Campervanning
in Europe. Home Index 2000 Back to part 1
Part 2 General Planning Advice
London Accommodation
Free Camping - Boondocking
Free Parking - City Style
SONPS in the UK
Driving in Europe
Food Shopping in Europe
The Erratum of Man's History. - Conventional belief is often mistaken.
1684 - Last execution for witchcraft in England.
London Accommodation.
If you will be in London for some time, and its a wonderful place to spend several weeks, just being a tourist, apart from van hunting, I can’t recommend too strongly that you opt for "self catering" accommodation, that is where you can cook your own food. Either a self contained flat, studio (one room flat with a "kitchen corner" or a flat share, or house share. Accommodation is so expensive that people often don’t rent a whole flat, but rent or sublet the bedrooms in flats and houses.Don’t try to book it through an overseas travel agent in Australia or in your home country. They have only the most expensive listed, often costing thousands of dollars a week.
Book a flight that gets you to London early in the day, to give you time to arrange other accommodation, or change tack in case you have been misled by an unscrupulous landlord, if you have made arrangements for a flat-share. You will always find somewhere in London if things go wrong. There are hotels not far from the airports, and near main railway stations, and accommodation booking agents at all airports and main line London stations such as Victoria.
Eating out in the UK is expensive by Australian standards, even for junk food, and who wants to live on hamburgers, that are also relatively expensive, yuk! But if you buy your food at the supermarket (Tesco or Sainsburys are the main chains) and adjust your eating habits a bit, it is little more expensive than food at home. Meat is horrendously dear, but turkey meat, and some fish is a good substitute. The way to avoid excessive costs is to adjust your menu to what is good value in each country you visit.
London transport operates on a 6 zone system, and it is a definite advantage to be within the outer Zone 6, or closer. Get to understand the travel card fare system, and perhaps buy a one week travel card. Plenty of information on the Internet.
There is a LOOT section for "short lets", often to share a flat, by renting a room and sharing the kitchen facilities. We found an excellent flat share in Abbey Wood, a south eastern London suburb in transport Zone 4 (check out the London Underground web-site for transport details) about 30 minutes by train from central London. It cost £75 a week for a double room in a three storey town house. There were two other single rooms for rent in the flat, but they were vacant, and remained so for almost all the time we were there. For the last two days we shared with a South African doctor and his wife, with no problems.
London accommodation doesn’t often remain unoccupied, even the rat holes are full, but the landlady was very particular about to whom she would rent. No DSS said the advert, meaning no Department of Social Security, tenants were wanted. I eventually found out that she would not rent to anyone who sounded to be of the wrong class of person over the phone. As I speak with what some have described as a sort of mid Atlantic standard English, such that Australians often think I’m English, but most English can pick as Australian, I must have passed the bar when I phoned her from Brisbane. The landlady spoke very correctly, almost what you would imagine the Duchess of Windsor’s elocution mistress may have sounded like. No deposit was required and we could pay one week in advance, on arrival, and stay as long as we wanted.
My wife Sharon was at first apprehensive about sharing a flat, but the other accommodation we had used on previous trips to London, was now £380 a week for a one room self catering "apartment" in Eccleston Square near London’s Victoria station. I had also found other self catering flats in Hamstead north of London, for around £200 a week, and some flats in a van park for around the same, but a long way out of London. So we had alternatives, and decided that even if the flat was unsuitable we could use it for one or two nights for our £75 and move to something better in the next day or two.
As things transpired we were delighted at finding such good value. It was within about ten minutes walk to Abbey Wood station, in a "Council Estate" which had been privatised and all the flats and small town houses sold off to private owners. That's what makes the difference from living somewhere like the mythical (?) "Jasmin Allen Estate" on the English Police TV show "The Bill" , where the residents are half drug addicts and criminals and instinctively throw rocks at the police, and the other half are pensioners with bandages on their wounds from being robbed each week for their pension cheques!! I imagine there are places like that, but Abbey Wood is not one of them.
Some areas of London where there is mainly low cost rental housing, can be distinctly seedy, and would not be desirable places for tourists to stay, but Abbey Wood proved to be quite nice, as council estates go. We never felt threatened or felt unsafe walking from the station at night, or going to the local shop for the LOOT early in the morning. The neighbours proved friendly and civilised, and were on good terms with our landlady.
Perhaps we had very good luck, but I would recommend trying this way of getting relatively inexpensive London accommodation. You can always back out and go to a hotel for a day or two while you try again if things don’t work out first time.
Don’t pay any deposit, check the LOOT ads on the Internet and call the owner only a day or two before you fly to London, and arrange to call them from the airport when you get there to confirm arrangements, and have them meet you at the tube (underground) station or surface railway station if they will agree to, and take you to the flat. If they won’t agree to do that, I’d take it as a good indication to look elsewhere Don’t pay anything until you inspect the accommodation. That way if they have badly misrepresented the premises to you over the phone, you can walk away with no loss.
Free Camping - Parking Overnight. AKA "Boondocking" in the USA
Moto Europa gives some guidance on the subject of the "legality" of free camping in all the European countries. I don’t doubt the strict correctness of what they say, that it may not be 100 percent "legal" in all countries, but we found that provided you exercise some discretion that you can park overnight all over Europe, whether it is strictly "legal" or not. Not only is it tolerated well, but it is widely practised by Europeans themselves, almost everywhere.You will find some places where they have signs indicating no campervans, or restrictions on parking hours at night. But they are few, mainly around lakes in Switzerland, Austria and Germany.
Europe is surprisingly "rural" outside of the major cities, with lots of forest and farmland countryside. In the detail of our trip I give some specific locations where we free camped, but there are literally limitless locations, you only have to look. In some areas and along particular roads, detailed in the notes on the route we followed, suitable sites can be patchy in occurrence, sometimes being seen in abundance, usually according to "Murphy’s Law" these will be noted in the morning or early afternoon, when you don’t want to stop, only to become impossible to find after 4 PM. We often travelled on minor back roads, and found forest sites to stop. Along the main roads you find rest stops, some of which are far enough off the road to be Safe Overnight Parking Spots (SONPS) as I came to call them.
SONPS are not confined to rural areas, you find them in the heart of Cities, either semi official such as "Park and Ride" areas where commuters leave their cars and catch public transport into the centre of a city, or just quiet streets with no parking restrictions, where you can park overnight "City Style" and no one seems to mind.
You will often find campervans in Park & Ride areas, because generally the parking is free or at minimal cost, and there is no time restriction. In Salzburg’s southern P&R we noted twelve campervans spent the night there on one of the nights we stayed. Strictly legal or not, the authorities obviously don’t mind, and we were never hassled wherever we parked over night even close to the centres of Paris, Rome, Berlin, Florence and Venice. Often we found a pleasant shaded area, in parkland, along a shady Avenue, near old Olympic Villages in Rome and Munich, often with drinking water nearby, and close to public transport into the city heart.
Look for areas along the river in a strange city, there will usually
be parkland, and unrestricted parking areas, if not a P&R area where you
can park all day and also stay overnight in most cases.
Avoid parking overnight (even leaving your van parked during the day) in run
down seedy looking poorer areas in cities, where there may be a higher probability
of petty crime, breaking into your van, vandalism or even assault.
In researching for another campervan holiday next year (2002) to the USA, we found that in the U.S. people in campers (RV's) often stop overnight in shopping centre carparks, particularly at "Wallmarts" a particular chain store, that has a general policy of permitting overnight parking in most of its store parks. We never tried this in Europe, the main reason being it just didn't occur to us to do it, as we were usually able to find somewhere that seemed much better than a supermarket car park. So we are unable to give first hand experience as to policy of European stores on this matter. If it does seem convenient to anyone when you are touring, we suggeat you try it and see. Perhaps ask first, as a courtesy and see what reaction you get. However you should seldom need to resort to such places.
Security Concerns
Security is not a serious problem in the parts of Europe that we visited, and we never had any incidents where we felt threatened anywhere we parked. Security reports caution regarding southern Italy (south of Rome where we didn't go), and against certain scams and petty highway crime in Spain. There have of course been isolated reported crimes against campervanners in Europe, but the incidence is low, and it seemed to us to be at least as safe as back home in Australia. The general rule is that the further south you go in Europe the more all sorts of security problems increase.
Generally we were always aware of security and took careful note of the surroundings before parking anywhere. In forest or rural sites if possible we would park out of sight of passing traffic. We would park with the vehicle positioned so that we could drive off quickly if we wanted to, preferably without having to reverse, and so we could not be easily boxed in by another single vehicle, trees or other obstructions. We locked all doors at night. If any vehicle did approach where we were parked we would observe the occupants for any suspicious actions. We avoided parking in any city area that looked poor or depressed. If any one had approached our vehicle at night and could not have been clearly identified as uniformed Police our plan was to immediately drive away without opening the van doors. It never happened.
Parking "City Style" involves being a little discreet so as not to draw attention to yourself, and cause anyone to complain and get you moved on. After all you will only be there for one or two nights, and then be gone. We were never asked by police to move on. Park, don’t camp. In city areas, don’t set up any camping equipment such as chairs or tables outside the vehicle, nor extend awnings. It would draw unnecessary attention, and in some places makes the difference between just being legally parked, and illegally camped.
Obey all parking regulations, there are plenty of areas close in to all European cities we visited where there are effectively no parking restrictions posted on signs. You don’t need to break the law.
Avoid parking outside residential premises if at all possible, pick an industrial,
commercial, parkland, or similar "uninhabited" area. That way you are not
so likely to be seen as "trespassing" on some local residents turf, and have
them call the Gendarmes, even if you aren’t breaking any law. Some people
are just cranky about such things and would complain for no reason other than
a strange vehicle was parked outside their house.
Discharging Waste Water. If you have a large camper this is not a problem, as you will have waste water tanks that you can empty in a suitable location. In a small van, waste water from the sink will discharge through a hose under the van. Position the van over or near a drainage grate if possible, so that a trail of waste water does not flow across the road from under your van. Discharge on to grass if possible, and don’t use too much soap to cause a lot of foam. Place a bucket under the outlet at night if necessary, and empty into a drain early in the morning. Its only courtesy to the locals, and less mess means less hassles. European cities are clean and they don’t want you making a mess.
Some towns (particularly in parts of Italy) have public camper service points where you can empty toilet tanks and waste water tanks, and replenish fresh water supplies. Where they exist they are generally well sign posted with easily recognisable symbols. Even very small towns can have them, where they are easier to find than in larger cities.
In Rome we met an American couple who confirmed our experience on the general availability of good free SONPS, and even related that they had read a book about campervanning which told a tale of the authors parking, actually underneath the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, for a week, before the Gendarmes finally told them to move on. I am not sure that I really believe that one, but after out experience I can’t dismiss it as fantasy too lightly, its that easy to find somewhere to park.
The trip notes detail where we parked in cities and in country areas.
SONPS in the UK.(SafeOverNightParkingSpots.)
After we collected our van from the previous owners home in Rainham Essex (outer London suburb north of the Thames, and returned to our town house at Abbey Wood, to collect all our belongings and things we had bought to outfit the van, we decided to leave immediately, rather than leave the van parked nearby overnight. As I have said, it wasn't a bad area but we weren't taking any chances. So leaving very late in the afternoon we headed toward Dover, and about 9.00PM found a quiet but well lit dead end court in a factory area near Gillingham, where people were working night shift, and parked for the night. There were no residences near by, no passing traffic, and the factory activity and lighting provided security. After driving to Canterbury I found a slight shudder in the clutch, particularly when reversing, and rather than take a chance decided to get it replaced.
While we waited
almost a week for an appointment to have our clutch replaced, we toured around
the Canterbury area, and stayed in the Caravan and Camping Club's site
near Canterbury, parked along the foreshore at WHITSTABLE one night.
Drive right through the delightful township and hug the coastline for several
kilometers until you come to an area with a dead end road adjacent to the
sea front parkland. Whitstable has a bakery that makes the best Cornish pasties
we have come across
We also found a quiet lay-by on the A2 road to London East of the A298 junction on the London bound side, where we could park free overnight, and return to the C&CC campsite for a shower another night.
There is another lay-by on the A2 between DOVER and the CANTERBURY turn off which is slightly off the road and we parked there one night on our return from Calais.
Apart from the current tour of Europe , we have previously toured the UK twice in 1994 and 1997, with a rented VW Transporter Camper, for periods of 5-6 weeks. (Sunseeker Rentals of London had the best rates then, as they do up old vans and rent them. The vans are very well done, and mechanically reliable. We had no problems with either rental, and the company is run by Australians) There are certainly plenty of free SONPS in some areas, parts of Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Yorkshire and the Lake District, however the UK is more densely populated than Europe and there are, overall, not so many good forest areas to stay free.
The UK Caravan and Camping Club have many excellent camping parks. You can buy temporary membership for £10 which gives you members rates, or if you have a "Camping Card International" (available from the Auto Club in your home country A$25 in Australia) you will also be given members rates which are about £3 per night less than you would otherwise pay.
Roadside Assistance and Breakdown Insurance.
We are members of the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland in Australia, and on checking with the club found that they had reciprocal arrangements with Auto Clubs all over the world to provide basic breakdown assistance and road side service. They had not however had much feedback on how well the arrangements worked, although they were able to issue us with a comprehensive booklet listing contact details and reciprocal agreement details for most countries. We had no need to call on this service,In Rome, in a camping ground, I met en elderly American and his wife who were touring in a much older Transit Van, something of a wreck in my opinion. They had experienced several breakdowns but had found the reciprocal service from the Auto Clubs in Germany and Switzerland to be excellent. So although we had no major breakdown, so I have no first hand experience, it seems that if your home country Auto Club has reciprocal arrangements (and that should almost invariably be the case) that’s all you need. No need to buy any special breakdown insurance.
We purchased no additional breakdown assistance, although you can get conned into doing so, and I think you would just be paying out good money for nothing that you are not already entitled to. It it seems that the reciprocal auto club arrangements work fine. Maybe they would not work quite as well all over Europe, as some countries are more "organized" than others, but from our experience we don't think you need any thing more than membership of your home country auto club.
Getting To France - The Ferry.
We travelled on Sea-France. They had advertised rates on the Internet, but when we arrived at the Dover terminal they wanted to charge more, saying the special rates were only available if you booked through the Internet. I persisted and eventually convinced the manager that it was stupid to make me go and find an Internet café in Dover to make the booking that I should be able to do now in person. Polite but firm persistence pays off when confronted with such corporate nonsense. Half an hour later we were on the boat to France. £190 for a return open dated ticket, valid for one year.Don’t book in advance, at least not much in advance, if you are late or have a breakdown it will just make hassles and they will want to charge you extra, when in fact you can just turn up and go, as long as it is not a peak holiday period or "Bank Holiday". Late night crossings can sometimes be cheaper and you’ll have no difficulty getting on then. Several shipping companies operate from the terminal so you may be able to shop around for the best deal.
Putting your van on the train via the channel tunnel will cost considerably more than travelling by ferry. However for short trips to Paris there are sometimes excellent cheap weekend specials available for passengers only (not including your van).
Driving in Europe.
We had read much on the Internet about the hazards and difficulties of driving in Europe, most of it written by Americans, who in hindsight seem to have been making mountains out of molehills. Generally we found European drivers to be competent and courteous, and particularly in Germany highly disciplined on the Autobahns.In 18,000 Kms of driving in 9 countries I saw only one or two idiot driving acts, probably a lot less than one would come across at home. We saw only a couple of minor accidents and formed the general impression that driving in Europe was no more difficult, and probably safer than driving at home.
We did not for instance find, that the French brake pedal, was instead the horn.
The most disconcerting practice (particularly in Italy, but elsewhere too) is "tailgating" which is the practice of closely following another vehicle at speed with insufficient separation. Illegal in Australia it is "normal" in Italy and common elsewhere, and you just have to accept that there is nothing you can do about it, except concentrate on your own driving to avoid any sudden stops, and give the following vehicle a chance to pass as soon as possible.
You also have to get used to vehicles travelling a high speed (150Km/H ++)
on toll ways and autobahns, but such roads are well designed and drivers
accustomed to it. The Australian concern for speed as a danger in itself is
mainly the result of our relatively poor standard of roads, widespread lack
of driving discipline and adherence to rules, and lack of advanced driver
training.
Moto-Europa provides some excellent notes on driving in each country,
local rules and signs and is highly recommended reading.
Food Shopping in UK & Europe.
Overall we found that the cost of buying supermarket food in Europe (except Switzerland) was not that much higher than in Australia, provided that you were adaptable to buy what was good value in each place. Meat in the UK and most of Europe is MUCH dearer than in Australia. But if you adapt and eat more turkey in the UK, because its good meat and about the best available value and much cheaper than in Australia, then things average out. Some fish, is good value in the UK and there are always some good specials in supermarkets all over Europe. Fruit and vegetables are not unduly expensive in most places. Also be on the look out (particularly at Sainsbury’s and Tesco in the UK) for specials of fresh meat and fish which is near its use by date, it will still be fresh and if you are to eat it same day, fine to buy. Such specials are often ½ price or less, and popular with the locals too.We noted that despite the so called common market in Europe, the reality for consumers has been anything but, with the availability of food goods in each country being relatively parochial compared to what we had expected. Compared to the extremely wide selection drawn from the various cuisines of Europe the Middle East and Asia, that we are accustomed to finding in Australia European supermarkets are in some respects not so encyclopaedic in their range of imported goods. In particular Asian foods are very rare, even in the largest European supermarkets. Not that one would want to eat Asian food when visiting Europe, but it illustrates the point.
While there is often to be found a huge range of local delicacies, such as, to give only a few examples, cheeses, sausages, pate, fish, olives or smoked hams, imports, even those from other parts of the EU, were often vastly more expensive than the identical goods in the adjacent country of origin, often only a few hours drive away. Goods imported from outside the EU, from say Turkey such as pickled vegetables, often varied enormously in price from one country to another, even though all prices are now marked in both Euros and the local currency.
We discovered a new style of supermarket, typified by several chains of establishments, in France branded LIDL and "Champion", that are doing away with these artificially created differences and selling at cost plus a reasonable profit margin.
By looking for this type of establishment, which is already widespread in France, parts of Northern Spain and Germany, you will be able to get a large proportion of your basic food requirements MUCH cheaper that if you do all your shopping in the conventional supermarkets. You should still also go to places like Continent, Carefour, E Leclerc & Intermarche for their wider range, local delicacies and more fresh foods.
Shopping in France
Intermarche is a supermarket chain and Bricomarche is the affiliated hardware and gardening supplies store, they are found all over France. They were probably the first chain of supermarkets in France as there are now many newer chains of Supermarkets with more modern and larger facilities such as "Continent", "Carefour", "E Leclerc", "Champion", "Match" & "LIDL".For basic supplies LIDL stores are a must. They stock only a limited range of several thousand lines of non perishable and frozen foods which they sell at MUCH cheaper prices that the regular full range supermarkets. LIDL & CHAMPION (and ALDI & NORMA in Germany, EL’CHAMPO in Spain) are importing goods from other countries of the EU and elsewhere in the world, and selling them at prices based on the cost, rather than selling at inflated mark ups, or what the local market will bear.
French Wine
What better place than France to enjoy a few bottles of French red wine. Noting that wine in supermarkets was available at a huge range or prices from about 6FF a bottle (about US$1.50) to hundreds of FF for "Chateau le Snob" 1980, grown on the western slopes and crushed by the feet of French virgins, we originally opted for something around FF20 a bottle, merely because that’s about what we pay for a reasonably drinkable, but by no means top quality, bottle of Australian wine back home. We were pleasantly surprised at the excellent quality, which we considered superior to similarly priced wine at home. So we decided to try 12FF and then 6-8FF bottles only to be delightfully surprised to find that they too were of excellent character. We found them good value and extremely pleasant table wines.No doubt wine connoisseurs would find many reasons to criticise these cheaper wines, often with a vested interested in inducing people to pay far more for essentially the same product, often distinguished by nothing more than advertising hype, a fancy label or famous brand and much incomprehensible mumbo jumbo. That does not deny that there are more excellent wines, but the average consumer, who probably could tell little difference anyway, should not be deceived by marketing hype into paying inflated prices for basic goods.
I do not buy anything because of brand name, but assess its quality and value on its merits, and French wine at under 10FF a bottle was generally as good as wines costing 2 to 5 times the price. If you paid 500FF a bottle maybe you would get something great, but I consider that to be a waste of money, and you are probably being conned.
We also noted that the use of preservatives in wine, particularly sulphur-dioxide, which is ubiquitous in Australian wine, was very rare in wine all over Europe. The result is in our opinion a much better product, which does not tend to give many people, who have a bad reaction to SO2, a headache. The unfortunate almost universal use of preservatives by Australian wine makers is we consider a retrograde step, and ought to be banned by law, in a way similar to the German beer purity laws.
Spirits Beer & Cider
Spirits are much cheaper in France than in the UK, but are much cheaper again in Spain and Italy. A bottle of Scotch Whisky that is about £14 in England will be around the FF equivalent of £7 in France and £3-4 in Spain or Italy, for the identical well known brands, like JW, Black & White, Vat 69, as well as the produce of smaller Scottish highland distilleries that is often of considerably better quality and value than the more widely advertised brands.For beer drinkers Germany is the place, with beers from around 30 Pfennig a can. Italy too has good cheap beer, and all over Europe it is much cheaper than the UK.
In the UK, where even beer is relatively expensive, the most economical drink is Cider in 2 litre bottles in Tesco and Sainsbury’s supermarkets. The cheapest brand "Harvest Oak" being a delightful drop. Again taking advantage of what is the best value locally is one of the keys to enjoying variety economically.
Shopping in Switzerland.
As yet (2000) we found no LIDL or similar such outlets in Switzerland, where many food products are locally , and imports from even the adjacent countries of Germany France and Italy are comparatively expensive.Before going into Switzerland you should fully stock your van with non perishable provisions, preferably enough for your entire stay in Switzerland. All food items are considerably more expensive than in any of the surrounding countries. You will make considerable savings by confining your purchases to fresh produce and any local delicacy that you want to try. The same goes for all forms of alcoholic beverages.
Classical Music.
If you are like us and enjoy classical music, take some tapes or CD’s with you. Most vans will have a radio and tape player, ours also had a CD. With the exception of Spain, where "Radio National DeEspana" provides by far the best FM classical broadcasts in Europe, the rest of Europe is very patchy when it comes to good classical music on FM radio.In France, which has a dedicated FM Classic network, they play mainly snippets, occasionally a whole movement, from classics, and TALK about classical music ad infinitum. Dissecting performances and styles endlessly, but almost never playing anything in its entirety. Not understanding much French made it just frustrating, trying to listen to their fragmented classics, despite the melodious sounds of the language.
Although you will get small areas of good FM classics in Germany, coverage is generally poor. Take your own!
The Erratum of Man's History. - Conventional belief is often mistaken.
1632 - Galileo publishes 'A Dialogue on the Two Principle Systems of the World". He is tried by the Inquisition. His book remains on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for over two hundred years.