quick summary

My campervan Travels Blog

Well, don't ask me why it has taken me four and a half months to finally write a blog (web-log).
I have actually been completing my Journal everyday, so if you want to see the full scripts, just ask.

SUMMARY
I left scotland 31st October 2008 with my loyal Boxer dog Max, in my campervan.
We headed to Newcastle Ferry (the nearest ferry at Rosyth ceased operations in September 2008).
I arrived 4pm and the ferry was at 5pm and the girl refused to sell me a ticket.
So I paid an extra 65 pounds next day (Saturday) for a one-way ticket to Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, i realised i had left behind my accessories for my TomTom GPS (Sat Nav). Specifically, I needed the window attachment and the power from cigarette lighter socket.
I figured, it's a four-hour drive back to Fife (in a campervan) to collect these items (I knew they were in mum's car, as i loaned her the GPS when whe had friends visiting from Australia).
So I decided, i've got until 5pm on a Saturday, i'm sure i can buy the Sat Nav accessories in one of the Newcastle stores... well i was wrong! my GPS is one-year old (was top of the range at the time), and the new TomTom has totally different fittings!

So now i'm thinking, i may just buy a cheap GPS when i get over to Europe, but that does seem a shame.

The ferry trip was wild... we had North Sea swells up to 50 feet (the height of the ferry) and i had chosen to leave Max in the camper rather than into the kennels that were on the car deck.
Once the journey has started, you're not allowed back to car deck (doors are locked), so i kept getting out of my bed and looking out the porthole to see if we were seriously going to capsize.
I had visions of Titanic flashing through my mind and i was seriously thinking 'we ARE going to sink... ok, my windsurfer is on the roof... if i rescue Max, where is my knife so i can slice the windsurfer free and Max and I will have a flotation device'
The journey starts at 5pm (last pee opportunity for Max is 3.30pm), and we're supposed to arrive at 9am. Due to 'adverse weather' we arrived 11am.
Well Max was an angel, and he hadn't throw up, and his bladder waited until we docked in Holland... good boy!

I got to Amsterdam (coffee bars) and discovered lots of places with free wifi facilities, however my laptop couldn't get a connection.
In the end, i finally conceeded to purchasing a new laptop. This time, i opted for a tiny lightweight with much less technical spec than my big laptop (easier for flights i figured).

I then had a brainwave, and realised i had a friend in Gent, Belgium (Annick), so i sent her a message and asked if i could have my mum post the GPS accessories to her and i would visit in around three days time.
Well that worked out beautifully, and the accessories turned up at 2pm, exactly one hour after i arrived (at the agreed time).
I had preserved the GPS battery perfectly to get me to the final street.
Annick founded the YES-group in Belgium and i was her first speaker (Sept 2003), and i was delighted to find her daughter still adores me! (she's 12 now)

I later decided my GPS was definitely one of the most useful items ever!
Especially when negotiating streets such as in city centre of Paris, where many of the street signs are useless to visitors and there's just no time to stop and refer to a map.

So whilst in Belgium, i ended up teaching a small group of five how to Make Money Online.

I trusted my friends enough to look after my dog and so I flew back to Scotland for a surprise visit for mum's 70th (the family had organised a surprise meal with everyone there, and so i popped up too, surprising everyone... i even hired a car to do it right). I'd only been away for two weeks, so nobody expected to see me back.

Then i continued my journey... looking at my map, and literally laughing to myself 'shall i turn left or right?"
I decided i had never yet been to Luxemburg, so that was first, then onto Paris.
Mr TomTom took me smack into the city centre... literally passing Notre Dame and Le Louvre.

I met up with my mate Andy, a Canadian who has lived there for ten years now. Andy and I met whilst crewing Tony Robbins UPW (we were both on stage doing the YMCA dance).
Andy's french-speaking talents came in useful when i decided i wanted to buy a pay-as-you-go Mobile Internet gizmo.

I looked into this a fair bit whilst in Scotland and Amsterdam, and I specifically did not want a contract which would commit me to one or two years, when the service would only be valid in one country only
The french 'orange' system 'best deal' is 25 euro for 6 hours connection.

Onwards, next plan was to visit Hilary (another Tony Robbins & Tony Quinn graduate. Hilary founded the YES-group in Geneva) and her family in Annemasse (about 8km from Geneva city centre).
Well Mr TomTom in his wisdom took me straight up a mountain... i stopped at a supermarket for 5L water and ended up buying snow-chains (yes it was that bad)
I made dinner in the camper and twenty minutes later, i noticed the dog's water bowl was frozen over (it was minus 5 degrees).
Mr TomTom advised it was only 45km to Geneva, it was only 8pm so i decided to drive on... and i'm SO glad i did, although sliding sideways down a mountain road in the dark at ten miles per hour is not funny.

I arrived Geneva city centre and immediately had to get out to take some piccies, and i was very pleasantly surprised to find it was plus two degrees there - much more bearable.

I should point out at this stage that i had no gas bottle and no heating other than the car engine.
I did later get gas in Sicily (i bought the van on eBay. It was a German imported Fiat and all of the fittings were european including the gas regulator, and i visited many campervan shops in uk to discover none of them could help)
My cooking was being done on a tiny portable camp stove which is great & came in handy in Geneva/Annemasse too.

This weekend was a special YES-group celebration in London and i wasn't going to miss it!
So Hilary and family kindly offered to look after Max whilst i flew back.

Meanwhile, Hilary had her water & electricity disconnected (a single mum with young family being disconnected at beginning of Winter is not good), so my campervan accessories (Stove, lamps, torch, water, pasta etc) came in very handy.
Hilary was very hospitable, but i didn't want to overstay my welcome, so i moved on.
When I left, at 1pm lunchtime, it was minus 2 degrees. And yet somehow, there were still homeless beggars sitting outside on pavements. I hate to think just how cold it can get there.

Fortunately Hilary's home, although so close to Geneva (Capital of Switzerland), is classed as being in France. Nevertheless, I was getting through my 6 hours Mobile Internet allowances very quickly (at 25 euro every time)... and i knew the 'orange' USB stick would only work whilst in France.

So I travelled on to Lyon. The Festival of Lights happened last weekend, but because we didn't want Hilary's son reporting back to his dad that she had no power, we had concocted a plan to visit another of her friends that weekend.
I missed the main festival and when i got there it rained and looked like it was set to continue for three days, so i had some dinner and continued onwards. I didn't want to wait three days for a dry period just to take some pics.

As it happened, it did rain for three days solid (Winter has set in).

So onwards to Nice, Cannes, St.Tropez, Monaco & Montecarlo. I put up with the rain for a couple of days and was then rewarded with beautiful sunshine for the next couple of days that i stayed. It was 19 degrees. I was wearing shorts & flipflops and the locals were wearing gorgeous full-length fur coats, with matching designer dogs under their arms.

On what i had decided was going to be my last day, I popped in on another friend (another Tony Robbins crew member), but no-one was home, and no answer on landline or mobile. It was only then i discovered i had been camping only 300 yards away the whole time!

So onwards... i was now facing an interesting decision... should i head into Italy (i've never driven there before and i speak zero Italian) or towards Spain (via Andorra... another country i wanted to tick on my list). Well i've driven most of the Southern coast of Spain and it really is quite a boring drive.
On saying that, i have a couple of friends to visit in Spain and potentially a destination at my ex-girlfriend's apartment in an area i love.

Well i decided, almost last minute, that there were a number of Italian places i really wanted to visit, so off i headed.

Funny i've never heard anyone mention this before, but i was suddenly shocked at the road conditions... i even videod as i was driving... the road literally went through the costal mountains, so sometimes you were in low dark tunnels with no lighting and then back out onto viaducts maybe 100 feet in the air with no hard shoulder and no room for error.
Nevertheless, the car drivers were screaming past at 100mph... boy did i grip that steering wheel.

Two hours into Italy and i had a serious vibration. I couldn't work out if it was driveshaft or wheel-bearing, but it was definitely worse in high gears.
So i stopped at a service station to discover their internet service only works if you are a member. My mobile internet didn't work now that i was no longer in France. It was Saturday evening and i was advised no garages would be open anywhere until Monday.

Well they had toilets and showers and warm food at this service station so i guessed this was where i was stopping for the weekend... would not have been my preferred choice!

As it happened, we had heavy, heavy rainstorms that would not have been pleasant to drive in, especially not on these roads.

It's another hour's drive to the main city of Genova & i speak no Italian. At least the campervan is a Fiat, so that was in my favour.

It's two hours drive back to France, but at least i speak some French and my mobile internet would work there.

But will my vibration abstain even for an hour's drive?

I decided to go on to Genova. I had meanwhile sent a sms to another Tony Robbins crew member. I didn't know he was Sicilian and he was actually there now.
He invited me to Sicily for christmas (it was now 19th December, so that seemed to make sense) - if i could get there in time.

Well as i reached Genova, one of the first things i saw was 'Porto', so i thought i'd head there... at least they would have space for a camper and maybe there would be a Fiat garage en-route.

I enquired and discovered they did indeed have ferries to Sicily - at 510 euros one-way - OUCH! Meanwhile (whilst calculating how long it would take to drive & how much would i spend in fuel), i bought another mobile internet dongle.

The italian mobile internet tariff seemed too good to be true... only 15 euros for 100 hours... compare that to the French tariff (25 euro for 6 hrs)... but it works!!

Well that seemed my best bet. At least if i have a friend who can speak fluent Italian & English, i can get this vibration seen to. Of course at that time of year, all mechanics are thinking about downing tools to party, and this is my only means of transport. At least i have all i need in the 'van.

Typically when i did finally get a mechanic to have a look at my vibration... it disappeared!

So christmas time was party, party, party. Turns out my friend is very well connected and acts as if he owns this nightclub... and he seems to know all of the English speaking guests too.

It did seem to me that they were missing out on a trick or two though...
In Edinburgh at festive time, fancy dress and/or silly hats or tinsel is just part of the fun. People getting dressed up (is it just me or are the girls outfits getting sexier?).
Of course cheesy chritmas music and silly dancing is all taken in good spirits.

Well not in Sicily. Everyone wears black. They greet each other (men too) with a kiss on each cheek. That seemed a bit weird at first, then i decided i liked it. Nobody dresses silly and there is no cheesy christmas music... i really missed the fun atmosphere, but apparently it would be frowned upon in Sicily.

So to me a christmas week night out was the same as any other night out in sicily. You must Wear black and double-cheek kiss and smile politely.

Of course i had already decided that i would be wearing my kilt at New Year, just as i would at home. I had it with me after all and it hadn't had an airing yet.
Well i was advised by a couple of well-meaning friends not to wear my kilt, but i was determined to stand out.

I was amused at the reactions; most people stared me up and down disdainly. One or two of the guys didn't believe i was Scottish as my tan implied i was as Sicilian as them.

The dj gave us a countdown at the bells from ten, and that was it... there were one or two token polite double-cheek kisses, but not the rowdy champagne-popping, tooter-blowing, grabbing the person next to you for a kiss, like we have in Edinburgh at the bells.

Yet again, it could have been any other Friday night out. Indeed there were less in the nightclub at Hogmanay than other nights we'd been out... maybe because they charged us 60 euros each for entry.

Well i met a lovely english couple with a young daughter Katy (3), and we kept in touch, so i met up with them again in Siracusa.
For anyone planning to visit Sicily, i would highly recommend Siracusa as a great place to visit.
I got some fabulous photos.

I then returned to Catania. I did some great day trips to Mount Etna (Officially the largest active Volcano in Europe), Aci-Castello & Taormina - all of which i would highly recommend.

I did finally meet with another friend whose father owns the Largest Clothing Company in Italy. And they have zero internet exposure... they bemused me and excited me!

Well to summarise, it turns out the clothing industry is really feeling the credit crunch bite.
The company strategy has been to supply the clothing shops and they also have ten of their own shops.

I've have never seen anything like this place. The warehouse has 10 million euro worth of clothing, mostly men's suits. They have five of their own label suits made especially for them.

In theory, they should be laughing, but reality is the footfall to the warehouse has died. indeed some days they didn't even switch on most of the lights, only the area where the staff were working on computers.

They wanted me to help raise 5 million in order to open a new shop in Roma or Milan, and yet they refused to fund even 2,000 euro to cover costs of finding sales team.

It bemused me that they have thirty five staff and yet not one sales person anywhere!
My idea was to source self-employed sales=people around the world - i mean look at the USP - Real Italian Clothing, made in Sicily!

Well i know a fair bit about financing (i was an Independent Financial Adviser for 17 years) and i know a fair bit about generating income online, so i felt excited that i could help here.

however, as they were now being chased by the bank daily to deposit hundreds of thousands, i reckoned their first priority should be to bring in a LOT of sales quickly... and i believed the best way to do that was by finding salespeople around the world.

a website would take time and doing it on a budget such as the eBay route would not be fast enough or professional enough.

however Papa refused to fund 2,000 euros in costs to find a salesteam and he wanted me to fund it all, offering me a bigger percentage of resulting sales. i decided i didn't want to become a suit-salesman even if the offer could have been lucrative... too much groundwork to be done with zero rewards for my liking.

so i moved on, and i'm SO glad i did... i got a chance to see some beautiful sights... and take some more fabulous pics.

Agrigento is fantastic! actually i bought a book of Sicily and carefully plotted every picturesque location in a clockwise direction and then headed straight to each for pics.

I then started monitoring online all of the other destinations on the mainland that i could reach by ferry to establish the temperatures (it's mid feb and still winter across europe).

i was really disappointed to discover that most locations, even far south were still suffering minus temperatures (albeit only minus one or minus two) and as i only had my engine to keep me warm, i decided i may as well stay in sicily for a while (actually another month as it happened). I'm not in any hurry, and i have everything i need in the camper. Temperatures went to minimum of seven degrees at night - much more bearable (usually around 13 degrees at night).

This is my European Campervan Travel Blog.

Follow my escapades as I travel Europe using only my Laptop to generate my income en-route.