European RVing

[2Roadrunners]

Cornelius woke me up on this snowy day.

In the early 1990's my daughter was in Lahr, Germany at the CFB there. She bought a '73 VW Westfalia camper and on our vacations over there we would travel.

Believe me, Europeans know how to travel. Everything is close there so I noticed that the CGs were emptied by 7:30 AM and by 9:00 AM they would be filling again. Talk about traveling un-stressed! Most CGs then did not have electricity, swimming pools or picnic tables and not many sites. Folks just set up, especially in France and Italy. Fantastic!

At a CG south of Munich, you took public transport to the Haufbrau Haus. We spent quite a few days there in Munich and at one time there were fourteen VWs lined up in the CG, with one being from New Zealand, several from Austria, Germany and one pumpkin colored one with Canadian Armed Forces plates. What great exchanges wedid have with these folks. (Westfalias do this to people, y'know).

Weinfests and bierfests around Lahr and in Alsace were places to spend the night and not necessarily in your rig....you did that at sunrise. You ex-military, remember those times?

Speaking of military over there, remember Lauterbrunen, Switzerland? Rving, bikes,funiculars and hiking. In bathing suits on your site with a bottle of Riegeler (sp?) and fresh snow almost within grasp on top of the Alps.

In Austria we set up at a place called Achensee, a high altitude lake between Seefeld and the Tyrol Valley ( if I remember right). You camp on this lake and you never want to leave. Alpine swimming is something you do not forget. The water is the colour of Lake Huron and as the day wears on otturns to a sandy beigecolour as the bottom has been stirred up by bathers. The sandy colour is the sediment washed down from the Alps over the centuries. Belled cows are herded by your site.

But Holland...what memories! Rved and biked there. In CGs there I saw people, very often too, walking around evenings dressed very proper, dresses and high heels. We would all wind up at the Winkle to get french fries and mayo in a cone of paper.We camped out one night in Durgerdam in the suburbs of Amsterdam and they had a dance and we went. It lasted all night. I did not know their dances when I entered the tent, but I danced my way out at the end of the evening (night??). We spent a few nights at a place called Duesberg, a very nice CG near Maastricht. We found that the Centrum, well all of them for that matter, are VERY friendly places to hang out.

As for gas? No problem, you never drive that far. Cool!

For us, these trips over there camping between 1985 & 1994 were by fat THE best. In 1985 we celebrated our 25th wedding aniversary by taking our bikes and camping gear over and left Paris on a train to Liège, Belgium, thence to Maastricht, up thre Juliana Canal and we biked as far north as Den Berg/Den Hoorn (forget which one) in the Texel Islands before returning. We were on the road for 28 days.

[2Roadrunners]

Cornelius woke me up on this snowy day.

In the early 1990's my daughter was in Lahr, Germany at the CFB there. She bought a '73 VW Westfalia camper and on our vacations over there we would travel.

Believe me, Europeans know how to travel. Everything is close there so I noticed that the CGs were emptied by 7:30 AM and by 9:00 AM they would be filling again. Talk about traveling un-stressed! Most CGs then did not have electricity, swimming pools or picnic tables and not many sites. Folks just set up, especially in France and Italy. Fantastic!

At a CG south of Munich, you took public transport to the Haufbrau Haus. We spent quite a few days there in Munich and at one time there were fourteen VWs lined up in the CG, with one being from New Zealand, several from Austria, Germany and one pumpkin colored one with Canadian Armed Forces plates. What great exchanges wedid have with these folks. (Westfalias do this to people, y'know).

Weinfests and bierfests around Lahr and in Alsace were places to spend the night and not necessarily in your rig....you did that at sunrise. You ex-military, remember those times?

Speaking of military over there, remember Lauterbrunen, Switzerland? Rving, bikes,funiculars and hiking. In bathing suits on your site with a bottle of Riegeler (sp?) and fresh snow almost within grasp on top of the Alps.

In Austria we set up at a place called Achensee, a high altitude lake between Seefeld and the Tyrol Valley ( if I remember right). You camp on this lake and you never want to leave. Alpine swimming is something you do not forget. The water is the colour of Lake Huron and as the day wears on otturns to a sandy beigecolour as the bottom has been stirred up by bathers. The sandy colour is the sediment washed down from the Alps over the centuries. Belled cows are herded by your site.

But Holland...what memories! Rved and biked there. In CGs there I saw people, very often too, walking around evenings dressed very proper, dresses and high heels. We would all wind up at the Winkle to get french fries and mayo in a cone of paper.We camped out one night in Durgerdam in the suburbs of Amsterdam and they had a dance and we went. It lasted all night. I did not know their dances when I entered the tent, but I danced my way out at the end of the evening (night??). We spent a few nights at a place called Duesberg, a very nice CG near Maastricht. We found that the Centrum, well all of them for that matter, are VERY friendly places to hang out.

As for gas? No problem, you never drive that far. Cool!

For us, these trips over there camping between 1985 & 1994 were by fat THE best. In 1985 we celebrated our 25th wedding aniversary by taking our bikes and camping gear over and left Paris on a train to Liège, Belgium, thence to Maastricht, up thre Juliana Canal and we biked as far north as Den Berg/Den Hoorn (forget which one) in the Texel Islands before returning. We were on the road for 28 days.

[Little Kopit]

For starters, for all of Europe, go to European Web Cams They're not strictly traffic web cams they way they are over here. I think they are more like tourist promotion web cams.

What coverage there is in other countries than the Netherlands is uneven, but I sure like the ones in the Netherlands. Most rotate and show you different views as the camera turns. The post seems to change but once an hour.

But, 2Roadrunners, you can find more of Europe.