Europe 2025, Part One: Sat 7th June - Weds 11th June

Sat 7th June

Very early start this morning, I walked Loki at 5am and then me, Angel & Lee left Bristol for Folkestone around 615am. Once we arrived at Le Shuttle we grabbed a bite to eat in Leon, sipped on a Starbucks, then a quick pee stop before boarding the shuttle.

It always blows my mind how fast you get to France on that thing, anyone ever imagine that it’d be like driving through an aquarium when they first announced the tunnel!? No? Well I did, it’s not like that…luckily haha.

Cheeky little lemon muffin for the journey.

Wahoooo we’ve arrived! We stopped off an hour or so into the drive for a bite to eat, now we’ve got 3hrs17 until we get to Siersburg.

Today we have driven through a total of five countries, that’s pretty cool - UK, France, Belgium, Luxembourg & Germany! Lee is a driving machine, I am just enjoying eating sweets whilst we listen to an audiobook - The Last Devil to Die (Richard Osman).

We’re at our first campsite of the holiday - Nied Camping, Siersburg. We’ve set up the van, had showers & just inhaled some yummy cake.

We sipped on some Riesling whilst playing uno, this is my first bit of alcohol this year - I’m on holiday, I shall dabble responsibly.

I love Uno.

Next stop, Augsburg.

Sunday 8th June

I woke up at 6am, saw the time and fell back asleep until now, 8am. I think I need to pop out to the campsite facilities and let out my howdy ho 💩. Yes I talk about poo here, we all do it, embrace it.

We’ve just left the campsite at Siersburg, stopped off to refuel and we will start making our way to Siersburg, it’s about a 3/4hr drive from here.

There’s a little bit of traffic, we’ve got about 2hrs left of the journey & I have started to work my way through the sweet stash.

Uh oh, we have a flat tyre…luckily they have European cover. After a phone-call to the RAC, they got to us within an hour & towed us to a nearby garage. The problem is that tomorrow is a national holiday here, so we’re kinda stuck outside this shop until Tuesday, eek. These things happen but I was really looking forward to meeting one of the musicians we’ve released with on The Jazz Hop Café (Erwin Do), sorry Erwin, it wasn’t meant to be - we’ll make it happen another time.

We’re just waiting for the RAC to call us back as they sort out a hotel for us over the next two nights. Fingers crossed they have the tyre we need, otherwise it can be up to two days wait for them to order one in.

We headed to the hotel bar for a couple of drinks before going to the restaurant next door for dinner, we tried to make light of a annoying situation and had a little laugh about it as much as we could

After we finished dinner, we headed back to the hotel room where we watched my friends latest vlog as she starts her solo van trip around Europe. Check her out here

Mon 9th June

We’re just chilling in the room at the moment, it’s Whit Monday here so most things are closed but we think we might go for a walk or check out if any museums are open.

After having breakfast in the van, we made our way to a couple of museums. First up was the Gasometer Pforzheim, check out Yadegar Asisi

Absolutely stunning work, all three of us were blown away - I’ve never seen anything like it before! Photos wouldn’t do it justice, so if you ever get a chance to see his work, do it. After that we made our way to the Schmuckmuseum, which is a museum dedicated to the history of jewellery, it was quite interesting but my favourite part was the Hip-Hop pop up! We weren’t allowed to take photos in most of the rooms, but I did grab this little vinyl wall

After a few hours in the museums, we stopped off for a drink & fries before walking back to the van. We had dinner in the van and then made our way to the hotel bar for a drink and a few games of uno. We popped on a film in the hotel room (The Fountain of Youth) we were about an hour in before deciding to turn it off and return to it tomorrow night so we could grab some sleep.

Tues 10th June

We made our way back to the garage ready for when they opened at 8, kind of good news, kind of bad. Tbc. We’re waiting for their friend to send over documents we need for the vehicle, fingers crossed the wheel they have available is okay and safe for the van. Fingers crossed everyone.

Yessss…success, the van is getting new tyres! We’ll not talk about what that cost, but it means we can be on our way very soon! Woooo

New back tyres on, we’re off to Salzburg! We’ve got another 3hrs or so left to a campsite there. We’ll probably stop for lunch en route, but boy does it feel good for us all to continue with our trip!

Wooo we have arrived at our campsite in Salzburg! Looks really nice, and only a short bus journey from the centre. We’re just setting up the van into camp mode before we plan our next movements.

We got a bus and explored the old town and scoped a more detailed idea of where we will visit tomorrow! It’s really pretty here, reminds me a little bit of Lucerne.

Weds 11th June

After breakfast & coffees in the van we headed to the cable car at Untersberg! Very cloudy so we didn’t see much at the top, but the view from the cable car made up for it!

After that we made our way to Fortress Hohensalzburg, epic castle!

We’ve just stopped for a sachertorte & a sprite to rehydrate before heading somewhere for lunch.

Angel found a vegan spot for lunch, I had a tofu bowl, Lee went for the Pad Kar Po and Angel had a Buddha bowl

The Mozart museum was amazing

After a few museums I bought a new cap! I really loved the design, which is all by a local illustrator and each character has a story behind them.

Then we went on a 40 minute river cruise, we managed to pack a lot in to one day! If you come here make sure you get the Salzburg card, it includes all the main attractions & you can get a 24hr or 48hr pass. We smashed it out at a really decent pace within a day.

After a long epic day, we ended with beer & Aperol Spritz before heading back to the campsite for dinner in the van.

We’re back at the campsite now, I think I’ll bring part one to an end here! Ready for more adventures tomorrow, stay tuned.