European Tour suggestions/advice please - summer '09
 

Hi All,

We (the wife and I + 4 children (8,7,3.5,1.5) are toying with doing a mini European tour in the summer over about a 3-4 week period.

At the moment the rough game plan is to get across into Germany, possibly Austria, then Switzerland and back up through France, although we may try to venture a bit futher afield to Prague and Vienna.

One of the main motivations is to see where my family came from in Germany (Frankfurt region) and also to get up into the alps.

So, the main questions are...

What is the camping like in these countries?

and

What is the off roading like - are there any classic tracks through beautiful scenery that shouldn't be missed? Anything that we can do off tarmac would be a great bonus.

We will be travelling in a trusty Land Cruiser with most likely an off road camping trailer, which will probably be a bit of overkill for the trip, but will be used a lot for future trips so will be great to give it a good run.

So any suggestions/advice would be appreciated :-)

Camping
 

Tag Julian, the camp sites in the countries you mention are generally superb, better than UK's in many ways. In France, given the ages mentioned, I'd suggest the municipal sites. These are community run. They lack snazzy dance halls, shops, pools etc but are usually grassy, open, peaceful and a blissful piece of French countryside to rent for very little money. They have all the facilities you'll need. Others can be more specific than I. Linzi.

Hi Linzi,

Thanks, we were planning on using those - we stayed in a couple on the way back from Morocco and they were excellent value.

Are there similar things elsewhere in Europe? I've only ever done France and bits of Spain so the rest is new to me.

Similar to what my family and I are planning this summer, we are looking at Dover to Calais then Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Italy and Back up through France with Carcassonne being a must !

We drove down to Barcelona last year via France and Belgium and the camping was great all the way down, if you want to hit one of the greatest driving roads I have ever seen then head to Meyrueis !

Steve

We are quite well covered on the French side of things having been there a few times, but we need to find out a bit more about the offroading and camping in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and Switzerland.

Germany and others
 

Hi, I think France's municipals are an EU gem. If you get to the Czech Republic I expect they still have basic, similar sites, but German, Austrian and Swiss ones are more up market and organized so to speak. In a municipal one I've been told to camp anywhere. In Germans you'll be allocated a location. A place for everything and everything in its place. I asked the German where to park my bike as it was leaking a bit of oil.I have just the place he said and led me to the rubbish bin enclosure. To this day I don't know if he had a sense of humour or not!!! Linzi.

Julian, just a thought. If you want detailed advice of Germany tell me. A German now back near Cologne, lived in UK for many years. He's badly infected with Guzzi-itis. I suffer the same condition and simpathise. I can contact him if you want. Linzi.

Thanks Linzi for the offer, at this stage I'm just after background info on the offroading and camping mentioned countries, I'll fine tune things later once we have a better idea of the places we want to visit.