Moving on from Isny Im Allgau we wiggled our way through the fruit farms – pears, apples, plums and more – closer to Liechtenstein, but we stayed in Germany to arrive in Uberlinger – albeit in an around and about fashion. Always worth doing an extra 10km through narrow, windy roads when there is the option to do so instead of just taking the easy route and turning 500m off of the main road……Fawks’ sat nav had its first little ‘detour’ quirk!

The Aire was 18 euros a night, situated 2km up hill from Lake Constance and Uberlinger town center and although near the hospital and supermarket, incredibly tranquil. Lake Constance is more like a ‘sea’ than a lake as it is 63km long and 14km wide and at points you can’t see the other side – especially in the early morning mist. Uberlinger, which is a Spa town, was a little on the touristy side for us and although very pretty with lots of restaurants, cafe’s and walks along the lake – it was actually far more beautiful to head up into the hills from the Aire where we we could then admire the views from above. Lots of lovely walking and somewhere we would return to if we were passing through again to explore further as there are so many walking routes and who could tire of views like these…..

Starting our journing ‘North’ as such, we worked our way cross country to Freiburg am Breisgau – a place that we had talked about visiting for a few years and even possibly stopping for an extended period of time to go to school and do an intensive German course for a few weeks.

The Aire in Freiburg am Breisgau is close to a lovely park with a lake with terapins as well as being next to a small plane and helicopter airport which makes interesting viewing whilst eating breakfast – nice to have a bit of variety in the scenary!

It is a beautiful city with wonderful architecture, roughly 10km from the border with France – which you can look out over by walking up to the top of the Seepark to the north of the town…. we even found some black forest gateaux and although I’d like to say iced coffee – as that is what I asked for – I’d be lying as it was far more ice cream sundae….cream, wafer and all the trimmings. All in the aid of resting our legs after our day expoloring the city and its parks!

Freiburg is a really pretty city with alot to offer and it didn’t feel too big, so I am sure that we will be back again one day if we are passing through this way enroute to Austria or crossing over from France.

After the Italians started to invade – it is our little joke as they never appear to come in alone – but it was obviously the start of the Italian school holidays as there was an influx of Italian motorhomes arriving over the weekend…. it was a sign for us to start moving north!

Unbeknown to us, the Black Forest has a wine region and looking at our route, we were going to be passing failry close to it so figured that it would be rude not to have a look and try out some local produce.

First stop was Gegenbach (10 euros a night) where we stopped at an Aire located just on the other side of the river to the pretty, little walled town with cobbled streets and beautiful architecture. A very picturesque setting with lots of lovely looking restaurants, bars and cafes as well as our first oompah loompah band of the season – playing for a wedding in the town. Can’t beat a bit of oompah loompah music to put a smile on your face!

Like many ‘wine’ focussed towns, Gegenbach is in a valley surrounded by vineyards climbing up the hills around it which provided for some lovely walking up into the forest whilst also enabling us to escape from the sunshine for a while.

After a couple of days of catching up on the washing and of course exploring, it was time to move all of the 30km further up the road to Durbach, another small town/village with twelve independent vineyards and one cooperative made up of another twelve vineyards who work together to cultivate, process and bottle their wines.

We arrived into Durbach on the Monday, just after their first wine festival of the year…. the stellplatz where we were due to park was still the ‘festival’ site albeit that de-construction had commenced! Although a little disappointed at having missed out on the event, we at least had somewhere to park the motorhome as by the afternoon they had deconstructred enough to enable motorhomes to enter the area.

Despite the intense heat, we headed off for a walk through the fruit trees (mostly cherry) and blueberry fields and then up into the vines to look down on to Durbach from the opposite side of the valley, before heading out for the evening to sample some more of the lovely local German food and of course, local wine and beer.

The following day we headed up into the hills and forest on our side of the valley in the morning to explore further. Having seen several honesty stalls offering strawberries, cherries and asparagus amongts other seasonal fruit and veg, we passed by an honesty schnapps bar en route…. absolutely ingenious, they really have everything in Durbach.

The walking and views were absolutely stunning – obviously helped by the blue skies and sun – although with such a wonderful combination of texture and colour over the rolling hills you really couldn’t go far wrong.

Despite being distracted by the beautiful scenery and walking we still managed to find some time to pop in to do some tasting and obviously purchasing of a selection of white wines.

The area is once again mainly known for its white wines but it also produces a selection of rose, reds and sparkling – both rose and white. We had come accross several of the varieties of grape whilst in the vineyards near the Am Main river, but there were more here, offering a wider variety of wines from dry through to desert and spirits.

After three glorious nights, it was however time to move on, although this taster of the local produce was enough to entice us to do a little (or perhaps large) detour and come past Durbach each time we visit Germany.

So after a little cross over into France – when we almost forgot to put our ‘Angles Morts’ stickers on – we crossed back into Germany to arrive at Zweibrucker where we stopped at a Stellplatz associated with the Rosengarten (16 euro).

Zweibrucker isn’t anything to write home about although it does apparently have one of the worlds largest rosariums and is also known for the Zweibrucker horse breed… which makes sense as there were stables, race courses and dressage areas dotted all over the place.

We had planned to stop in Zweibrucker to do a ‘last’ German food shop….although for some reason didn’t realise that the day after we arrived was a national holiday and everything was closed. This wouldn’t ordinarily have been a problem as the store cupboards always have something to rustle up, but coincidentely we had arranged to meet David and Nicky who were at the start of a little European trip and doing a little detour to come find us. It all worked out though and I can happily say that tinned artichoke hearts, spinach and edamame beans go really well in a lasagne…. friends are so forgiving!

The all important shopping was done the following morning just before we headed off to cross over into Luxemburg where we had booked into Camping Kockelscheur (21 euro p/n).

The campsite was 5km outside the city itself and on the edge of a forest, offering a lovely relaxed leafy feel and enormous pitches…. plenty big enough for us to get the BBQ out for Pizzas and not feel like we were imposing on the neighbours!

After a very hilly morning run – I hadn’t really appreciated how many hills there were around Luxemburg – we jumped on the bikes and headed into Luxemburg, chaining them up at the station to enable us to explore on foot.

Neither Keith or I had been to Luxemburg city previously and as it was a bit of an unplanned visit we hadn’t done any research either so just took the opportunity to walk and explore, appreciating the architecture and history around it.

Although we aren’t big ‘city’ people, and to be fair – Luxemburg isn’t a ‘Big’ city with roughly 130,000 population, it is very pretty and didn’t feel too busy despite us visiting on a Saturday. I am not going to say that we would be back to visit tomorrow, but we would happily stop if passing through and that isn’t just to fill up with cheap fuel!

Leaving Luxemburg behind us and with our Eurotunnel booked in the not too distant future, we had decided to do a little stop off at Ypres – another place that we had been trying to visit for a while but with one thing or another, we hadn’t made it… this time however, it was meant to be.

We had booked ourselves into Camping Jeurgstation, 16 euro p/n which was 5 minutes walk from the city wall and ten minutes walk from the Menin Gate. The campsite was full which was expected and it was lovely to walk (and run) around the moat outside the walls taking in the views of one of the cemetaries.

Visiting Ypres is incredibly moving and I doubt if there is anyone who has ever listened to the last post being played at the Menin Gate without the hairs on their arms standing on their ends – you can’t help not be affected by the history and memories that the town holds, lest we forget.

We are glad that we finally made it to Ypres – despite most of it being under scaffholding or part dug up – it certainly brought a historic and educational finish to our little trip away.

Leaving Ypres we did a quick overnight stop in Hondeschoote to stock up on a bit of cheese and more wine…. French reds, naturally – before arriving back in the UK at the farm for a week to catch up with family and re-stock the cupboards with a few bits that are just a little bit more complicated to get whilst abroad….. who else buys 9kg of Oats or Stone ground Spelt flour at a time – I don’t know!!

The week passed very quickly and didn’t give me enough time to get the blog completed so here we are up on Norfolk having stopped off for one night at Oaklands CL just outside Stilton…. which disappointingly doesn’t actually make Stilton any more despite being the origin of the cheese. Stilton can now only be made in one of three counties – Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire and Stilton – the village – is in Cambridgeshire. No stilton for us this trip then…. or not yet at least!

The stop over in Stilton was planned specifically around a visit to Camos UK who make the 360 camera system that we have on the motorhome as we wanted to upgrade it so that it could record data as well as just be used in real time – something that isn’t possible in Germany due to privacy legislation. The Camos UK team were brilliant and had us on the road again by mid-day with a new system which hopefully we will never need to use for insurance purposes!

You can’t ever say that you were just passing Norfolk…. it is pretty much a detour from wherever you were planning to go but as we were close by, we felt that it was a good excuse to come back to Blakeney and explore a bit further as we loved the area so much when we visited ast year.

…and naturally it would have been rude not to have Sunday lunch at the Wiverton Bell again whilst in the area – which once again was excellent, although interestingly we both agreed that we would try somewhere new next time as there are just so many options in the area…

After three lovely tranquil nights it was time to move on….. Well, I say ‘tranquil nights’ but weirdly around 21:15 each night we were invaded by enormous flying beetles that surrounded the motorhome and as everything was open due to the heat, obviously had a good try at getting in! No harm done and by 21:45 they had gone again…. very bizarre!

On Monday morning. we moved 45 minutes back along the North coast to Sandringham to stay at the Caravan and Motorhome Club Site (£31.60 per night) which is within the Sandringham Estate.

The Campsite is well spaced out, very tranquil, full of rabbits…..and most importantly for us, provides access straight into the Sandringham Estate and the wooded area which has been both running and walking territory for the last three days. Although the weather has changed and it is cooler and overcast, it has generally been dry during the day and we have taken advantage of the area by exploring both the estate and also the Wolferton Station which used to be the ‘Royal’ station from 1862 through until 1969 – a beautifully maintained ‘museum’ although now in private ownership.

and the all important map to show just where we have been this trip…..