Hi John
We travelled some of your route last year when we visite Slovenia and Croatia. There were the 2 of us driving our Kia Sorento and towing our Bailey Senator Arizona. We only booked Chateau Gandspette on the way home. The other sites we found in the CC's "Caravan Europe" or Alan Roger's "Italy" (includes Croatia and Slovenia), "Europe" and "France" and phone on the day we were arriving.
Here is my report, with campsite reviews.
We:
Were way for 34 nights
Visited 8 countries
Drove 3303 miles "home to home"
Used 859.58 litres of diesel costing £750.36
Diesel prices ranged from £1.199 (Tesco, Folkestone) to £0.717 ( Berchem Services, Nr Luxembourg)
Stayed at 9 campsites and overnighted at 3 motorway service areas.
We left home after lunch on Sat 24 July and had a good journey down to Dover via M6, M6 toll, M40, M25 anti-clk and M20. We arrived at Dover Svs at c20.00 and overnighted in the coach park there as we'd forgotten to book a site as we had intended. On Sun 25 we moved to Little Satmar C site for the day and the caught the 18.00 Norfolk L ferry we'd booked. We arrived at Dunkerque around 21.00 and overnighted in the NL car park. This gave us an early start on the Monday morning.
We stopped at Camping Boutelweg in Dahn near Permassons on Monday evening. It rained most of the day and was raining torrentially when we arrived in Dahn.
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/reviews.asp?revid=10535
We left early the next morning and drove on through Germany to Camping Panorama Harras on the Chiemsee.
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/reviews.asp?revid=10437
Lovely lakeside location and so we stayed 2 nights although I did have some reservations about this site. We left Camping Panorama just before noon on the Thursday morning after having been delayed by having to take the car to a local Kia dealer as both "dip beam" bulbs had gone on the Kia. We drove the length of Austria after buying an autobahn vignette at the border post. We awful rain enroute and entered Slovenia via the Karawanken Tunnel. We bought a Slovenian motorway vignette at the services just before the tunnel.
We arrived at Camping Lake Bled in the evening.
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/reviews.asp?revid=10192
Still very wet and got soaked setting up. We stayed at Cmpg Lake Bled for 6 nights. Whilst there we walked right round the lake, visited the island by platna (traditional boat), toured the area and visited the Bohinj Valley where we took a cable car and a boat ride on Lake Bohinj.
Wednesday 4 August we travelled on into Croatia. We initially planned to stay at Camping Adriatic, north of Split but the promised large pitch was not available. In addition we found the site rather dry and dusty. There did not seem to be any beach either and so we pushed on to Camp Galeb at Omis c20 miles south of Split. Drove the last 30 miles on the coast road. Rather twisty and congested but views-to-die-for over the coast and adjacent islands.
Camp Galeb was very pleasant.
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/reviews.asp?revid=10393
Right on the "beach" and lots of trees for shade. We arrived late the first night and ended up, still hitched, in the unmarked area for the first night. We then secured a pitch 2 rows back from the beach and after a few days moved again to a pitch one row back from the beach with sea views - we like them!!!
We stayed at Camp Galeb for a total of 16 nights. Our eldest son and his girlfriend arrived at Galeb on my Birthday -13 August and tent camped nearby for a few days. It was very hot 32C+ and we spent our time swimming and lazing about. We used our Zodiac inflatable boat on the sea adjacent to the campsite. Omis is a picturesque town at the mouth a river which emerges through a limestone canyon.
On Friday 20 August we started north heading homeward. We overnighted at a motorway services near Zagreb and then drove on through Slovenia and Austria into Germany. A hiccough in Austria after we were stopped and fined €120 because our Austrian autobahn vignette had expired - we had thought it was still valid from our outward trip.
We arrived at Camping Naabtall near Regensburg on Saturday 21 August and stayed for 2 nights.
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/reviews.asp?revid=10536
We had a lovely pitch right on the riverbank and spent 2 pleasant days chilling out. On Monday 23 August we drove on to Camping Chenefleur near Florenville to the north west of Luxembourg where we overnighted at this pleasant rural site where we had stayed in previous years.
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/reviews.asp?revid=7389
On Tuesday 24 August we drove on to Camping Chateau Gandspette, Eperleques south of Dunkerque.
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/reviews.asp?revid=5506
This was the only site that we had pre-booked so that we could take Max the collie to the local vet for his pet passport to be completed. We spent 3 nights at Chateau G. We visited the WW2 German Blockhause where V2 rockets were made and stocked up on our favourite French cidre. We were at bit limited because Cary twisted her ankle chasing the dog soon after we arrived!
On Friday 28 August we caught the 08.01 NL ferry at Dunkerque and arrived in Dover c09.15. Despite Bank Holiday traffic we reached Wyatt's Covert CC site c13.00 and in the evening went out for a meal with Cary's Dad. On Saturday 29 August we set out for St Helens. After stopping off in Stafford to visit friends we arrived home at around teatime.
We had a super holiday. Slovenia and Croatia are beautiful countries. Croatia was a bit hot for us. We found food to be cheap in Croatia both in the supermarket and the camp restaurant (<£50 for 2 course dinner for 4 of us on my B'day). It was, however, a VERY LONG drive - we aimed at 350 miles a day in 100 mile "shifts" and with a picnic lunch enroute.
I hope this is of some use to you. Please post again if you have any specific questions.
Incidentally have you seen the Blog by Nigel Donnelly, PC Editor, of his current trip to Slovenia and Croatia - you can access from this site.
Have a lovely trip.
Best wishes
Tim
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