cutting across ...

 

:-S

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bolero boy Mentor

bolero boy

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Posted

Hi Mel, we are currently about 60m east or u in camping Alzingen nr Luxembourg. previously been down moselle from koblenz via Bruges and some of Germany. only really nice day was really hot in Bruges two weeks ago, tho today is forecast to be reasonable before going back to dull drizzle etc.

we will be heading south or southwest tomorrow and swap sighseeing for sunshine, we hope.

have a great trip.

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Dave225 Veteran

Dave225

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Unfortunately most of Europe is suffering at the moment, and no end obvious. Evidently it is all due to the Jet Stream being in the wrong place again. Even Spain is cold and wet over most of it. Bilbao is 9 degrees, Madrid 10 degrees and Barcelona 13 today. Down here in the south east it is a balmy 23 but a lot of wind but many are just hiding here as it is the best of the bunch at the moment. Even Malaga is not getting its usual hot hot weather but certainly better than the UK, mind you what isn't?????????

 

I do hope it changes for you soon but it is one of the reasons we stopped going to France as the risk factor became larger each year. The 'line across the middle' moved south each year until it seemed to be literally on the beach at Montpelier. We gave up at that point.

 

By the way if you want to check the weather in various countries then this may help. It does France, Germany as well as Spain

 

http://www.eltiempo.es/

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BGD Grand Master

BGD

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We also use "El Tiempo" a lot for weather forecasting all across Spain, and also for France and Portugal - and we generally find it to be very accurate.

 

Here should be a link to the English language version (but even if you land on the Spanish version, there's a button down at the bottom left of the page to change language........):

 

http://en.eltiempo.es/

 

 

 

 

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Dave225 Veteran

Dave225

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BGD - 2013-05-19 2:24 PM

 

We also use "El Tiempo" a lot for weather forecasting all across Spain, and also for France and Portugal - and we generally find it to be very accurate.

 

Here should be a link to the English language version (but even if you land on the Spanish version, there's a button down at the bottom left of the page to change language........):

 

http://en.eltiempo.es/

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the 'button' info. Have never spotted that but then again never really looked. Managed to understand the Spanish easy enough as most of it is symbols. Do like the interactive part where you can scroll through time and see everything coming and going.

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Mike B. Mentor

Mike B.

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flicka - 2013-05-19 9:05 PM

 

Mike B. - 2013-05-19 6:06 PM

 

33degs here today-who said Spain is where the sunshine is?

 

Mike

 

Must be in degF :-> >:-)

 

I'm in Hungary Flicka! Cooled down today though-only 23-be getting frostbite next! Better than Italy I believe, friends of ours are flooded out near Venice

 

Mike

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maggyd Grand Master

maggyd

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Hope your having a lovely time Mel :-D I missed you going as we were freezing our butts off at Berwick!!

 

We stayed at Muzzon last year its a very pleasant stay, the Vet there is very nice as well if your coming back that way.

 

We will probably pass you on your way back (lol) wave if you do AS NOBODY ELSE DOES now (lol) (lol)

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Mel B Grand Master

Mel B

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I forgot to say the other day, the aire we were on as well as having showers, electric and wifi included in the 8 euros also has a washing machine with all the powder etc also included so if you do need to do washing as well it would be an excellent, very pleasant, stop. :-D

 

Currently at Thann down from Colmar near the German border, off towards Mulhouse tomorrow. Weather yesterday was awful - rain all day and bl**dy freezing, so cold that even hubby was complaining and he doesn't feel the cold! 8-) Better today as not raining but still overcast and coolish.

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Mel B Grand Master

Mel B

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I'm back! :D

 

When I get a chance I'll elaborate on what we got up to but suffice to say we nearly turned into fish when in Germany for 3 weeks where the horrendous weather and 'hockwasser' was! We visited Passau and Dresden the day before the flooding and Colditz the day after - what a mess, it must be really devastating for those affected. We nearly came home at one point - the weather had been atrocious for nearly 3 weeks and we just couldn't face the thought of another few weeks like that, but fortunately it gradually got better and we then spent the last 2.5 weeks in France tootling around.

 

We've had extremes of weather from freezing cold with sleet/snow/hail, massive rain storms, a French 'mistral' storm when we were in the Alsace region and a massive rain/hail storm just as we crossed the Rhine on one of the little ferries which literally started just before we boarded and stopped a few minutes after we got off - really, really, REALLY cheered our dog Lily up ... not! We've also had it hot with a heat wave and temperatures of up to 37 degrees! Good job we took a selection of clothing types!!!

 

Lily was poorly at one point so a visit to the vets was in order and a bill of €114, fortunately she soon recovered and is fine now. Our 'scheduled' visit to the vet before returning to the UK cost €47.60 so that wasn't too bad (3 dogs, 20kg, 8kg and 6kg).

 

We've seen some lovely places and met some lovely people, seen a French chap and a Belgian have a ding-dong row over wheel washing (yes really!) and a German having a row with her umbrella! (lol)

 

We visited a laundrette in France and it was a blooming nightmare as the central 'control' panel for the driers was up the creek so we ended up with all the washing hanging in the camper as we travelled!!!

 

Issues with van:

 

The Truma combi heater/boiler packed up as the fan wasn't working properly so we ended up wasting nearly a day getting that fixed by the emergency call out chap who was very good; the grill door came off and fell onto the drawer fronts below so we now have 2 nice scratches on them - will see if we can get them replaced under warranty as it was a 'fault' with the door.

 

Drawers ... kitchen type not knickers (don't mention the washing!). The under grill kitchen drawers weren't running properly and on closer inspection I found that they runners were only held into the side cabinet by four 1/2 inch screws (2 each side) which were lose and wouldn't tighten up, so as this was just after we'd had the Truma replaced and the engineer had given us some screws he'd taken out and replaced with new ones, we used these to secure the runners which has now solved the problem ... sometimes even 1/4 of an inch makes a difference! :$

 

Fiat base - whilst hubby says it is great to drive (I can't get behind the flippling wheel!) he has found that it isn't quite as nippy as the Ford was (2.2 140bhp compared to 2.2 130bhp with the Fiat), the cruise doesn't work as good as the one on the Ford and doesn't hold the speed as well. Obviously the turning circle isn't as good as our Chausson was due to us now having a LWB instead of a MWB so that's taken a bit of 'learning' but it does have the advantage that we don't have to watch out for 'bum' bashing when turning (ie it doesn't swing out).

 

BUT ... how did we get on with nearly 7 weeks in a van conversion you may ask ... brilliantly is all I can say! We didn't miss the extra width of our previous Chausson, the storage was more than adequate, the kitchen was a dream to use, especially the extra 'flap' which was put to good use. It was very light and airy, much more so than our coachbuilts have ever felt.

 

Being able to have the large side door open really made us feel more connected with the outside, like having a patio door at home, and being able to throw open the rear doors and just chill on the bed was wonderful, in fact we had them open as much as possible as it was one of the favourite places for me and the dogs to just be able to relax there and watch the world go by - Tazzy would spend hours there just people watching! As I'd made some voile type curtains to go across the side and rear doors it meant we could have them open even when it got a bit chilly as it kept any breeze out or on a warm evening to keep the bugs at bay - lovely. When hot it was great to be able to get a through flow of air through the van, especially when it got to 37 degrees but overall it didn't seem to get any 'hotter' on warm days than a coachbuilt which was good.

 

However, one of the things that really test how well you get on in a van conversion though, IMV, is how well you cope when the weather is inclement - all I can say is that it didn't make one jot of difference! We never felt claustrophobic but cosy, very homely and 'snug as a bug in a rug'! No danger of the sliding door being caught by the wind and blown out of your hand and the 'stop' I'd made so it could be held only partially opened worked a treat too. The only thing we never used was the shower ... instead we used one on an aire and had good strip washes instead which proved just as good as we're not big fans of showers anyway ... no you cannot call me 'smelly Melly'!!! (lol) (lol) (lol) (lol) (lol)

 

One feature of our van that we really, really, really like are the large sliding windows on either side of the front 'lounge' area, instead of the usual lift up ones. We'd forgotten just how useful sliding windows are as we hadn't had them since we'd had the Rimor and Rapido - great to just slide open and shake the tablecloth out of, or tip the water out of the salad spinner, or chat to the 'neighbours', also we were able to travel with them partially open which kept the van lovely and cool - we prefer this to using the aircon all the time and the dogs enjoying 'sniffing' the air too!

 

The fridge worked well but was a bit 'stressed' when it was very hot so I might look to fit a fan to aid cooling in future and hubby just 'loves' the little light in it!!! :D

 

In a nutshell, we were more than happy with how our van performed and how 'easy' we found it to live with and in, no regrets about changing from a coachbuilt at all.

 

Well, enough waffling for now, off to make a cuppa!!! :-D

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nowtelse2do Grand Master

nowtelse2do

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Glad to see you back in one piece Mel. I hit everything you did going down through Belgium and Germany. Just managed to keep out of the floods around Passau on route to Vienna plus a couple of landslides. Was getting a bit worried for you as I knew you were going into the same area.

 

Welcome Back. :-D

 

Dave

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AliB Experienced

AliB

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It sounds like you had an interesting trip. We are going to Saxony in a few weeks time, visiting Colditz and Dresden en route.Hopefully it will have dried out by then. Any places to avoid or must visit?

 

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