30 July 2017

Today we headed towards Germany, as we left site it began to rain, rain is always fine on driving days and with a 4 hour drive it would hopefully be dry where we were going and that would be the rain gone.
We opted for non-toll roads again and not too far into our journey we drove straight towards a closed road sign, we began following the diversion signs but they only last two junctions and we were stuffed left to rely on Tomtom truckman SatNav who was still trying to turn us round. After several single lanes roads and a few farmers tracks we hit a dual carriage way, what a relief and we were all still in one piece.
As we neared Colmar, our planned camp for the night we all noticed a small mountain we would need to navigate. At a split in the road we saw two signs both saying Colmar, one was through a toll tunnel and the other was a track over the mountain. We twisted and turned up the track and came out the other side into sunshine the tunnel would have been boring.
As we pulled into the aire at Colmar all the other campers did their obligatory stare, we drove round looking for pitches but it did not have a very welcoming feel and seemed a bit dingie we stopped our engines to have a think and decided to leave and look for an alternative. We pulled out of the site expecting Dasvid to follow but his van had other ideas, they were going no-where.
Each time Dasvid tried to pull away the van stalled, he had no revs. It looked like we would be stopping after all so we re-entered the site and got stared at all over again! Luckily this time we found a better pitch with electric and on hard standing.
Dasvid called the RAC and in no time at all Mario the mechanic turned up and diagnosed a EGR problem, with translation issues we understood it was like a kidney, better to have it but can live without. The show would go on 🙂

Now relaxed and parked for the night in nice pitches by a river we headed off to the town, a meal out had been earned.
A very short walk from site found an amazing little tourist town with an area called Little Venice, we strolled round like tourists site seeing and spotting lots of red trousers. Then we found an Irish pub with bras on the ceiling for a beer while we researched what to have for dinner.

Dinner was enjoyed by all in a lovely Italian restaurant, as we had no reservation we ended up inside where it was hotter than hell but luckily the food was delicious and the waiter was good, the price was even better as the little boy waiter missed off a whole round from our bill. He did insist on saying we were in Alsace, not France!
We had a few cocktails back at the van before an early night as Dasvid wanted to be at the garage by 9am to try to get a new EGR.
Overnight Location: Colmar Aire, France

Overnight Cost: €15

Overnight Coordinates: 48.08053°N 7.37472°E

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