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“Welcome to Scotland” the road sign exclaimed as we crossed the border from England to Gretna, near the Firth of Forth. It was a pleasant day – quite warm and reasonably sunny and clear which was great as we were looking forward to seeing Scotland in all its abundant natural beauty. Now Scotland does not…

The drive from Land’s End in the far south-west of England to Hadrian’s Wall in the far north of England was uneventful except for a stop in the small village of Arnside, in Cumbria. Sleepy Arnside was where my father spent much of his childhood and where my grandfather and step-grandmother continued to live after…

Salty Tales has a guest blogger this week! My companion in adventuring, travel and life in general, Jonathan, writes about our visit to Cornwall, his “spiritual home”. It is rare that three brothers, all in their sixties and living around the world, are able to gather with their partners in one spot to enjoy some…

Despite some very enjoyable sightseeing around the the East Coast of England, the Norfolk Broads and the Fens, we were very much looking forward to spending some more precious time with family and friends. Our socialising began with a birthday celebration for my nephew who was also visiting England from his home in Japan. Then…

One of my early childhood memories is my father reading to me “The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher” by Beatrix Potter, so it was such a delight to visit Melford Hall in Suffolk and discover that Beatrix Potter had stayed there frequently and made many sketches around the Hall which she later used to illustrate…

There’s no doubt about it, even when travelling in our home on wheels it’s not easy to keep us away from watery places and boats – preferably lots of them! So it was that we travelled from Burnham-on-Crouch, one of Britain’s top yachting spots, to a place where there are more navigable waterways than in…

Pigs might fly but do cows walk over motorway footbridges? Well yes apparently they do in England! We were on our way from Dorset to visit one of my sisters in South London when we saw this very unusual (to an Australian anyway) sight. Our stay in London was short but sweet but we went…

I can’t deny that I felt a little thrill come over me when the white cliffs of Dover came into view as we sedately chugged across the narrow channel on the car ferry between Calais in France and that iconic part of England. It was the first time that we’d arrived in Britain as tourists.…

Timing is of the essence when it comes to seeing the tulip fields in The Netherlands at their best. This season was unusually warm so there was a very short window of opportunity for peak viewing. The town of Lisse is located at the centre of the bulb growing area but by the time we…

Our time in Italy had sadly drawn to an end so we headed from the beautiful Italian Riviera towards Milan where we spent the night and then drove on through Switzerland, France and Belgium to Pijnacker in the Netherlands. As the weather had turned grey and rainy we didn’t feel too bad about moving on.…

It was time to head for the ocean again having spent some weeks exploring the wonderful hilltop towns of inland Italy. We headed for Levanto – a small beachside village on the Italian Riviera just along the coast from the famous and very popular tourist destination Cinque Terre – five charming coastal villages that are…

We had heard good things about the town of San Gimignano, a small walled village about half way between Florence and Siena, and were looking forward to visiting it – sadly we were disappointed. Famous for its fascinating medieval towers that were built ever taller by rival families in a contest to demonstrate their superior…

Siena is such a popular tourist spot that we were concerned that we wouldn’t find a place to park our camper van but fortunately we came upon a large car park which was almost empty and only a short walk from the station. Right in front of the station was a shopping mall and to…

From Lake Trasimeno in the Italian region of Umbria we were able to get to Cortona in Tuscany in just half an hour. Cortona was quite a large hilltop town compared to the ones we had already visited but that day we were able to find a designated parking spot for our campervan with no…

The magic of travelling with only a loose plan is that you sometimes you come across wonderful places quite by chance. So it was that we discovered Lake Trasimeno in Umbria when trying to find a suitable place to stop the night. It was the perfect spot for a number of reasons, not least because…

There are probably only one or two movies during which I have witnessed audience members full-on sobbing. One of these was Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet which I went to see with a group of school friends. Memories of this outpouring of teenage anguish came flooding back when we visited the lovely little…

There are so many charming ancient hilltop villages in Umbria and Tuscany that you’d be forgiven for thinking that they all blur into one but we found that each one has a charm of their own and something special to recommend them. Take Orvieto for example. First of all, to reach this small town dramatically…

On our way from Monte Cassino to Cervara de Roma we had a serious mishap – we got stuck in a very narrow back street (it was so narrow you could say more it was more like a back passage) in the appropriately named Medieval village of Arsoli. What a disaster! We missed our turning…

In contrast to Pompeii, we found Herculaneum – also buried when Mt Vesuvius erupted – beautifully cared for, well conserved. and with excellently presented information. Apparently it wasn’t always the case – pre 2001 the town was in a dire state after years of mismanagement. Then the Packard Humanities Institute began the Herculaneum Conservation Project,…

The miraculous town of Pompei should have been one of the highlights of our visit to Italy but sadly we found this incredible first century AD site suffering from poor preservation, unimaginative presentation and spoiled by numerous competing guides speaking loudly in different languages – many to large groups. Exploring this town hidden and preserved…

From Ceglie Messapica we had driven the short distance to Cisternino – a charming old town that has remained virtually intact for centuries. We strolled through the narrow, shady streets gazing at the whitewashed houses, historic churches and elegant central piazza that opens out onto a series of panoramic view points. From the viewing points…

it was honestly one of the most truly terrifying experiences of my life – squeezing between gigantic trucks jammed together like giant sardines in a tin, trying to reach our campervan deep in the bowels of an overnight car ferry travelling from the Greek port of Igoumenitsa to Brindisi in southern Italy. The massive juggernauts…

Retracing our steps along the coast of the Gulf of Corinth, we drove through shady olive groves, lemon and orange orchards and other fruit trees thick with blossom. It was a wonderful sight. During the short time we had in Greece we were also constantly amazed at the prolific wild flowers of many varieties and…

Our trip to Corinth was a really memorable experience – quite apart from finding a great boatyard to store our boat over winter and visiting the fabulous archeological site of ancient Corinth, as described in my last blog entry. Another absolute highlight was seeing an amazing 19th Century engineering feat – the Corinth Canal. When…

We were on our way to view a boatyard where could potentially “winter over” the Lagoon 420 catamaran on which we had just paid a deposit. The plan is to take possession of the boat in October, once all booked charters have been honoured and then have a month’s “shakedown” to learn how to sail…

While we were waiting for the contract for the purchase of our boat to be drawn up we had a couple of days in which to relax and just be tourists in and around Athens On previous trips to Greece (many years ago and not with each other) we hadn’t really explored much of mainland…

At last we were in Greece and heading for Athens where we had an appointment with a yacht broker to look at a catamaran – a Lagoon 420 – which we had been planning to view for what seemed like a very long time. We decided to take the freeway which started very close to…

After an exhausting drive the previous day when we were turned away from the Bosnian border with Croatia, and had to reroute through Montenegro, we were faced with the real possibility that the same thing could happen to us when we reached the Albanian border. We had left the original vehicle registration document in The…

After a great night at the beautiful Croatian campervan park Sirena in Lokva Rogoznica, 26 kilometres from Split, we set off again on our mission to get to Athens as quickly as possible to view a catamaran we were interested in. We continued driving along the spectacular and breathtaking Croatian coast and after about two…

We left Northern Italy on a mission – to get to Athens, Greece, as quickly as possible. The reason for our haste? We were going to look at a boat – a Lagoon 420 Catamaran to be precise! Despite a stop at Lidl to stock up on food after leaving Venice, it only took us…

It seems to me that there are two kinds of travellers — those who plan everything meticulously down to the last detail and then those others- like us- who make decisions on the fly and sometimes luck out and find themselves just in the right place at the right time. That’s what happened to us…

Our time in Menton, a beautiful little town right on the edge of the Côte d’Azur and very close to France’s border with Italy, wasn’t just about taking part in the famous Lemon Festival events. The town is also famous for its beautiful gardens – it has won the French competition for the best city…

We were once again travelling through beautiful alpine country but this time we were in the Piedmont region in the Italian Alps heading for the border with France. The Italian alps were every bit as stunning as the Swiss alps and the views were spectacular as we drove along the Col de Tende Pass. As…

After our inspirational stay in Saillon where we visited the Dalai Lama’s vineyard, we headed for Italy en route to Menton in the South of France for the lemon festival. Nothing prepared us for the absolutely magical trip through the Simplon Pass – a high pass (2005 metres) between the Pennine Alps and the Lepontine…

Who would have thought a randomly selected overnight stop could end up being so inspirational and so full of surprises? Mist over the water as we leave Lausanne We entered our camper van stop just outside the medieval village of Saillon in Switzerland thinking it would simply be somewhere to lay our heads for the…

It was a perfect sunny day when we left La Malachère, France heading to Lausanne in Switzerland but there was frost in the shade and piles of snow on the roadside despite the relatively warm day. We had only been driving for an hour and already we were starting to see a lot more snow.…

While waiting in the Belgium city of Bruges for Ford to give the go ahead to have our camper van’s fuel injectors replaced for the second time, we took the opportunity to pop over the border into France to take a look at Dunkirk, where more than 330,000 retreating Allied troops were rescued off the…

Setting off from Pijnacker in the Netherlands on our next European adventure on such a rainy and miserable day should have dampened our spirits but we set off full of excitement and anticipation. Less than half an hour later we were feeling more anxious than excited and the anticipation was more a like a feeling…

Back in the Netherlands we needed a little time to prepare the van after it had been tucked up in a shed for two and a half months. There was also some time to be tourists – doing what we love to do! It was extremely cold when we arrived in mid-January, especially in contrast…

It was great to be back in the Netherlands after our fantastic adventure round beautiful Brittany. Time now to store the van while we took a break from travelling. We are very fortunate to be able to leave our van in a snug shed at the home of our daughter’s partner’s parents when we aren’t…

I’ve never been a keen gardener – maybe because I’m not a great one for putting down roots (no pun intended) – but I have to admit to loving beautiful gardens and Monet’s garden in Giverny, in Normandy absolutely blew me away. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a garden that was so joyful. I…

One of the things I love about travelling is that you meet really interesting people along the way. Occasionally you also meet interesting animals and this was the case in Quimper, a beautiful cathedral city in Brittany, where we met a handsome and friendly Golden Retriever. We had gone “upmarket” staying in the grounds of…

One of the main reasons for our trip to Brittany was to visit the Carnac standing stones – one of the most extensive Neolithic menhir collections in the world. For that reason we only lingered in Brest long enough to take some photos of the city’s incredible fortifications. Like other strategic French ports Brest was…

Driving through Brittany was a feast for our eyes: Beautiful beaches, cute little villages, lovely cottages, old stone churches with strange steeples and at the coast, boats – lots of boats. We drove from Plestin-les-Grèves through Saint Jean du Doight (population 649) and stopped for a stroll in Locquirec where we admired the bilge keeled…

We had really enjoyed exploring the Champ de Roches (Field of Rocks) in Pleslin-Trigavou and next on our list of “must-dos” was Mont St Michel just over the border from Brittany in Normandy Jonathan, having spent so much time in Cornwall growing up, was particularly familiar with St Michael’s Mount, the Cornish counterpart of Mont…

The drive from Amiens to Rennes, the capital city of Brittany, was easy and uneventful. We camped outside Rennes in a village called Cesson Sevinge, a suburb directly to the east of Rennes. Our spot in a car park edged a pretty municipal park with a section of the University of Rennes on the opposite…

After a fantastic but sometimes rugged round trip of roughly 12,000 kilometres through Scandinavia, we were ready to stop and catch our breath in Pijnacker, near Delft in the Netherlands, where our daughter is now living with her Dutch partner. We had a great few days of relaxing, being looked after extremely well, and having…

It was time to head back and regroup in the Netherlands where our daughter has settled with her Dutch partner. They very graciously welcome us into their home “between gigs” and we were looking forward to stopping still and spending some precious time with them for a while. We headed off from the amazing Egeskov…

Egeskov Castle and its famous gardens were on our list of “must sees” during our Scandinavian road trip. We had seen the turrets of the castle peeping between trees from the car park on our way North but had arrived late in the afternoon on a dull and drizzly day. Rather than squeeze in a…

If you love boats and anything do with boat making, then the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark should be on your bucket list. The museum not only has a permanent exhibition of five original Viking ships excavated from the depths of Roskilde Fjord but also has master craftsmen that you can watch building replica…