Today marked the end of our two year adventure. We packed up the caravan for the last time for a while and made our way from our last stop in Ypres to catch our Eurotunnel train back to the UK.
Towing Kilometres – Ypres to Calais: 98 Cumulative: 36,390
Our base for the visit to Luxembourg City was Camping Krounebierg. The site is tiered on a sloping hillside and is well laid out. We had reserved a place in advance and on arrival we were allocated an impossibly narrow and sloping pitch requiring a return to reception to request a change. The second pitch was much larger in size and flat.
Ray had secretly made plans with one of our boys, Richard, to pop over to Luxembourg for the weekend and surprise me on our arrival at the campsite yesterday, after the drive from Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and his plan worked! I was suitably shocked 😉
Towing Kilometres – Today: 409 – Cumulative: 35,951
Richard was staying in a little boutique hotel, the nearest one he could find to our campsite and we enjoyed a great meal with him last night and even decided to treat ourselves to an overnight stop too!
We hadn’t realised before we reached Augsburg the other day, that we were on the Romantic Road or Romantische Straße, as it is signposted in Germany.
After a little research on the wonder web we had learned more about this scenic/theme/tourist route. Unbeknown to us we had actually been quite close when we were visiting Oberammergau & Linderhof Palace last year as well as when we passed the hilltop castle of Harburg on Wednesday!
The day after our visit to Dinkelsbühl, we explored the delightful medieval old town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, right on the doorstep of our campsite and another popular stop for visitors on the Romantic Road. The town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber sits in the Tauber Valley and was once a free imperial town and today is renowned for its well preserved old town walls, numerous gatehouses, towers and many historic landmarks.
After spending the last two days since arriving from Lake Bled watching The Open and various domestic duties we blew up the bike tyres, oiled the chains, and rode off to visit Augsburg.
Travelling on pleasant and almost flat cycle paths we made straight for the Botanical Gardens which is a distance of 16km from the campsite. Most of the route followed the River Lech which is a tributary of The Danube and there was the occasional cool breeze off the river to give relief from the hot weather.
After a few days at Campsite Slapić and Plitvice Lakes, it was time to move on. One place that I had considered visiting on the 2009 motorcycle tour was Lake Bled. In the end we visited Postojna Cave instead, therefore the decision was made to visit the lake now.
Once again Kim picked out a site, Camping Šobec, which lies on the Sava Dolinka River near Lesce, Slovenia. This would be an ideal base as it’s only a 5km walk to the lakeside.
Towing Kilometres – Today: 243 – Cumulative: 34,947
After two lovely days in Budapest, the next place we hoped to visit was the Plitvice Lakes National Park. I had visited in 2009 on the way down to Dubrovnik and was sure Kim would like to see it.
It would also provide our first ‘white water’ fix in many a month. 🙂
After our first day in Budapest, today we arrived again into the city by bus at Stop Number 11 on our Yellow Line Bus route at Margit Híd Bridge on the Buda side of the River Danube.
On our list of places to visit today was Buda Castle, Várkert Bazár and The Fisherman’s Bastion, all of which were on the western side of the Danube.
We chose our current campsite, Zugliget Niche Camping, as it had the major advantage of a bus stop just a short walk away at Zugligeti Libegő and a 20 minute ride on the 291 into Budapest through the leafy suburbs of the city on the Buda side of the Danube.
Marta, the campsite matriarch, was able to sell us tickets for one of the Hop on Hop off City Buses and we purchased a 48 hour ticket, with a discount for Ray 😉 She also informed us that Ray qualified for free travel on all public transport, bargain!
I purchased my single journey ticket of 450 Forint (in 2019) on the bus and made sure to validate it there and then.