Club Motorhome Bloggers

We attended the Carthago Owners Club UK gathering in York which was our first proper camping. The meet was in the grounds of a stately home, Sutton Park, and was a great few days being a very well organised event.

By chance we met the previous owners of our van which was handy to fill in some of the details of the van's history. It was also an opportunity to acquire a set of stainless wheel trims that were residing in their loft!

We discovered at the end of the meet that we had a water leak from our shower and on investigation it turned out to be a broken shower trap. Long story short, the warrantee company said it was not covered by them (no surprise there) but the supplying dealer readily agreed to sort it out. It took a little while to organise as the parts had to come from Germany so we had to make do with Duck-Tape sealing one of the two plug holes.....

Time was getting on towards our date to get back into Europe but eventually the part arrived and was fitted at the dealer's workshops - thank you GoEuropean! Another visit to our friends in Stratford upon Avon and a booking was made for the Eurotunnel.

2014 – News No 7

Into Poland.

Our first stop in Poland was at Zakopane – a favourite ski resort for the Poles and a popular summer destination too; we had expected to stop 2 or 3 days visiting the mountains, but as we had just spent 3 days just 30 miles away in the mountains in Slovakia, we took a brief look at the town, drew some zlotys from the hole in the wall and continued on through some very distinct villages where, even now, almost all the houses are made of wood. In one such village – particularly noted in our guide book

We left the Balaton Lake area and travelled on towards Budapest. On the way we stopped at a town called Tapolca, where there is a lake in the caves underneath the town. [This is a limestone area, like much of Hungary seems to be; are an abundance of caves and, most of all, hot springs – this really does seem to be the spa capital of Europe.] We visited the caves, where you paddle your own canoe – well, flat-bottomed metal boat, (made of metal so it doesn't fall apart when you hit the sides of the cave – as you do!).

This was a very pleasant town and a lovely way to spend an hour paddling under the town.

We also stopped off at a town with a beautiful 'altstadt' (the German word seems, uncharacteristically, much more succinct than 'historic-town-centre' in English).

Maribor in Slovenia has a lovely 'old town' which is also the thriving centre of the modern town

Like many towns abroad it still has its C&A. I wonder – if they had held on in UK a little longer, would they have successfully filled the gap nowtaken by Primark and the like? It seems strange that they can trade successfully in so many other countries but couldn't succeed in the UK.

E got to Venice and spent a good 5 days 'doing the place.  I'm not putting any pictures on of Venice as you've seen all the photos and the Cannelletos, so what would my photos add.  We spent a day in Padua, then on to Trieste, this time staying opposite te yacht harbour, not under the viaduct with he rattling expansion plate as last time we went there.  We are now in Maribor, parked at a small restaurant by the river, having partaken of their excellent, and excellent value food earlier in the evening.  We have avoided the tolls, so no costs there, but when we get to Hungary I think it will be different!

This is Merano, the area of Venice where they make glass and have been doing so for hundreds of years

The Gorge de Verdon in Provence, France.  It's deep, long and wide - photos (mine anyway!) don't do it justice!

Recently we spent our last night in our wonderful motorhome..... The next night we spent the first night in our wonderful motorhome!

After a long, long while of indecision we finally made our minds up and put our beloved Bel-Air up for sale, we had a replacement in mind but as always the figures to change had to work. We had a guide price to part exchange from a dealer who had what we wanted but felt we needed a bit more and placed some classifieds.

After a couple of weeks of enquiries without a serious one amongst them we visited the dealer for a serious viewing and a serious chat..... We definitely wanted to deal and with some negotiating the p/ex figure was raised and some goodies were included so we shook hands!

With some mixed and excited feelings we became the very pleased and proud owners of our new (to us) motorhome - a Carthago.

We arranged the changeover for a week later and decided to visit friends at a campsite reasonably nearby in the meantime. The week dragged by and the anticipation grew but eventually the day came and we made our way back to the dealer. After the formalities and the handover instructions we spent a couple of hours transferring our various bits of kit - hadn't realised just how much stuff we carried!

All done, I cautiously drove away glancing back at our Bel-Air in the mirrors - a strange feeling, that motorhome meant such a lot to us......