2019-07 Germany & France Overview
Summer 2019: Europeade Germany and France
Background
Early July is hot and sunny, and we spend time in the garden at home getting it tidy and in order again. We dig up the old (and dead) heathers in the very top rockery bed and plant an entirely new bed of 20 winter flowering heathers. The yucca plant produces a formidable flower, 7-foot-high, after 7 years of waiting. It is a white phantom covered in about 70 or 80 white bell flowers… what a spectacle.
We spend the weekend of 6th and 7th of July at Drax Sports club in Yorkshire, in the shadow of the gentle giants (the 12 cooling towers of Drax power station) in two days of difficult and demanding English dancing with workshops during the day and an evening dance on Friday and Saturday nights.
We return home and spend the week of 8th July cleaning and packing the Hymer motorhome for a four-week road trip by camper to Germany and France.
We are part of an English Folk Dance group that is travelling to Germany to take part in a European Folk Festival, Europeade that is held this year in the small town of Frankenberg on the river Eder in Germany. After the folk festival we will visit friends in Germany, then travel to France where we plan to explore sites associated with William the Conqueror before moving on the Brittany to meet our son and his family who will be taking a holiday in a country house set in a small village.
We expect to be away for about 4 weeks, as usual we have booked our outward travel, for this trek it's Eurotunnel from Folkstone to Calais; we don't normally book a return crossing so that we have flexibility. That means we can extend our stay or come home early.
On the individual pages you'll find a map of our route each day, taken from google Timeline plus photographs of the most interesting things, a description of where we stayed overnight with details of the type of location and cost.
2019-07-13 Home To Calais Via Eurotunnel
Home to Calais, France Via Eurotunnel
We spend a lot of time sorting out the Hymer motorhome during the week, packing clothes, food etc and checking that all the small items that we know will be needed are still inside. It's a long job packing up the motorhome for a big trek, but it pays off when the trip goes smoothly. In the worst case we can purchase things we need on the way.
An early start as we drive south via the M6 to Stafford, where we are re-routed off the M6, through the town centre of Stafford that is a bit run down as it was in 2013 when Gill taught a course there.
Back on the M6 at Wolverhampton and south over Spaghetti junction to Warwick Services on the M40 where we stop for lunch. Back on the road again through a series of Smart motorway upgrades, roadworks and various minor delays to the M25. Here we discover that the M26 link road from the M25 is closed with a delay of over one-hour.
This is getting serious as it means we would have used all three hours of our contingency time getting to Eurotunnel around the time of check-in closing! Fortunately, going the long way around the M25 will save us an hour.
We arrive at Folkestone at 5.30pm and park up at the lemon Leaf Nepalese restaurant, basic furniture and fittings, good prices and excellent food. We have two Nepalese mixed grill chef specials; we realise we are both very hungry.
To Eurotunnel departures, arriving in good time for check-in, no searching this time, it is very quiet and very little queueing. A good journey over in 30 mins arriving at Calais before 9.00pm local time. We are off the train very quickly and drive to Gravelot Camperplaats (Aire for motor homes only), there are at least 30 campers already there and the campsite next to it looks full.
We park up and realise we have driven 350 miles and are very tired, so go to bed fairly soon after arriving and sleep very well.