12 weeks, 20 countries, 1 Wicked Van Tour

Travelling around Europe in a campervan may not be everyone’s idea of a perfect holiday but for most Antipodeans “Van Tour” has become an integral part of the big OE, and for good reason. 

This is a trip we had wanted to do for a few years so by the time we made the decision that it was now or never, we had done a lot of research.  Since neither of us had any mechanical ability whatsoever we decided that hiring a campervan was the obvious answer.

We couldn’t have been more pleased with our van, ‘London Town’, and she behaved herself impeccably for the entire journey, a mere 10,000+ miles!  There is plenty of storage under the seats and having cooking facilities in the camper meant we saved heaps of money on food, although naturally we did make an effort to splash out on local cuisine as often as possible.

So here is a little bit about what we got up to on our 3 month trip:

After using France as our testing ground to get used to driving on the right hand side of the road, we headed south down to Spain to officially kick off our trip with the crazy but fantastic tradition of the Running of the Bulls.  We arrived at our campsite in Pamplona where along with our fellow 'Wicked' travellers we had booked a couple of days to camp with Stoke Travel.

Now Stoke may not be the most organised travel group but with free beer and sangria and their own DJs, it makes for a fantastic atmosphere and a great opportunity to meet others on Van Tour.  The following day we crammed ourselves into the main square for the official opening of the San Fermin Festival.  Basically this involves dressing up in the traditional white costume and drenching each other in Sangria.  Handy tip: make sure you wear decent shoes as the partying results on there being a lot of broken glass around. The following day was the first Bull Run and although we both chickened out of taking part in the actual run, it is still an awesome experience just being there. We took the more sedate option of buying tickets for the bullring which means you not only get to see the end of the run (where the route through town culminates) but you also get to watch the entire run on big screens within the bullring. The other option is to get up about 5am to guarantee any kind of streetside view!

From northern Spain we headed down to Portugal and on to Algeciras where we then left the van for a few days and headed over to Morocco.  After being reunited with our cherished van we headed back through Spain and into the tiny but amazingly scenic ‘country’ of Andorra. From here our route took us along the south of France, through Monaco and the Cote D’Azur and into Italy.

The drive along the Italian Riviera, and later the Amalfi coast had amazing views and we really appreciated the compact size of the van as there is barely room for two cars let alone anything bigger on those twisting, hair-razing cliff roads. From Brindise, south-east Italy we boarded the ferry for Greece (again the size of the van is great as you only have to pay the fee for a car not a camper).  After a few days lazing on the
beautiful Greek Islands, (leaving ‘London Town’ at the port of Piraeus), we then visited the ancient sites of Athens before heading north through Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro (if you do go to these countries be prepared to pay at the border, about 50 euros, to be allowed to bring a vehicle through.)

Our next destination, Croatia, was amazing and surpassed our already high expectations. We took the van with us over to the island of Hvar and discovered a campsite which was probably our favourite, as it was within a couple of metres of the sea.  One of the best things about independent travel is when you find a place like this that you really love; you have the freedom to stay longer than planned, so we did!

After Croatia we drove up to Slovenia, checking out Ljubljana and Lake Bled before heading east to meet up with some friends in Budapest, Hungary. From here we spent a few days taking the scenic route through Slovakia and Austria, entering Czech Republic from the south and making our first stop at the place that time forgot; Cesky Krumlov. From here we headed north to Prague then onto Germany. After a couple of weeks in Germany, what better way to end our trip, finishing up at Oktoberfest in Munich.  Like so many other things on this trip, Oktoberfest  was even better than we had expected. 

Obviously the main attraction is the beer, served in massive litre steins, and the beer drinking songs but there are also fairground rides and amusement games for when you need a well earned drinking break. Also if you don’t drink beer most of the tents serve white wine. If there is a group of you, you can book a table several months in advance which would save much wasted drinking time standing around in queues but I have heard this involves quite a bit of forward planning.

Unfortunately Oktoberfest meant our trip was nearly over so from here we spent the last few days exploring Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxemburg, and finally Belgium. It was a sad day when we finally returned ‘London Town’ to Wicked’s depot but we are already planning our next Wicked trip!!!

Obviously everyone will have their own opinions of the best places to go and with so many amazing experiences it is hard to choose but for us some of the highlights were:

 Best for beaches: Lagos (Portugal), Hvar (Croatia), Greek Islands.
 Best for history: Rome (Italy), Dubrovnik (Croatia).
 Best ‘ye olde’ towns: Cesky Krumlov (Czech Republic), Goslar and Rothenburg (Germany).
 Beware of: Mosquitoes in Portugal, drivers in Italy, public nudity (old people) in Germany.
 Must do’s: Spend ages taking the obligatory photos at the Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italy), listen to cheesy Europop, loudly, whilst driving (anywhere), when in Czech, drink Czech (30p per bottle), eat a waffle in Belgium.

You will enjoy the journey as much as, if not more than, the destinations.