Author - Dan

Born and raised in Nottingham, I've lived in Brighton for the past 11 years with Lorraine. I studied Architecture @ Brighton Uni, worked in an Architects Practice for 5 years before moving into Development for a Housing Association.

In 2017 we got our dog, Marley, and its been one of the best decisions we have ever made.

I'm into Bikes, Running, Music, Design, Architecture, Nature and of course Food.

Europe’s Largest Waterfall – Rhine Falls

August 31, 2018Dan3 min read

29/8/18 – 31/8/18 Rhine Falls, Switzerland Situated close to  the Swiss German border, Rhine falls is Europes plaines largest waterfall. Although its only 23 metres high, its approximately 150 metres wide so the volume of water that flows through it, makes it very powerful. Entry costs about £5, and there is about half a mile to walk down thought several viewing points to reach the bottom. The final viewing platform is by far the best as its the closest (You can almost touch the water) At the very bottom there are several options for boat trips to see the falls close up – we decided to take the one that goes to the other side and then close to the falls on the way back (About £6/person from memory)  – top tip to take a waterproof coat as the spray can soak you depending on where you are sitting in the boat. The falls were dog friendly throughout (Including the boat trip) and definitely worth a visit. As there aren’t may places to stay for free in the Moho in...

A whole lot of ‘aggio – Lake Como

August 28, 2018Dan4 min read

26/08/18 – 28/08/18 – Menaggio, Lake Como Leaving the campsite and Lake Maggiore behind, our next stop would be Lake Como, a couple of hours drive to the east. Our travelling buddies took a detour to visit lake Lugano in Switzerland but we decided on heading straight there to scout for a place for us all to stay given we were on the look out for a free site. Our route brought us into the town of Como on the South-Western end of the lake and we followed the shoreline until we hit Menaggio around the mid point on the western side. We got to see some pretty swanky looking hotels and houses, particularly around Azanno/Tremezzo. We eventually arrived in Menaggio around 15:00 on the Sunday afternoon – and it was completely packed – there were very few spaces in the town itself, particularly for a motorhome and more so for 2 motorhomes, so we headed a little further up the hill to an empty carpark about 15 minutes walk (downhill) from the town centre. This would be...

A Great End To A Difficult Day! Sion, Switzerland

August 23, 2018Dan6 min read

22/8/18 – 23/8/18 – Sion, Switzerland So this was it, our first visit to Switzerland. Neither if us really knew what to expect other than mountains and some amazing roads through them – plus its supposed to be an expensive place to live. Having spoke with our friends Adele and Charlotte who we were on our way to meet at Lake Maggiore (who had travelled a similar route a couple of days prior) told us they paid 58 Euros one-way to drive through Mont Blanc! We decided that we would try and find a toll free route. We did and it only added an additional hour to the journey. Sion was roughly at the mid-point between the two – hence our choice of overnight stop. As we reached the French/Swiss border it was time to get our vignette to allow you to drive on Swiss motorways however, when we got to the border Crossing at Le Chatêlard the border checkpoint was unmanned so we spent the next half an hour going between various cafe’s and restaurants (Most of which sold...

Nature Meets Art – Lake Vassiviere

August 20, 2018Dan3 min read

17/08/12 – 20/08/12 – Lake Vassiviere, Limousin Region There’s something about visiting lakes in France that seems very relaxing to us. They (The French) have a unique way of mixing relaxed tourism with an appreciation for the natural environment that is quite unique. Lake Vassiviere was no exception. Originally created in the 1950’s with the construction of a dam, Lake Vassiviere is one of the largest artificial lakes in France, covering approximately 10 square kilometres. It’s also situated in the Regional Natural Park of Millevaches in the Limousin Region. Our home for the long weekend was on the site of a shut-down aire – basically a lot of parking spaces on the side of a quiet road, meters away from the tiny Pierrefitte beach at the southern end of the lake (GPS 45.7863808,1.8705869). There was no motorhome facilities to speak of, but there was a small beach cafe that sold cold beer, Croque Monsieurs and other snacks along with a lifeguard...

Escape to the Chateau – Saint-Avit

August 18, 2018Dan3 min read

16/08/18 – 18/08/18 – Chateau Bellevue, Saint-Avit After just over three months in the Moho we were both starting to get cabin fever and as Lorraine still owed me a birthday treat, we decided that a couple of days break from our 13m2 home was in order. We found Chateau Bellevue on bookings.com and it looked like the perfect place to enjoy doing not that much, lounge by the pool, spread out and enjoy a little bit of luxury. I think the chateau was ran like a B&B as there were a couple of rooms upstairs for paying guests, a communal breakfast area and swimming pool that we could use, but there was also rooms labelled as private, so I assume these were for the owners only. We also had free roam of the grounds (Apart from the stables area) so had a good area to walk Marley. Our room overlooked the front of the Chateau and felt huge (especially in comparison to the Moho) We had massive bed and sofa in front of a fireplace along with a bathtub – it’s the little...

Bonjour Francais (Part 2), Ondres

August 14, 2018Dan3 min read2 comments

13/08/18 – 14/08/18, Ondres, Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It felt slightly strange coming back to France having spent nearly a couple of months without paying for any overnight accommodation. When we checked this time, it seemed that most of the aires in southern France (At least close to the coast) carried a fee. If we were going to pay for it, we wanted it to be 1. close to the beach, 2. have full facilities 3. allow dogs on the beach and 4. Not be more than a 3 hour drive from where we currently were in Spain.  This pretty much narrowed down to the area surrounding Bairritz & Bayonne. We chose Ondres as it fulfilled all of these. (GPS 43.576248, -1.486290) We arrived mid-afternoon and it was relatively quiet – only about 10 Moho’s in the carpark when there was easily space for 30. We got plugged in, set-up and headed off to the beach – a wide long strip of sand with a fairly choppy Atlantic crashing on the shore. There were a few beach-side restaurants and snack bars along the...

Bitter and Sweet – Bilbao

August 12, 2018Dan6 min read

10/08/18 – 12/08/18 Bilbao, Basque Country We’d been shopping, we’d brought extra booze, we’d done our homework on where to stay IN ADVANCE (Unusual for us),now all we needed was our good  friend Rob to arrive. He was flying in late from Gatwick, so the plan was to pick him up bright and early on Saturday morning from the hotel. It had been nearly 5 months since we had last seen him, so on Friday night we were getting excited and had ourselves a couple of drinks to get in the mood. Then, the bomshell….his flight was cancelled due to bad weather and the next available flight was unsuitable ie on the following Monday……so we wouldn’t get to see him afterall. gutted. Feeling slightly shell shocked it put us in a bit of a strange mood for the weekend but there was nothing we could do, so here’s what we got up to. Parque Erandio We spent both nights here for free (GPS 43.3246846,-2.9400183) its about 6 miles outside of the town centre...

If the Moho’s a rockin’………..Comillas

August 9, 2018Dan3 min read

07/08/18 – 09/08/18 Comillas, Cantabria Comillas was  another place that we didnt really plan to visit. It was only because when we arrived at the original place we wanted to spend the night and it clearly stated no overnight stops we started to thing about finding somewhere else to stay. Rather than risk a fine, we visited the doggie beach for about half an hour or so and then made our way to Comillas, the next town along from where we currently were. Our first night was a small grass carpark on the road into the the town. We arrived quite late and bagged one of the last spots of suitable size. The site sloped in 2 directions and because we didn’t use the levelling chocks it wasn’t the most comfortable nights sleep we have ever had. (GPS 43.384226,-4.2990552) Feeling slightly refreshed the next morning we headed out to explore the town quite early (Before 10:00) as we didn’t know if we were going to be staying or moving on in the afternoon. Walking through the...

Doggie Paradise – Playa de Lóngara

August 5, 2018Dan3 min read2 comments

03/08/18  – 05/08/18 – Praia de Lóngara, Barreiros, Galicia Well we certainly got what we wished for in heading to northern Spain in terms of a cooler climate. As we drove through the valleys of Galacia a mist descended on us out of nowhere, so thick that we had to put the fog-lights on in the Moho. It didn’t really clear up for the majority of our stay apart from a couple of hours when we took Marley to the beach on the first afternoon. You might be thinking it seem like a bit of a random place to visit and it is, but we had recently discovered this great website that states all the doggie friendly beaches in Spain –  so we decided to give it a try and head to the closest one. It was great knowing that you could legitimately be there throughout the whole day and not be worried about getting fined or moved on by the police. Access wasn’t for the faint hearted as it was down a relatively steep descent across some rocks but once you were down there it was...

Our last night in Portugal – Vila Nova Cerveira

August 2, 2018Dan5 min read

01/08/18 -02/08/18 – Vila Nova de Cerveira It suddenly seemed to creep up on us – this was it, our last night in Portugal 🙁 We chose to visit this place based on an image of colourful umbrellas strung up between buildings we had seen by chance when researching other destinations around Aveiro. (See image right)  That was enough to grab our attention to put it on our itinerary if only to get a colourful image! Our place for the night was another carpark on the outskirts of town, next to the railway station. It had full motorhome services for free, and from what we had read in the reviews, it seemed a good location to explore the town. (GPS 41.93772,-8.7472219) To date, we had been relatively lucky with the weather in Portugal for Marleys sake. However, today that luck ran out as it 41 degrees inside and 40 outside of the Moho, so rather than slowly roast inside, we made a bee-line for the riverside to hopefully catch some shade under a tree. As luck would have it, this was...

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