What Jess wants, Jess gets!

Week 1 – 13th – 15th December 2023 (Home, UK to Solre-le-Chateau, France. 345 miles)

It has been a while since we did a good long van trip. A lot has happened since our last one back in July 23. Since then we have moved from a house to a flat and renovated it, which was stressful, and we have kept on working throughout all of it. It’s behind us now, time to move on, and our attention is now to look forward and get out on Jess for a long winter getaway.

We have had our little van for over 5 years, so she has had to have some upgrades. A new cam belt has been fitted, a full service, new tyres, a thermal windscreen cover and a new hi-tech dash cam. Because of where we are going and travelling through, we have also bought some snow chains, which we need to practice putting on.

We even bought her some silver slippers for the tyres for when we hit the hot temperatures (and the cold) to protect them. Yes, what Jess wants, Jess gets. She is now ready for our next outing.

The plan, the loose plan, is to get to Switzerland for Christmas day and spend a few days in Interlaken. We will probably spend 10 days in Switzerland altogether, it’s probably all we will be able to afford! We will then make our way west towards Spain, and go as far south as we can before turning around and heading north and home for mid-February. Well, that’s the plan. For now…

Wednesday 13th December 2023 (Home to Waverley Park. 1 mile!)

As usual, we are staying at a local campsite in East Cowes, it makes life nice and easy and we are ideally placed for our early ferry tomorrow morning at 08:00 to start the journey to Europe. Now we are in a flat the load up is so, so easy. We can drive the habitation door right up to our patio doors of the flat and just move everything in one go. Easy.

Once loaded we do the half-mile drive to Waverley Park and get settled in for an easy night having tested everything: water supply works, gas works, heating, cooking, etc. All good.

Thursday 14th December 2023 (Waverley Park, UK to Poperinge, Belgium. 229 miles )

It’s a cool morning, and dark when the alarm rings out at 6:45 am. No breakfast, just a quick coffee. We pack everything up and set off.

For once the Wightlink ferry leaves on time for Portsmouth. It’s nice and quiet and empty, mainly truck drivers. 40 minutes later we disembark and we are off heading for Dover. Breakfast is a rather splendid McDonald’s breakfast. We can get quite scathing about fast food and “Micky Dee’s“, but sometimes they are rather good. Especially this morning.

We arrive early at Dover and we are ushered rather quickly onto the next ferry with thirty minutes to spare, but we are leaving an hour and a half before our booked ferry. Excellent.

Again another quiet ferry. No kids running around like it’s a playground and no parents screaming at them, ignoring everyone else around them!

We pay 14 quid each for the premium lounge upgrade. We are the only ones in there. It is lovely.

Drinks and food are all included with a lovely view of the white cliffs of Dover fading away into the distance. So far it has been one of the best travel and crossing days we have probably ever experienced since having a van, and we have done this trip a few times now.

We disembark at Dover after a lovely crossing and we set off for a place we stop at regularly because it’s open all year, has everything you need, it’s easy to get to and has a nice collection of Belgian beers and traditional home-cooked food. Stal ‘t bardehof is a small farm in Poperinge, in the West Vleteren area of Belgium. Belgium is not really a place that you hear of people going for their holidays but there are some very nice places and this area is one of them along with the town of Ypres which is a short drive away.

We get settled in just as it’s getting dark and the temperature is falling fast. We get the new thermal window cover on, get the gas on and plug in to the power and in no time we are toasty in Jess.

We get ready for dinner, which consists of putting on a warmer heavier coat and set off for a local dish of Grootmoeders Stoofvlees, a small salad and fries, served with a good Belgian beer. Wonderful. The Stoofvlees stick to your ribs so you leave full and warm. Perfect.

Friday 15th December 2023 (Poperinge, Belgium to Solre-le-Chateau, France 90 miles)

It was a peaceful night last night. We pack up and set off for France. This could be our only stop in France as we are heading for the Black Forest in Germany. It’s a grey cold still day. A bit of a sad sky but we are quite happy trundling along the dreadful Belgian roads to our destination. We decide to stop off at the town of Ypres for a walk. It is where the Menin Gate is and it’s a lovely town and looks very festive. The next and final stop is Solre-le-Chateau to a free aire. Aires in France are a big thing for campers. Most of them are free and some have facilities like electricity and water, where you may have to pay a small fee. Camping aires are very popular and in the summer can get quite full quite quickly, but this aire is almost empty. 23 spaces with only 5 campers of which we are one. Once settled, we take the short walk to the town which is quite delightful, and decorated for Christmas.

It has a church, Eglise St. Pierre, built in the 15th century, with a rather dangerous-looking steeple.

All very pleasant and free!

Tomorrow we will either do another night in France or maybe Luxembourg or maybe even Germany….