Sixteen-year-old Maisie and her family (along with Minnie the dog) travelled to France, Italy and Switzerland for three weeks in their VW California. Here’s her account of the trip
Words & pictures ❚ Maisie Lomax
EUROPEAN TOURVAN LIFE
As soon as the cheery “Bon Voyage!” sign was passed and we boarded the packed LeShuttle we knew we were on holiday, leaving cold, rainy England behind for a few weeks and exploring the beauty of a few European countries. We started our journey at the Folkestone Camping and Caravanning Club site, our two-day stop after the hours-long drive from the northwest. Folkestone never fails to give us our first glimpse of summer, as you can hear the waves crashing onto the beach from the campsite and see the sun setting over the beautiful chalk cliffs. Folkestone is not only ideal as a pit stop before crossing the channel, but it is vital to enable us to bring our dog, Minnie, on her holidays with us. On the morning before our train, an important trip was made to Abbeywell vet to ensure that Minnie was safe for the trip to France and beyond, which included the collection of our animal health certificate, the scanning of her microchip and the checking of her paperwork.
We filled the ’van up with fuel and headed to the LeShuttle booking. After we had checked the dog in, we had a two-hour window, a conveniently planned time slot as my parents wanted to stock up on gin and Toblerone at the duty free, and my sister and I wanted to try the patchy service and slow search engine to secure Taylor Swift tickets to her upcoming UK tour.
The journey to France was smooth, as we had expected it to be. We headed straight to our stopover for the night at Châlons-en-Champagne before our long drive to Switzerland the next day. It was an ex-municipal site, which now appears to be family-run. The site was basic, yet comfortable, with decent facilities and great hosts, who understood my dad’s struggle with speaking French, declaring it “painful” to listen to, which resulted in me having to step in and get us booked in. After a day of travelling and being confined to the campervan for hours, we decided to enjoy the beginning of our holiday by exploring the site and seeing what was on offer. Thankfully for us, in the on-site restaurant, it was paella night, and while we ate, live music was played all evening.
After a good night’s sleep, we waved goodbye to Châlons-en-Champagne, and our journey to Switzerland commenced. My dad made a
