First beach stop in Crete

After the long cool ferry trip was such a pleasure to drive in the early morning in Cretan roads with mist and sun. Was really tired after the sleepless night and wanted just to have some calm place to enjoy the first days. So......50-60 km south from Heraklion there is this little village called Tsoutsouros. Season was finished and the beach was empty but still few other campers had a stop there. Perfect stop for some easy relaxed days :).

New window, back in business:)

Finally we got the new window in my van so we said goodbye to Athens and kalimera to Crete <3.

Eat, Pray and Love in Athens

Eat, Pray and Love - well this was just a name of a dish in a vegetarian restaurant where I had an excellent dinner :).

 
Was time to celebrate one more year- party and I can recommend this restaurant who seeks a vegetarian restaurant in Athens. Restaurant Avocado at Plaka, you can visit their website at www.avocadoathens.com .The owner is an Iranian man, very friendly and smiley person who was approaching clients and asking if everything was good and doing some talking. Avocado exists three years now and I guess it has found its place in Athens. It was quite busy in there, international and local clients, I thought I even heard a couple some tables away talking Finnish!

Days in Athens

My visit in Athens is not seeing the end yet, so I´ve been going the less rainy days in the city and more rainy days I´ve stayed at the campsite.

All taxis are yellow and wow I cant believe that I had a moment a blue sky!!

Visiting Acropolis

Yes, finally I managed to visit this ancient place, better late than ever! Well since I am still waiting to get my new window I have time to explore little this city. Weather has been pretty much grey, cool and one day we had huge rain with hails and I was told that such a rain hasn´t been falling in more than 20 years..

rain, rain, rain with hails! Photo from my roof window.

All good things come to an end...

...Sunday morning was getting windy and I was outside of my camper and didn´t manage to react when this one blow literally blew off one of my side window to the rocks...

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

From Athens to Monemvasia

Greece <3

After arriving to Greece I was hurry to get to Athens since my fridge didnt function anymore, but before I had one night stop at the Corinth Canal, I liked the spot I found last June and returned to the same place (earlier post is HERE ).

So I do not have any wonderful photos from Akropolis or Athens by night (at least not this time)...

France - Italy - Greece

We have arrived in beloved Greece <3! So we left France and Italy behind and took the ferry to Greece and I am happy to get back in this country :).

But before getting here I still spent few days In Briancon France, which is the highest city in European Union at an altitude of 1326 meters. I didnt have time to look too much around, which is a shame since this city definetely would deserve a closer look. Briancon is also a ski-resort, and its known of having 300 days sun on the year!

Briancon, the highest city in the European Union

Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, on the pilgrim route

Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert is a medieval village in South of France and its on the Chemin de St Jacques pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. Very picturesque village with around 300 habitants, but it is really living from the tourism which you can find plenty, certainly during the summer. It is also chosen to be one of the most beautiful village in France.

I was there already in the morning and all the alleys were basicly empty, but in the afternoon the terraces of the restaurants were getting more full when people were getting out to eat.

Few kilometers before the village you will see this beautiful bridges, one of them called The Devil´s Bridge, protected by Unesco and it is also in the route of the Santiago de Compostela.

Wine grapes, family and village life

When I was getting to South of France, I could see that the collecting of wine grapes has started. I was walking one day at the wine fields with doggy to see little closer their work and also to see matured grapes of the village Saint George D´Orques. I also had family to visit me, my brother came over with his girlfriend and we spent some nice moments together with playing and singing.

wine fields at Saint George D´Orques

Le Viaduc de Millau

I have always been fascinated from bridges and once again I passed The Millau Viaduc which is having a worldwide record of beeing a tallest bridge in the world with one mast's summit at 343 meters and the lenght of the bridge is 2460 meters. The bridge carries the road over the Tarn river and saves quite some time without the need to drive the old road!

Construction of this bridge costed aprox 400 million euros and 14 December 2001 was the laying of the first stone, exactly 3 years later 14 December 2004 was the official inauguration.

La Canourgue - medieval village via Gorges du Tarn

Before arriving to medieval village La Canourge I was driving via Gorges du Tarn, a beautiful scenery road which you should not miss if you are around! It is very touristic, surely in July and August, but in September it is perfect do drive around. You can do plenty of outdoors activities such as kayaking, hiking, rock climbing..Wild camping would be very difficult in Tarn, but there are many campsites to choose from.

fête du village - Village party

Found a very nice spot for campers in Puy-Saint-Martin, it used to be a tiny campsite, but now its a free spot reserved for campers. Basicly came there just to have a lunch but then I found out that there was a village party coming so I stayed there for a long weekend. Commune offers this spot free of charge and you have water and all the emptying services. There is a small box to leave money to support their  kindness and with this money the commune is paying the costs of water etc.

Puy-Saint-Martin camper stop, after 7 pm in the shade

Slow days in Vassieux-en-Vercors

I spent several days in this tiny village of Vassieux-en-Vercors (altitude 1100 m, 80 km south-west of Grenoble). Beautiful scenery road to get there if you come from north and the road is getting even prettier if you are heading to south from there!

Today there is living 350 habitants with one bakery, a very little grocery shop, few bars and one pizzeria (very tasty pizzas!). You can make nice hikings around there and the commune is offering a spot for campers with water and emptying free of charge. To support their camper spot it is recommended to buy as a souvenir a sticker of Vercors at the price of 3 euro. And of course I do have one now :)

Camper spot in Vassieux-en-Vercors

Touring in France

Below some mixed photos from "tour de France". I was camping three days in this cozy camper spot in Montreaux, only 20 km from Switzerland. Excellent spot if you have your bicycle with you, beautiful roads next to the canal "Rhone au Rhin", hop all the Dutch people :)

 

French doggy poop

France deserves credit for their doggy poop bag system! Often while walking in cities or villages, you see a system where they have made an attachment to walls or entrances to parks etc to get your own poop bag with you - free of charge! Well this gives comforts too all citizens, with or without dogs.

Other thing what many communes offers is that you can pick up your bags freely from the town hall, how great is that! I got this set of four rolls and the holder.

 This is something that many countries could take as a model!

Rouffach - village with storks

I had one night stop in this little village called Rouffach, parked next to the church, but there is also a campsite and a real parking spot for campers, but I lost the sign on my way, so I parked just in the village. Quite soon when I was walking around, I found the camper spot, was not that far away either...

Lovely little village with many storks around! It also belongs to the route of Alsatian wine road which offers many nice small villages of course with their Alsatian wine (mostly white).

Soufflenheim pottery village

Soufflenheim, my first village stop in France. You would think still being in Germany when you are in Soufflenheim, the name doesnt sound French, houses looks like in Germany and even the dialect they speak is not giving any hint of being in France! But you do find already your typical French baguette and croissants from your local boulangerie :).

Soufflenheim is located in Alsace, 60 km north from Strasbourg, near German border and its known from its potteries. Pottery has been done here already since the bronze age, the land is provided the needed clay.

On the road 2014

I was spending nice summer days in Finland for 6 weeks and hitted the road again 1.8.2014, this time via Sweden and Denmark. For years I have been taking the ferry (Finnlines) directly from Helsinki to Travemunde (D) but this time the tickets were so higly priced without good offers and I was counting that I managed to drive with half of the price to Germany via Sweden rather than taking the ferry Finland - Germany.

Fiskars village

Fiskars is a global brand, but also a picturesque village, where the brand Fiskars started at 1649. It is also the oldest company in Finland with its long history! They do produce tools for garden, home, office etc.