BY MOTORHOME FROM ENGLAND TO ROMANIA

This daily log gives an account of a 2,000-mile motorhome journey to Moldavia in the far north-east of Romania, leaving the UK on 25 May 2006 on the Portsmouth-Caen ferry. We drove from the Second World War battlefields of Normandy to the First World War battlefields between Verdun and Saarbrucken on the French/German border. How we admire the European Union!

After pausing at Heidelberg and again near Nuremberg, we are headed for the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary (to see good friends in Budapest) and then into Romania. After meeting the Fizedean family (old friends from our days of taking aid to Romanian Orphanages) near Arad,, we will continue north and east across the Carpathian Mountains into Transylvania, to the rural campsite of 'De Oude Wilg'.

Our intention is to leave the motorhome with the friendly Dutch/Romanian couple there, whilst we take to our bicycles to explore Moldavia, the Black Sea coast and the borders of the Ukraine and Moldova. Entry to these 2 countries is uncertain, but we will try.

To see how we got on and discover what we actually did, read on!

Distances are given in miles; heights in feet; and costs in Euros. 1 mile = 1.6 km; 1 foot = 0.3 metres and, at present, 1 Euro = about 0.7 Pounds Sterling. The current exchange rate for each non-Euro country is given in the log. The daily rate quoted for campsites generally includes an electrical hook-up.

A Table of Distances, Fuel and Costs for the journey from the UK will be included at the end of this log.

To read the June instalment of this Travel Log, click here.

After a short (13-day) visit to England, where Motorhome Medics of Cheltenham again came to our rescue, servicing, repairing, MOT-ing and fitting a new fridge/freezer in our travelling home, we left Briarfields Caravan Park, conveniently placed less than a mile from their workshops. A couple of miles later we were at junction 11 of the M5 and heading to Portsmouth for a ferry to France. It had at last stopped raining after a week's continual downpour (and a drought declared in south-east England?)

Clear roads all the way: south via Cirencester and Swindon, east on M4 to Newbury, south again to Winchester, then M3 and M27 to Portsmouth's cross-channel ferry port. We arrived in good time for Brittany Ferries 3.15 pm sailing on 'Mont St Michel', arriving at Ouistreham-Caen at 9 pm (or 10 pm French time). The crossing was calm and misty; the boat busier than before, with school half-term imminent. A party of French school-kids received 2 oral warnings on the loudspeaker system about their behaviour. If it continued, they would be confined to a Salon!

We disembarked behind a short line of British caravans, which vanished into the night, and we turned west from the Gare Maritime to the nearby free car parks. The first (complete with water and dump point) was already full of French motorhomes. A second, much larger, car park in Place Thomas, across from the Casino, had plenty of space and we joined about 20 other camping-caristes (one Belgian, the rest French) for a quiet night.

Lest We Forget: Ouistreham and D-Day

We took a walk along the sea-front into the centre of Ouistreham, hoping to buy scallops at the fish market on the quayside but they had sold out. After inspecting various live crustaceans, from tiny winkles to fearsome lobsters, we selected a pair of Limandes (lemon sole), which at least appeared to be dead. These same fishermen had recently blocked the port and delayed our ferry to Portsmouth by several hours but we don't bear grudges.

We saw an advert for a Friday night market starting at 6.30 pm on the Casino car park, so we judged it wise to move the motorhome! Just a few miles west, through Lion-sur-Mer, is Luc-sur-Mer with an excellent camping municipal, where we settled down to gut and cook our fish supper.

We took time here to get ready for the onward drive to Romania, sorting out insurance for the motorhome and ourselves for countries beyond the EU (long may it continue to expand!) and looking at routes.

Friends were emailed, our website updated with text and images, photographs chosen for an article we've written about Camping Thines in Greece – and a strong complaint registered with the Motorhome Ticket Club about their ferry prices, but that's another story, told on:

We were camped just inland from Sword Beach, the easternmost of the 5 D-Day Landing Beaches used by the Allies in June 1944. There are many sites, museums, cemeteries and monuments from the ensuing Battle of Normandy, on which the fate of Western Europe after the Second World War depended. In Ouistreham, the Musee du Mur de l'Atlantique (Museum of the Atlantic Wall) is in a restored artillery range-finding tower, while the Musee No 4 Commando tells the epic story of the first commandos to land on Sword Beach at dawn on 6 June.

Nearly 20 years ago we cycled the Normandy coast from Cherbourg and Caen, along the beaches of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, visiting the museum near the mulberry harbours at Arromanches and paying our respects at British, Canadian, American and German War Graves. Today there are dozens of visitor centres and organised tours.

Driving south from Luc-sur-Mer on the D7, past a Commonwealth War Graves (CWG) cemetery, it was 10 miles to the Caen ring road (Peripherique), at which we turned east. We visited the CWG we passed at Banneville, impressed as ever by the immaculate gardens; saddened as ever by the youth of the hundreds of men and their poignant epitaphs, often written by their grieving families.

North-east on the A13 Autoroute Normnadie, we paid a total of €10.80 for a fast route to and around Rouen, taking exit 22. Here we crossed the Seine, 90 miles from Luc, then followed the N31, a 2-lane country road, eastwards across lush green countryside punctuated by regular roundabouts – like commas slowing us down – and through the Forest of Lyons to Gournay-en-Bray, 30 miles on. Lunch after another 15 miles near Beauvais, then round Compiegne to meet the N131.

A few miles east of Compiegne is the Clairiere de l'Armistice, a forest clearing just 1.5 km north of N131, where the First World War ended on 11 November 1918 with the signing of the Armistice in a railway carriage. The plaque read: Here the criminal pride of the German empire was brought low, vanquished by the free peoples whom it had sought to enslave.

In 1940 Hitler had the French sign their capitulation in the same place. The original carriage was taken to Berlin and then disappeared.

Sobered and thoughtful, we continued to Soissons and found the Camping Municipal on the west bank of the River Aisne, next to an indoor swimming pool (free to campers, but sadly closed on Sundays). Our neighbours were Dutch, French, Belgian and some Welsh caravanners, fretting about reverse polarity. We said we liked it!

Between rain showers, we walked into Soissons along the bank of the Aisne. In this ancient town Clovis, King of the Franks, defeated the Romans in 486 AD (and went on to be baptised in Reims 10 years later). It was a strategic military base for Napoleon and later suffered extensive damage in World War II, shown in photographs in the thirteenth century cathedral. The ruined Abbey of St Jean des Vignes was equally impressive, the town refreshingly non-touristy, and the baker gave us free samples of his patisserie for ordering our bread and croissants in French! A good visit all round.

We returned to the campsite for lunch, then got back on the N31 heading east. With a stop after 20 miles to shop at Lidl in Fisme, we continued for 30 miles to Reims, where the A4 motorway took us round to the south of the city, free of charge (exit at junction 26 before the toll). The N44 and D.931 led to Verdun, along the Voie de Liberte, past a German military cemetery and then a French one, either side of Suippes, along with signs to many other World War I graveyards, including an American cemetery. The flat open countryside, now wheatfields and forests, climbed gradually from 400 ft to 780 ft, falling to Verdun on the River Meuse at 600 ft.

The private campsite in Verdun is featured in our new guidebook and card for 950 sites in 17 countries: 'Camping Card ACSI – Off-season Discount Card 2006'. At Les Breuils, the price of €14 including electricity applies to the months of April, May and September, so we just made it! (See www.campingcard.com for info. We bought the Discount Book at an English motorhome dealer's, price £4.50 – actually, we got it for £2.55 as the year was part-over, a bargain indeed!)

Pouring rain and a hail storm kept us inside all evening, reading to remind ourselves about the dreadful events of 1916 on the battlefield of Verdun, where the German command's resolution to 'bleed the French army to death' in a protracted battle resulted in 700,000 dead (and almost half of them German).

On 2 previous visits to this campsite, in 1995 and 1999, we have thoroughly explored the battlefields here on our bicycles – the Forts of Vaux and Douamont, the shell craters and vanished village sites, the cemeteries and the vast and ghastly ossuary, the Fleury museum, the bayonet trench, the Citadel experience. For the French, Verdun personifies the hideous futility of trench warfare, just as the Somme does for the English.

Heading east on N3 across the battlefield of the Cotes de Meuse we passed the signs to the Forts of Vaux and Douamont, saw a French military cemetery, then a German one– there is no escaping the legacy of horror here. Even the weather was suitably grey, showery and gloomy with more hail – sun and birdsong would seem inappropriate.

At Etain, vehicles over 3.5 tons were directed to the A4 Autoroute de l'Est so we had no choice but to pay the toll of €4.60 for an easy drive to Metz, where we crossed the Canal and then the Moselle River after 56 miles. After junction 34, the motorway was free round Metz, after which we exited onto N3 eastwards climbing to 1,280 ft before dropping to 700 ft at St Avold, where we parked for lunch. Past yet another military cemetery (American), we rejoined the A4 eastwards. A toll of €0.60 took us to the German border, after which all motorways are, thankfully, free (to all except heavy goods vehicles, above 12 tons).

We crossed the River Saar, skirting Saarbrucken to the south, then crossed the rainy Saarland eastwards, A6 Autobahn all the way to the Rhine and across to Mannheim. Turning south-east, on A67 and A656 we reached Heidelberg, the picturesque University town on the River Neckar, with its Student Prince associations. Arriving at tea-time, we joined the rush hour traffic along the B37, following the south bank of the Neckar for 7 miles to Neckargemund. The campsite on the grassy river bank was very busy but the Dutch owner found us a place near the gate. Also in the ACSI scheme, the off-season price included electricity and 2 shower tokens.

We had a good view of the big barges and pleasure boats (Heidelberg – Neckargemund –Heilbronn) going by, but heavy rain again prevented local exploration. We had some fun writing coded emails to the two Ians (in Bournemouth and Budapest) about getting our Green Card insurance certificate forwarded from one to the other.

A few miles south on B45 took us to the A6 motorway, which we followed east, across the Neckar at Heilbronn and on to Nuremberg. It rained solidly, so we made only brief stops at service stations.

Skirting Nuremberg to the south and east, we took the A9 (Berlin-bound) motorway north for a few miles, then turned east again on B14, the old main road leading to the Czech border. Driving through rolling forest at over 1,000 ft, this was the road we took many years ago, when we cycled across Germany and Czechoslovakia on our first visit to the 'Iron Curtain' countries. In those days, the road was eerily empty, devoid of traffic, while today there is a succession of busy little villages and a parallel motorway (A6) to the south, which we'll meet at Wernberg, for Pilsen and Prague.

The municipal camping and open-air pools, up at 1,350 ft in the forest at Schnaittenbach (or Schnoittenbecka in the local Bavarian dialect), are delightful – a quiet field for tourers, alongside a settlement of statics and garden gnomes. Sadly, the baths are closed due to unseasonably cold wet weather, but piping hot showers are freely available.

We shared the field with a lone English caravan, whose friendly occupant works at a local US army base, and enjoyed a day off here, giving time for writing and laundry. The Vodafone GPRS connection was reliable but so slow we could get nothing into the website (including this log!)

To read the June instalment of this Travel Log, click here.