ROADTRIP FRANCE-ITALY- SWITZERLAND
Hey folks!
So today I would like to tell you a little bit about our summer trip this year.
If you did read my first blogpost, you now know that we have a campervan, with which we travelled from 15th of July until 15th of August. We went without a destination, the only thing we knew for sure was that we wanted to head towards the sun, sea and France.
Most of the time, we found our home-for-the-night through an app called "Park4Night". Since we are no fans of campsites, we just paid for a place to sleep in emergency-situations (like the need of a proper shower or when we couldn't find a place without a "camping prohibited"-sign)... that actually happened twice in those 30 days.
Overall we had 23 stops and never spent more than two nights at one place.
Eventually, this was our route:
Kassel - Nancy - Besançon - Lac de Coiselet - Valence - Orange - Avignon - Pont du Gard - Marseille - Cassis - Giens - Saint-Raphael - Cannes - Menton - Costarainera - Imperia - Varigotti - Pavia - Como - Lugano - Verzascatal - Küssnacht - Zurich - Konstanz - Tübingen
In order to shorten this post a little bit, I just want to tell you about my very favorite places we've visited:
1. Lac de Coiselet:
By coincidence and because we wanted to "camp at a lake", we drove to Lac de Coiselet, which is situated in the region Jura (France).
The viewpoint was breathtaking, we never expected such turquoise water in a french lake.
Although most of the meadows with direct access to the water are untilled, they are unfortunately (for us) mostly private property, which made wildcamping quite hard. Still not too bad, because there is a beautiful, small campground for only 13 € per night. Despite the holiday season, we hardly saw any other tourists, and the campground had plenty of free parking spaces.
We were able to catch a spot 1 foot (literally) away from the lake and had the most amazing view 24/7, sunrises/-sets and lots of swans and frogs included.
2. Cassis:
If I had to decide on a favorite city from our trip, it would be Cassis (France).
Due to strong winds on the day of our arrival, the Calanques (bays in the limestone of the Mediterranean) were closed and so we started exploring Cassis by wandering through the beautiful, small alleys in the city center. Also we had a great parking spot in the "Avenue des Georgettes, 13260 Cassis, France", where mobile homes are allowed to stay overnight and for free. Plus there is a busstop right next to the parking lot, with busses taking you to the center of Cassis every 30 minutes or so. Luckily, on our second day the Calanques opened and so we were able to hike to the Calanque d'en Vau. The tour is pretty exhausting and only possible with the right kind of shoes, but the view..just priceless! :-) Down at the beach, the water was pretty cold (around 15 degrees I would guess) and the beach was crowded with visitors, but still the Calanques were worth the effort and just super beautiful!
3. Saint-Raphaël:
Our best overnight stays were with direct access to the water or at some viewpoint, and the view near Saint-Raphaël has now become one of my all time favorites. On our right, we had a beautiful view over Saint-Raphaël with its city lights and on our left, was a red, rocky landscape which rather made us feel like staying in some American landscape, than on the side of a french, coastal road.
The address is: 1444-1572 Route de Saint-Barthélémy 83700 Saint-Raphaël
4. Verzascatal
On our way back to Germany, we stopped by the so-called "Verzascatal" in Switzerland.
The nature protected valley offers natural whirlpools, sunbeds out of stone and magical, green water. A local from Gordola offered us a parking spot to stay overnight and told us, that since pictures and videos from the Verzascatal appeared on social media, more and more tourists from all over the world come to jump into the cold water. And then he gave us an inside tip: a waterfall-shower in the neighboring village of Gordola. In fact, the below pictured waterfall is in the middle of the village, right next to a bus-stop. And when we left at 10 o'clock in the morning, to continue our trip back to Germany, a neighbor in his bathing slippers and ready for his morning shower, came or way. :-)
