Day #: 156 – 166

Date(s): 29SEP – 09OCT2025

Location(s) Visited: Cormeilles-en-Vexin, Verdun, Nancy, France & Ladenburg, Bad König, Frankfurt am Main, Germany & Arizona, USA

Overall Impression of Location(s): Cormeilles-en-Vexin = 2.5, Verdun = 3, Nancy = 3, Ladenburg = 3, Bad König = 1, Frankfurt am Main = 3

4 -added to our favorite list and we would return again
3 – a great place to visit
2 – OK for one visit, but we would not return again
1 – we wish we hadn’t wasted our time here  

Distance Driven on Leg/Trip (km): 1392

Weather/Temperature (°F): Autumn weather has officially arrived in this part of Europe. We had quite a bit of rain, overcast skies and wind during our last week, much more than we have seen in some time. The temperatures consistently dropped into the high 50s during the day and low 40’s overnight. Heat was now a necessity at night and not just a “nice to have”. The tree leaves had turned all shades of orange, red and yellow and it was quite lovely to see.

Road Conditions: We took a mixture of expressways, tollways and backroads on this leg with more time spent on tollways than we usually travel. Our French “Fulli” tollpass continues to work like a champ as it allowed us to pass through most toll booths without stopping for a ticket or to pay. Driving on Sundays was wonderful as none (or very few) semis/lorries were on the road and therefore traffic flowed better without all of those slow moving vehicles in the right lane, so our planned long driving Sunday was actually quite fun. We also traveled on a German holiday (Unification Day) and the Autobahn was devoid of all semis/lorries and this was a real treat as Chickpea easily cruised along (sometimes on cruise control) at 130-135 kph without having to constantly “Frogger” around the slower vehicles in the right lanes.

Chickpea Mechanical Status: UGH! UGH! UGH! Yes, another unexpected visit to a Hymer dealership occurred on this leg. Tracey kept seeing water on the floor in front of the refrigerator and thought water was being spilled from the water pitcher in the door. After mopping it up several times over only 15 minutes, investigation ensued where she discovered water was dripping from the bottom of the refrigerator through the feet and also from the door through the gasket. There was considerable rust on the bottom of the fridge and even touching the bottom of the underside of the fridge caused water to run out through the feet. The fridge works fine and holds temperature fine, it just leaks water requiring daily towel changes under the unit itself. We made a decision to contact the Hymer dealer who sold us the van as they have always been good to us. A call was made to them on a Saturday at 3 PM and they told us they would take a look at our van at 9 AM on Tuesday (their next business day as they are closed on Sundays and Mondays). On Tuesday, as promised, they did a visual inspection and reset the drain plug and hoped this would fix our leak BUT they said if it continued to leak, to send them an email and they would put in a warranty request for a whole new refrigerator. They said they know we won’t be back to France within the 2 year warranty period but they will “make it work” so that it is replaced under warranty but just won’t be installed until we return next year. This is HUGE for us and the best case scenario imagined. This is why we like this dealership so much and no other dealership would do this for us. Well, within 2 days of leaving the dealership, the refrigerator was again leaking and now so even worse. The dealership has now submitted a warranty claim and we will be getting an entirely new refrigerator replaced and installed in early May 2026 when we return to France. We certainly didn’t want another issue with our van, but this was really the best outcome we could have ever hoped for.

Highlights:

• Verdun France is a gorgeous place so it is hard for us to even picture the military battles which occurred here during WWI and the devastation it caused. There are still many “Zone Rouges” (Red Zones) where access is forbidden due to unexploded WWI ordnance. Verdun is one of the places where our emotions are overjoyed by its sheer beauty while simultaneously being tempered knowing so many people have suffered here. This place keeps drawing us back.
• Nancy (pronounced nahn-see with a nasally “a”) was lovely small city. We stayed at the marina Aire on the banks of the Meurthe River. We found the city to be lively and easy to get around on public transport, although riders must pay via an app as the bus drivers don’t accept any form of payment. Don’t ask us how we know this. We went to 2 different spas with the “Thermal Nancy” being our favorite. A spacious and gorgeous building and very few people when we there. This is a world-class facility and far outshines the more popular Baden Baden baths in Germany which so many people rave about, but that we didn’t really care for. This facility in Nancy is actually 3 separate facilities which includes a medical spa, a thermal spa (which is what we did) and an AquaSports center (https://nancythermalresort.fr/decouvrir-le-spa-thermal.html). We will definitely return and we would even go out of our way to visit again, it was that nice!
• Crossing from France back into Germany we went through a temporary immigrations checkpoint. We were asked some questions (in English) about where we were going, where we had been, how many people were in the van, etc. and then allowed to pass through without issues. We were not asked for our passports (which were locked in our safe and weren’t super easy to access), we weren’t asked for the country of our citizenship, nor were we asked why 2 obviously English speakers were driving a French plated van. Other vehicles were not as lucky as they were having their vehicles completely emptied and searched and also investigated by police dogs. We breathed a sigh of relief when we passed, not because we had anything to hide (we didn’t), we just didn’t want to spend hours being searched in the pouring rain.

Lowlights:

• Tony takes every opportunity he can to take a shower. Tracey lets him go first and then come back with a report as to whether the facilities are up to her standards in terms of design and cleanliness. While in Bad König Germany we stayed at a small Stellplatz run by a municipal thermal spa which allowed use of their showers for a small fee. Tony was quite excited until he entered the very dated facility. There was one large open co-ed changing room and then a smallish (12’x14′) open shower room with 12 individual shower nozzles but no privacy dividers for the mostly naked men. He decided to just go for it but after starting his shower he realized one of the men was not actually showering. The man had his head against the wall and he was “spanking his monkey”….in a public shower where there were at least 8 other men including 2 tween aged boys. Tony could not get out of there fast enough and although probably obvious, Tracey did not shower that day. Tony calls this his “prison shower” moment.
• Closing down the van is always one of our least favorite activities. We have lists upon lists of things that need to be done before the van can be dropped off at storage: every piece of cloth inside the van needs to be washed and dried, a complete outside car wash including the roof needs to occur, am inside deep clean and detail of both the cab and back of van including removing every item from every drawer and cabinet, bleeding the propane lines, descaling the boiler, sanitizing the fresh water tank and lines, cleaning the chemical toilet, cleaning and defrosting the refrigerator, making inventory lists of all of the clothing and toiletries that will remain, charging up all of the electronics, filling the gas tank and the DEF to full, filling the washer fluid to full, cleaning the gray tank, winterizing all the lines, getting rid of any remaining food and putting all of the scented items in plastic, hopefully mouse-proof, container bins. It is a lot and took us almost 3 full days to complete all of these tasks and this time we did it from a free Aire as we couldn’t find a suitable Airbnb which had parking for the van. We got it all done, but it wasn’t easy. Next time, we will do this from an Airbnb or even stay in a hotel so we aren’t doing all of these tasks while also still living in the van.
• Our Uber ride home in Arizona was the worst and scariest rideshare we have ever taken. First, we were driving in a 2008 Toyota Prius which had huge dents in the back door and rear panel. That should have been a red flag for us and given us pause as to whether we wanted to get in this vehicle at all, but the driver was initially friendly enough and we were just plain exhausted so we got in this car. The driver was horrible and drove at excessive speeds, braked extremely hard almost rear-ending other cars at red lights and aggressively changed lanes and tailgated other cars just inches from their bumper. If this wasn’t bad enough, the Prius was in horrible mechanical condition. There were at least 6 warning lights glowing on the dashboard, the regular headlights didn’t appear to work at all (we were driving at night) so the driver had to use the high beams almost continuously and then there was an obvious steering or alignment issue with the vehicle so the driver continually had to hard jerk the wheel to get our car to stay in the lane. In retrospect, we should have told the driver immediately to pull over and we should have gotten out but we both just sat in the backseat frozen (and squeezing each others hand). We were so thankful we made it to our house safely and decided to never use “Uber X” again, but to always upgrade to “Uber Comfort” which requires newer model vehicles and if there is ever another time we feel uncomfortable with a driver we are just going to stop the rideshare and get out. Our safety is more important than some drivers feelings.
• We have both been sick with chest and head colds since a few days after we arrived home. Tony is convinced he got sick during his “prison shower” experience. We have been lethargic, feverish and spewing copious amounts of snot and phlegm for the last 4 days but finally starting to feel a wee bit better. Hopefully a few more days and we will be back to ourselves again and ready to start planning our next adventures.

Up Next: We have a few domestic winter US trips planned in our other van Tofu, mainly in the SW USA. Tracey is also going to India with a friend in January. This is a bucket-list trip for her.

Our summer 2026 plans are pretty finalized: 1) we are road tripping our van, Tofu, to Toronto in April and leaving that van in storage (which we are still trying to find) and flying directly to Frankfurt, 2) we are picking up our EU van and will be spending 4.5 months in Germany, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Sweden (note: we are applying for a French Long Term Stay Visa – fingers crossed🤞), and 3) we will fly back to Toronto in early September and road trip home in our van spending time in the Midwest visiting friends and family along the way and finally arriving home in Arizona in early October.

Onwards! Vorwärts immer, rückwärts nimmer! Allez on y va!