End of week 6!

Well things are going GREAT, although we have not been making the effort to find Internet and wifi has not been as easy as we expected as we are sticking to the national roads (avoiding toll roads) and therefore mainly stopping in small villages and towns.  Lets See.... its been almost 3 weeks since our last post so here is what we have been up to:

I think our last post was on our way to Maastricht in the south of Holland to stay with fellow couchsurfers youri and kim.  we were with them for 2 nights and had a great time, talked about a wide variety of subjects and ate some great food.  Youri also made us the most amazing milk free cake with a chocolate top, it was divine and served us well for a couple of days on the road snacking.... we also spent 4 hours walking around the city of Maastrict, it was beautiful and very old.

With CSers Youri and Kim in Maastricht

See all Maastricht photos here:

From Maastrict we travelled on to Luxembourg for a night, it was picture perfect and definitely want to go back there one day.  One great thing about Luxembourg was the petrol and cigarettes are dirt cheap!  LOL

Luxembourg

See Luxembourg photos here:

From Luxembourg we made our way through France on our way to The Camargue National Park area in the very south of France, stopping at many places along the way, including: Charmes (quaint little town, we parked up beside a river), Conliege (very remote in the hills), St. George Esperanche (just a very small village not much to see but free over night spot) and Loriol Sur Drome (where we
stayed in a proper camping site with a pool, it was welcome as it was such a hot day).

Charmes

See Charmes/Conliege/St Geroge Esp. and Loriol Sur Drome photos here:


We then met up with another couchsurfer (Horst) at his home for lunch, he shared so much information with us about The Camargue area where we were heading for a week, it came in very handy in the end too.  We had one more overnight in a free aires (camping places for motorhomes in Europe with are free or very cheap) in a town called Montelimar to stock up on groceries, water and other necessities before heading into the wild of The Camargue.

The Camarge was so freaking awesome, there are many different areas, but we heading to a very unique area where its remote but FREE!  you basically drive off the main roads and head about 10kms to the beach and that's all there is - beach!  you park on the hard sand and just set yourself up for as long as you want.  we stayed a week, some people stay for months (the area is closed during winter due to tides).  There are no services so you have to take everything you need, it was so relaxing and we just sat in the sun, read and relaxed the whole time!

The Camarge

See The Camargue photos here:

After a great week at the beach we carried on to spend the day in a very old roman town called Arles, it is also where vincent van gogh spent a lot of time.  The famous bridge he painted is located there also.  In the afternoon we carried on to Nimes to another 'real' campsite and spent 2 days there, showering lots and enjoying the pool (after a week at the beach and cold showers we missed that luxury).  Onwards we headed into the Pyrenees Mountains.

Arles

See Arles photos here:

See Nimes photos here

Carrying on we spent a night in Fanjeaux with is located on one of the religious road pilgrimages of old times, it was beautiful and I went in the most amazing church I have ever seen.

Fanjeaux

See Fanjeaux photos here:

We had one night in  Tarbes passing through more beautiful country side along the way.

See Tarbes photos here

See on the road photos through France here

Now here we are in Salies De Bearnes at a great campsite, we were going to stay only last night but have decided to stay on another night.  there was a big bonfire last night and today we are going horse riding in the mountains, cant wait!  once again there is a pool and hot showers!  LOL

From here tomorrow we continue across the top of the last part of the Pyrenees and will head into Spain.  Two weeks today the music festival we are going to in Portugal starts so we will make our way there for the 24th and gather all we will need for the 8 day festival.

The journey has been great so far and we are creating lasting family memories every day, we are so thankful that we are able to do this together and look forward to sharing more photos with you all in the future (if you are on my facebook all the photos have been uploaded there).

Anyway thats all for now, who knows when we will do a detailed update again.... LOVE YOU ALL!