Munich, Germany
Next stop, Munich. Since it’s a city I go to often, I know many people there. So it’s always nice to return. Especially in summer with all these parks to hang out and play games. Also this time. I spend a week in Munich working and hanging out with friends.
I came to Munich by camper van. The goal was to move up to the North coast of France and Belgium. My best friend from Munich joined me spontaneously for a 2-week trip. So let the adventure start…
Strasbourg, France
On the way North we stopped in Ulm (Germany) to have lunch with friends and their baby, whom we never saw. Then we continued crossing the border to France and stayed a night in Strasbourg. We did a quick stroll in the old town and had some dinner. Just a nice city. I’ve worked there before for around a week, so I showed my friend some nice spots.
The next day was filled with a lot of driving. My friend just completed her driving license, so I let her drive on the highway so she could practice.
Paris, France
In the evening we arrived in Paris after a lot of hours of driving. We didn’t want to enter the city center so decided to stop a bit outside in Versailles. Yeah, exactly where this huge and famous palace is located. We actually parked just in front of a silent street and stayed for the night.
In the evening and for breakfast we enjoyed the French kitchen and pastry. The next day we had a walk in the park but didn’t enter the palace itself.
Brest, France
We continued our drive to the North Coast. A couple of more hours to drive. Arrived there I managed to meet up with my cousin and friends to hang out for a nice breakfast in the park. They’re traveling around with exactly the same camper van as we did.
The next week is packed with going around the coastline in the North of France. Working and exploring combined to its finest. Life is pretty stressful like that, but also very rewarding.
The Normandy has amazing landscapes and coasts. We stopped by places like Carnac, Plage de Pentrez, Pointe de Pen Hir, Site de Meneham, Ploumanac’h, Le Mont-Saint-Michel, and Étretat.
We had some great food on our trip and also the worst in my life. Personally, I’m not the greatest friend of the French kitchen, but the pastry and crepes are just amazing.
Bruges, Belgium
I haven’t discovered Belgium that much and since it isn’t that far from the Northern coast of France, I decided to finally check out some cities there.
The first stop was Brugge. A quite touristy, but cute place. It’s called “Venice of the North”. So we needed to do a round trip by boat in the channels. Something we can’t miss out on, are waffles and fries.
Gent, Belgium
The next city was Gent. Another very nice city. Less touristy, but as nice.
My friend and I always do some funny things. We use Tinder to meet new people wherever we go. Then we find a “date” for each of us. Hang out with them first and then meet together. Mostly this is ending in a great local experience, very casual. This time we had a walk during sunset in the old town and then we went over to a pretty hip pizza place with pretty outstanding tastes of pizza to share across the table. A very good experience.
The next day I had to work a lot. So I was working in the camper van on the campsite. In the evening we went to the cinema. I rarely go to the cinema, but I heard that Fast & Furious was running. So I needed to see it.
Namur, Belgium (Camper Breakdown)
A car nightmare is upcoming. You can’t believe it. In spring I was on a sailing trip with a group of international people. One girl was from Belgium. So I texted her to ask if she was free for a weekend getaway with us in the camper van. She could manage, so we headed to her home to pick her up. All good so far. We were planning to drive a bit South to check out some older villages in the countryside. While having great talks driving on the highway, at some point I just couldn’t accelerate anymore. I was shocked and drove to the side of the highway. The motor shut down. On the side, I tried to restart the motor a couple of times. Without success. I called my father, a car mechanic. But helping via the phone with such a problem isn’t that easy. It didn’t look good. And we’re on the highway, so we need to somehow move away and visit a garage.
We needed to call a towing service to bring us to the next certificated Volkswagen garage. The thing is, the car is not even a year old. So we called the police and they organized a guy to pick us up. The good part is that we had our new friend on board. Where in the French-speaking part of Belgium people rarely speak English. So good to have a local with French skills on board. We had to wait for around 30 minutes to get picked up. What can we do? Good, that we’re in a camper van with a kitchen, so time for lunch 😉 No bad mood. When we just finished, the tow truck came to pick us up. What an experience, we all never have been in such a situation. Stressful, but we took it with humor.
Arrived at the garage they had already started to take apart the motor to see what could be the problem. Underneath we found a lot of drips of gasoline. After a lot of discussion with the manager of the garage and language difficulties, we figured out that new cars are insured by Volkswagen for such things by default. But since we’re registered in Switzerland, I needed to call the Swiss support service. Big companies, slow support, complicated structures. But after a couple of hours, we managed. The guy on the support was very friendly and could even speak French to talk to the Belgium garage manager directly. So by the end of the day, they managed to get us a replacement car for a week. Our camping trip was already at the end before it started. We needed to adjust all of our plans, but my friend and I are experienced travelers, so we’re used to that.
So we got a taxi, which drove us to the next car rental service at the airport. One hour away actually, from there we took our rental car and drove back to our friend’s house. There they were just celebrating the birthday of her sister. So we just joined the party.
Ottignies, Belgium (Staying with our friend’s family)
The family was so welcoming and friendly. They invited us to stay at the place as long as we wanted. Instead of going to the countryside by camper van, we’re now staying in the center of Belgium with our friends and family. I could have asked for worse things. And our guest room was an amazing one, it was actually a full studio. We felt at home immediately.
The next day we already got the notification that our camper van was ready to pick up. Very unexpected since we were shifting our plans for at least 4 to 5 days.
Abbaye de Villers, Belgium
We went out to visit a monastery called Abbaye de Villers close to the village we’re staying at (Louvain-la-Neuve). It’s from the year 1200. We enjoyed visiting and had a great time as always. No time for negativity.
Namur, Belgium (Breakdown Nr. 2)
Then we continued our trip to the garage to pick up our camper. Everything was fine, but we have one issue now. We have 2 cars and 3 people (2 of them are inexperienced drivers). As you know my friend just got her driving license and I was supervising her while driving up to the North of France. Mostly countryside and highways, but now we’re in a smaller city. In addition, the rental car is registered with me, so based on insurance rules, only I can drive the rental car. So we were forced to split to bring home our vehicles. My gut feeling wasn’t great at all, but what will be our option? On a roundabout, my friend hit the curb with the tier of the camper van and we ended up with a big hole in the tier. Unbelievable. 15 minutes after we left the garage. To top it all off it was Friday evening 6 pm. All places are closed. We tried to call some tier replacement services nearby, no chance. They’re opening tomorrow morning at 8 AM. So we abandoned our camper at a bus stop (very illegal) with a friendly letter under the windshield.
We went home very sad (this time) and still couldn’t believe what happened. The next day our mission continued. Get the camper van back on the road. We stopped by the tier shop and explained our situation and issue. We didn’t want to pay for another towing service. So the guy told us we could drive very slowly to his place. The tier will manage, and then they can replace it here. So we did that. We went to the camper and started driving slowly through the middle of the city. Everyone was watching us since we were driving a maximum of 10km/h hours and the noise wasn’t that nice. We produced quite a bit of traffic jam behind us and it didn’t take long until the police stopped us. Again, I explained our situation and they were very supportive and escorted us to the tire service. Yeah, we got escorted by two police officers through the city of Namur. “Police, your friend and helper” as we say in German.
Arrived at the tire shop they replaced our tire and we were ready to go after 30 minutes. Finally, that was unbelievable. Looking back it’s a crazy experience, at the moment it happened just unbelievable and stressful, especially after the second breakdown.
But everything got fixed quickly, we had our new spare tire in the front and were ready to go back to the friend’s house. I decided to stay more time in Belgium since I calculated a longer repair time for the camper. So I moved around some in-person appointments back in Switzerland. My German friend booked a flight back home from Brussels in a couple of days for work. We went there together to drop her off and say goodbye.
Waterloo, Belgium
Since I still have two cars (a rental replacement car and the camper), I took advantage of it and toured around the area. It’s around 1 hour South of the capital and a quiet area. So I went to visit the famous battlefield of Waterloo (1815 with Napoleon Bonapartes). There’s a big monumental hill and a museum next to which I checked out.
Colmar, France (Driving back to Switzerland)
Time went by quickly with exploring, working, and talking to my Belgium friend. It was time to grab the camper and drive South to Switzerland. It’s approximately a 7-hour trip. But I don’t really like to drive too much time so since I have my house on the back I do multiple stops whenever I feel tired. I was able to make it to Strasbourg where I slept. The next day I went a bit more South to check out a cute village I’ve never visited — Colmar. It also has these rivers between the houses like Strasbourg, but more cute.
Zurich, Switzerland (Meeting with a client)
Arrived in Zurich, I directly headed to a client for a yearly meeting and a nice dinner afterward. We went for a boat trip around the lake with a nice dinner on it. I got a very typical Swiss dish (Älplermagronen), which I always enjoy a lot when back home.
