Lake Annecy, France: Our plan was to depart Lake Annecy after the last blog post, but Tony and I both woke up the following day to gorgeous weather and said to each other, let’s stay in Lake Annecy another day. So, we did. One of the benefits of traveling in a campervan with no reservations is we can make up our itinerary as we go. We spent our last day in Lake Annecy cycling on our Bromptons along the many miles of coastal bike paths encircling the lake. We found the landing zone for the constant stream of paragliders we have been seeing from our campsite and we watched as they effortlessly landed. This area was also used by new paragliders who were practicing their skills of getting their sails up, controlling their sails and also packing and unpacking their sails. It was all interesting to watch and I am 100% going to do a tandem paraglide when I am back in the area again.

We have noticed that some cars have a giant “A” decal affixed to the rear and we couldn’t figure out what that was for. We subsequently learned that all new drivers in France, including commercial drivers, have to display the “A” decal on their car/truck for 3 years after license issuance to alert other drivers they are less experienced. Brilliant!

Chamonix, France: We had a lovely drive from Lake Annecy to Chamonix and the weather was forecasted to be overcast and just OK during our stay. The weather apps were wrong {again} but this time in our favor as the weather was warm and sunny and absolutely beautiful and far better than the forecast. While driving in France, we have noticed that there are almost no gaudy billboards along the roadside, even on the A and toll roads. We found it so much more enjoyable to see nature than the constant barrage of brightly colored billboards that line most US highways hyping personal injury lawyers, McDonalds and gas stations.

Our plan was to park in a paid bus/coach lot in the downtown Chamonix area that had many positive reviews on the Park4Night app but when we arrived there were no motorhome signs everywhere. Tony pivoted and found us a campground 1.5 miles from the city but there was a low bridge between us and the campground. We stopped well short of this 2.5 m high bridge (we are 2.78 m in height), but the motorhome behind us thought they could fit. The woman got out and was directing her partner in a motorhome even taller than ours. We watched as they approached the bridge, then slowly inch by inch started under it until they were stuck. We didn’t wait around to see how they extracted themselves but we got a good chuckle on how silly people can be. We found an alternative bridge that was 3 m tall further up the road and we were able to access the campground from this route and even with 8 inches of clearance above us it still felt “tight”.

Chamonix was one of the places I was most looking forward to visiting on this trip and it absolutely did not disappoint. This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited in the world. On our first day, we took the “little red train” from Chamonix to Montenvers. This historic cogwheel train had just opened the day before and it took about 20 minutes of steep incline to arrive at the Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice) which is the largest glacier in France at 7km long and 200m deep. We visited the Glaciorium, a small but interesting museum about glaciers, however the highlight of the trip was the ice cave. We were using Rick Steves travel book on this trip and he felt the ice cave was not worth a visit, but we found this to be so incorrect! The ice cave was one of our favorites. I don’t know how Mr. Steves got this so very wrong, but he did. The new gondola had just opened for the season and reduced the number of steps we needed to take to the ice cave from over 400 to <100 steps. It was incredible to walk the labyrinth of tunnels carved into and inside of an actual glacier. Having spent last summer in Alaska, we know a bit about glaciers now, but we have never had the experience of being inside of a glacier. There were also a lot of people hiking on the Mer de Glace itself, but we had not brought proper equipment with us for safe glacial hiking so that will have to wait until another visit. As the construction of the new gondola had just finished, there were still many construction crews on site along with several helicopters which were lifting out sections of the old gondola for disposal. Interestingly, after many of the glacial hikers arrived back at the train station/trailhead, they would immediately drop their backpacks and light up a cigarette. The whole smoking culture here in France still baffles me.

The main attraction in Chamonix is the Aiguille du Midi – Chamonix cable car. The Aiguille du Midi is a 3842m (12600 feet) peak in the Mont Blanc massif of the French Alps. This is the closest you can get to the summit of Mont-Blanc without hiking or climbing. Our plan was to take an Uber from our campsite to the cable car as we had plans to do some hiking in the afternoon along with the walk back to our campsite from town. Tony checked the Uber app the day before and saw there were 4 Ubers in town and the ride would be around $12 Euro. However, on the morning we needed the Uber, there were 0 Ubers working. Tickets for the cable car are for a specific time and they are non-refundable and non-changeable. With no other options, we jog-walked the 2 miles into town and literally arrived within 2 minutes of our closing time for our purchased entry tickets. The jog-walk wouldn’t have been so bad had we not been dressed in full-on winter gear, wearing winter boots and Tony wearing 2 pairs of pants. Neither of us remembers much of the actual cable car ride to the top as we were both just hot and sweating and packed like sardines with 60 people in the cable car.

Once we arrived at the top, all of our almost-disastrous morning transportation issues faded away. The only words I can use to describe the Alps Mountain range are breath-taking and majestic. Upon our arrival at the top station, we heard an announcement that the Mont Blanc Panoramic cable car, the highest cable car in the world, was open for the first time of the season. This cable car spans 5 km and takes 20 minutes to connect France (Aiguille du Midi) with Italy (Point Helbronner). We quickly purchased tickets and we were treated to our own cable car with no waiting time. We explored Point Helbronner station (Italy!!!) including standing on a glass floor cantilevered over the edge of the mountain and visiting the elevated terraces providing 360-degree views of the mountains. After heading back on the Mont Blanc Panoramic cable car and arriving at Aiguille du Midi station, we hit all of the tourist stops including visiting Terrace 3842, the mountaineering museum, the hypoxia education exhibit, Le Tube and almost all of the terraces. Our trip ended while sitting outside in the glorious warmth and sunshine eating a picnic lunch (which Tony had jog-walked with from our campsite 😂). The only activities we didn’t do were the Step into the Void attraction as the line was quite long and we had already done something similar Point Helbronner, Italy earlier in the day and we missed the 4-D Immersive Cinema movie as it was closed on the day we were there. We certainly had luck on our side with warmish (for elevation) weather and sunny skies for this experience.

In addition to the tourists taking the cable cars, probably 1/3 of the passengers were either skiers, mountaineers, paragliders or speedriders. Speedriding was new to us, but it is a combination of skiing while attached to a parachute so the athlete alternates between skiing down the mountain and then can float with the parachute wing over rocky sections before landing on the snow again and continuing this pattern down the mountain. It is WILD to watch.   

All in all, Chamonix lived up to the hype and it is certainly a place we will visit again in the future.

Valence, France: Our flight home from Barcelona was quickly approaching so we decided to make haste in a westward direction over the next 2 days and spend time in coastal France, but this was not meant to be. After a ½ day of driving we arrived in Valence where the temperatures were already in the mid-80s during the day. Trying to live inside a dark grey, metal van with no A/C in the motorhome section is not ideal and pretty unpleasant if I am being truthful. Luckily, each of the pitches at the Aire we were staying at had a covered pergola so we spent most of the afternoon relaxing outside. Our resident amateur meteorologist, Tony, consulted the weather apps and decided it was going to be too hot in our planned destinations so we pivoted and decided to head to coastal Spain where it was considerably cooler.

Driving from Chamonix we noted quite a few nuclear power plants. We learned that 70% of the electricity used in France is supplied by nuclear power and it has been that way since the mid-80s. Tony grew up near the Davis–Besse Nuclear Power Station in NW Ohio so he was very interested in how nuclear power was being used in France.

{Tony Funny of the Day: Did you know this city is known for their window treatments? 😂}

Sète/Meze, France: Our next stop was to Sète which is the location of our registered agent. We needed to pick up our official registration paperwork for our new van (technically the temporary one we were driving on expired a week before this but we were living in willful ignorance at that point) and also our French Crit’Air anti-pollution vehicle sticker. Google was showing the address for our registered agent to be an abandoned boatyard so we weren’t sure what we were going to find on arrival. Luckily, the Google pin was just incorrect and the building was actually around the corner. The staff at this location spoke no English so with the help of Google Translate, some hand gesturing and the few French words in Tony’s vocabulary, he was able to retrieve all of our necessary paperwork.

We camped in a quiet Aire in Meze where the temperatures were tolerable in the high 70s. Tony was able to get in a bike ride and we took a lovely evening stroll around a nearby pond and watched a rugby scrimmage. The Aire became quite busy throughout the day, with a crazy German expedition vehicle on a Unimog chassis showing up late afternoon. Even crazier was the hard-sided roof of this vehicle which expanded upwards revealing a 2^nd level and making it close to 18 feet tall. This is not the type of vehicle you want if you are introverted as it drew a constant crowd of attention from those walking and driving by.

One observation we noted in France is that we did not see many people living in their cars, vans or motorhomes out of necessity as we see frequently in the US. When we first started traveling in Homer in 2012 in the US, we did not see a lot of car/van dwellers; however after starting to travel in Tofu in 2020 we see so many car/van dwellers and many, many cities/municipalities have ordinances now prohibiting sleeping in your vehicle, etc. Our time in France felt similar to when we travelled in 2012 in the US. There seems to be a safety net of some type in France that just does not exist in the US. I am not saying there is not any homelessness in France, it just doesn’t seem to be to the same extent as I see throughout the US.

Cadaques, Spain: We were not quite prepared for the road into Cadaques, Spain. There is a 10-mile stretch of twisty mountain hairpin turns all the way into the town. The road is the standard European “skinny” width; however larger vehicles (buses, trucks, RVs) cannot make the tight turns whilst staying in their lane so traffic is quite slow on this road. There were turn-outs to let faster drivers go by, but we noted a marked increase in the number of aggressive drivers passing in unsafe ways, often on turns, now that we have crossed into Spain. Also, many more people exceeding the speed limit than we saw in France.

We had a 3-night reservation at Wecamp Cadaques for a standard site (so we could finally use our off-season ASCI discount card for the 1^st time); however there was a mix-up on their end so instead of the standard pitch we had a beautiful premium view pitch overlooking the Mediterranean. The first day, the weather was lovely with warm temperatures and coastal breezes. Tony found a great cycling route on a road which leads to the lighthouse but is closed to vehicular traffic except for buses. The second day, the weather took a turn for the worse with high winds and rain. We woke up to our van and everything in the area covered in a thin layer of reddish-brown dirt/sand. It is a phenomenon known as “mud rains” and it is caused by red Saharan sandstorm being carried by the wind for hundreds of miles to Spain where it merges with a precipitation event resulting in “mud raining”.  It can also cause some health issues due to low air quality and I certainly felt this myself. I spent almost an entire day in bed with some of the worst allergy symptoms I have ever experienced.  I was able to venture out for an evening exploration of Cadaques with the help of 5 different antihistamines in my system. Cadaques is a lovely picturesque coastal town of 2,000 people. Steep cobblestoned streets, white-washed houses with orange tile roofs, bright blue entry doors and trim, bougainvillea flowering everywhere and all set on the banks of the Mediterranean with waves rhythmically crashing on the shore. There is a lovely promenade along the ocean and the town is bustling with restaurants and cafes. Cadaques reminds us of Mazatlán, Mexico.

On our last day in Cadaques, the weather was forecasted to be clear and sunny, but in actuality it was raining with 30-35 mph winds and gusts up to 50 mph. During a brief break between fronts, we walked down to Port Lligat where we explored the gardens of Salvador Dali’s house. We have been to the Salvador Dali Museum and Gallery in St. Petersburg, Florida previously so it was interesting to visit the location of where Dali lived for most of his life and where he created most of his works. The gardens were vast and eclectic, just as I had expected. We even saw the infamous penis-shaped pool.

We watched the same 12-minute movie about Dali’s life in Catalan, Castilian Spanish, French and English at least twice each while we were sheltering from another rain squall to pass. When we arrived back to our van, Tony noticed the front skylight was leaking with a steady drip from one side. He didn’t have any tools or repair materials, but luckily the rain stopped shortly thereafter and therefore the drip also stopped. As the van is a high-top and we don’t have a ladder, Tony couldn’t get up on the roof to ascertain what was going on. We decided to drive to the nearest Hymer dealer the next day and plead for help.

{Funny of the Day: Tony thinking the “E” on all the license plates referenced the country of Estonia and he could not figure out why so many people from Estonia were visiting Spain. He had a lightbulb moment a few minutes later….E is España (Spain), not Estonia. 😂}

Vic/Barcelona, Spain:

There was only one Hymer dealer in the general area of Barcelona so we arrived mid-morning to plead our case. Where in France we had been met with helpful and kind individuals, in Spain our experience was the opposite. Unhelpful and curt, almost to the point of being rude, was our experience at the Hymer dealership. We realize that appointments are needed for warranty work, but we were hoping the dealership could at least provide a band-aid repair to get us through to when an appointment could be made since rain was forecasted for the next several days. The best they could give us was that they would email us if they could fit us in over the next few days. We have never heard from them again.

There was a stark difference in the overall feel as we approached Barcelona in comparison to France. There were large electronic signs warning you not to accept help if you have a flat tire as they are scammers and you should call 112 instead. The buildings and roads were not very well maintained and the area we travelled in had an overall run-down feeling. In reading reviews for campsites, there was constant mention of crime including car break-ins, pickpockets and the stealing of bicycles. We just got a bad vibe. I have spent quite a bit of time in Spain (and loved it) when I walked the 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago in 2012 and we have both vacationed here in the past, but this time Spain just felt different and not in a good way.

It rained consistently for the next several days, but thankfully the leak in the skylight did not re-appear. A different Hymer dealer still needs to provide assessment and repair in the future, but at least it is not as bad as it could have been since it has only occurred once. We will get this repair addressed when we return in the Fall and with a proper appointment.

We spent the next few days cleaning the van both inside and outside in preparation for storage over the summer. We do not want to be in Europe during July and August due to the heat but also because it will be the high season and super busy. Also, Olympics…enough said. The van will be stored at an indoor (thankfully) storage facility until we return in mid-September. We are only allotted 90 days on a rolling 180-day basis in the EU as part of the Schengen Agreement, so mid-September is as soon as we can return for another 6-week road trip.

We decided to do a deep clean of the van by removing every item, cleaning every shelf and cabinet and returning Chickpea to as close to showroom clean as we are capable of doing. We found another car wash with an elevated platform to wash the roof and this car wash had HOT soap coming from the brush. We had never seen that before. Tony hiked almost a mile in each direction with the dirty/clean laundry in a sack over his shoulder like Santa Claus.  It took us 2 full days but we felt good about the condition we were leaving Chickpea in storage.

I woke up on our last day in Spain with a massive stress headache reminiscent of the ones I used to get when I was working. When we arrived at the storage facility, there was a mix-up, not in our favor, and we were showed to an outside storage spot that was completely uncovered. This was not possible due to the skylight leak we had experienced a few days prior and knowing we would be gone for 90 days it could occur again and cause damage. Tony worked his magic and the facility “found” our correct indoor reservation after Tony produced emails and wouldn’t accept the outdoor spot. The facility is fine, but not modern or purpose-designed as it is an old agricultural building. The price is almost as high as what we spend per month for our new, fancy, valet, climate-controlled storage facility in Arizona for Tofu, but at that point we didn’t have any options as all of the other indoor storage facilities were fully booked. The representative led us through a maze of buildings and narrow low-hanging doorways where there were literally a thousand different motorhomes parked. Our spot, of course, was in the furthest recesses of the building and the only open space left in the entire hall. I had to reverse into the hall and then jockey back and forth, no joke, at least 30 times to get into the space all the while coming within 2 inches of the adjacent motorhomes. Our new campervan has 360-degree proximity sensors and the entire time the screen was shrieking warning noises and the screen was blinking red. Did I already mention I had a massive headache before this? Eventually, Chickpea was home in a covered location, albeit not our favorite storage facility, for the next 90 days.

Our plan was to Uber from the storage facility to our hotel about 30 miles away except we couldn’t get an Uber to come get us. Luckily, I still had the Cabify app on my phone from when I was in Argentina earlier this year and within a few minutes Yuri picked us up. What ensued was a wild cab ride with this wild and crazy Russian. The man talked non-stop only pausing to play us his personally recorded music and “beats”. One of the title tracks was “I 😍 Tony Robbins”. In case you were wondering, it wasn’t good. At this moment, I was trying not to throw up as my head was pounding so bad and Tony was trying to take one for the team by uttering an occasional “OK” or “uh-huh” before Yuri would launch into the next crazy topic. He was like a human pinball machine on crack.

We checked into an airport hotel where I hoped sleep was in my future. It wasn’t. We had to leave for the airport at 4 AM so Tony headed to bed around 7 PM and I stayed up all night watching movies…with my head still pounding. We used Cabify again to get us to the airport and the driver was fine, but he literally did complete circles around at least 3 different round-abouts so we are still a bit confused but since it was a flat rate for his service, we just let him do his thing. What should have been a 6-minute cab ride took almost 18 minutes. Our first flight on Air France from Barcelona to Paris was uneventful. We had a 2-hour layover in Paris and we needed every minute of it as passport control in Paris took us over an hour to get through as there were only 2 officials working for the many of hundreds of people waiting in line and the EU/Canada/US lines were not operational. Tony and I both vowed to try to never connect through Paris CDG again. The entire airport and processes are so inefficient, IMO.

We rushed to our gate only to hear the announcement that our flight was delayed and they were looking for a different plane to use for our flight. We finally departed Paris 3 hours late. The 11-hour flight to Phoenix was uneventful. The plane was only about 75% full so I was able to move and have a row to myself. I prayed for sleep, but it eluded me yet again on this flight and I watched a series of crappy movies. Air France also made an error and catering did not send any vegan meals for either Tony or me. Luckily, during our delay Tony bought some grain bowls in the terminal and brought them on the flight for us “just in case”. To their credit, the Air France flight attendants were very concerned about our lack of vegan food and brought us all kinds of snacks they could scrounge from business and first class. It wasn’t their fault and we were appreciative of their kindness. I will say it again, the French people we have encountered are very kind. We arrived 2 hours and 53 minutes late, just under the 3-hour minimum when the airline is required to provide compensation per EU regulations. We arrived back in Phoenix and since we did not have any check luggage, we breezed through immigration and customs. Neither of us had to even show our passports, we just stood in front of a kiosk which scanned our faces and then the gate opened for us to re-enter our USA. Easy peasy. We had pre-arranged a car service which whisked us the 1.5 hours back home.

Our house was completely as we left it. We are already falling back into our normal routines although with temperatures over 100 degrees during the day, we are spending more time indoors. After 48 hours without any sleep, I slept and my headache disappeared. I don’t think my head had felt that bad since I retired in 2012. Tony says it is just my body remembering all of the hotels and air travel I used to do when I was working. He might just be right about that. We still have jet lag and have decided to stay on at least East Coast time for now. We are both amazed at what we can get done in the morning when you wake up at 3:30 AM. We are currently in the “re-grouping” phase as we are picking up our US van, Tofu, in a few weeks and heading to Canada for a month to escape the heat. We will spend most of the month of August back home before we leave again to go back to Barcelona in mid-September for another 6 weeks on a European road trip. Our initial plans were to visit Spain and Portugal when we return in September, but Tony and I really fell in love with France so we are headed back to France and Northern Italy on our next trip instead.

Overall, we had a fantastic first trip to Europe with our campervan. It was a bit of a whirlwind of a trip from picking up the van, outfitting the van and then figuring out how to “live” in different countries. We call what we do, long-term travel, not a vacation. With long-term travel, there is more of an opportunity to immerse ourselves in the culture and everyday life in a place beyond popular and typical tourist attractions.  We both ended up falling in love with France. We found the French people to be kind and friendly, countryside was beautiful, lots of diversity amongst its population resulting in interesting food, music and stores and not just a tolerance, but a welcoming cultivation, for motorhomes.

Countries visited this trip: France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain

License plates spotted on this trip: F France, D Germany, I Italy, H Hungary, LT Lithuania, UK, P Poland, Montana (USA), B Belgium, NL Netherlands, E Spain (or is it Estonia? LOL), P Portugal, Switzerland.

Distance: 2989 km (1857 miles)

Onwards!