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So much to see, so little time..........
Today we had a day travelling from the Vosges region, which was a real shame
to leave, and heading for the Ardennes in Belgium. To do that we had to
travel through Luxembourg and then into Belgium, surprisingly enough there
were no boarders, literally, the border controls that used to be in use are
still there but they are basically unmaned, everyone slows down to go through
the actual border but I think that is just a hang over from pre-EU days. The
only checkpoints we've actually gone through that have been serious have been
into Switzerland and Spain (which at least in the Basque region thinks it's
still a dictatorship!) - I read in the FT weekend that the Basque region has
become the new Wales for the English - that is if you want to come home to a
"real fire" at your holiday home :-) (hope you readers can remember those
times in Wales!). Anyway - I digress. A steady drive (we're not in a rush to
get anywhere) North, through Lux, into Belgium, more particularly the
Ardennes and what a beautiful place. For all you second world war buffs out
there, or even those of you that have seen band of brothers we are about 40km
away from Bastogne and are just about in the middle of where the "Battle of
the Bulge" took place. I can't image the battle at all because the terrain is
severely steep and there are so many trees......... the war films don't do it
justice.
While we were travelling I had and amusing moment, I have already said that
we bought a TomTom for the trip and that has been fantastic, however it is a
bit of a pain everytime you stop having to move the screen mount and all the
wires to ensure that you don't get your car broken into........ anyway, apart
from shifting all the acoutrements from sight I tend to stick the TomTom
itself in a bag and take that with me. On the trip I did this, we pulled into
some services, moved all the bits and bobs, put the TomTom in it's case and
that in my bag....... off we went inside and had some brunch (we hadn't had
breakfast because the croissants on the site left something to be desired..)
- all went well until it came time to leave and I went to the gents to make
sure the next part of the journey was comfortable........ I just reached the
urinal, unzipped and started a steady stream when the TomTom (in the womans
voice that it's set to) said, "turn around when possible"........ lucky I was
in the toilets otherwise I'd have peed myself - very fortunate that no-one
else was in there either :-)
We had selected the campsite (as we had many of the previous ones) from the
Alan Rogers guide and so you only have a rough idea of where it is and what
the surroundings are like so when we turned up at "Le Petit Nice" - in the
middle of nowhere.... it was pleasantly surprising to find we were in a
valley, surrounded by farmland and, er, trees. I never realised that Belgium
was so big into trees but apparently it is. The site is terraced and
virtually none of the pitches are flat (most annoying especially if you're
not in a motorhome of caravan and can't level yourself up), anywy as it's not
that busy we managed to find a nice spot at the back of the site near the
virtually empty static caravans. As far away fromthe "entertainment" as you
can get and as quiet as possible (within a quick dash of the loos :-) ) - we
thought this all added up to "peace and tranquility" but we didn't account
for the rutting bulls (in the field behind us), barking dogs (at the farm
across the field), screeching owls (god knows where) and kids getting up
early (little ***t**d*) and screeming like they were being beaten! Perhaps
tonight will be more peaceful - lets hope so......
Ciao for now
Ian and Claire
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