This time, I will outsmart the weather! Two years ago, I planned to go to France / Basque, but got confronted with a weather forecast of 14 days endless rain. Consequently, we got sort of stuck to the Mediterranean Sea, which I have to admit was not a bad thing anyway. Its only failure was not being Basque, that was all.

This year, I really count on good weather. Weeks ahead, Hector is ready to roll, sparkling and shining in the sun and looking straight south-west. This time, there will be no excuses: I will go to the west coast and I will be shaped like a sports model – sure enough, the sun will hang high in the sky every single day in order not to miss any of the foreseen action. And, last but not least, Linda will join again. Linda is famous for the possession of a camping diploma and for great talk and common action, heading for Bordeaux soon enough.

Great to have a 2-bedroom-van (here: bed 1 well prepared)

Surfer boys, French charmeurs, resident campers and pensioners, watch out: when you stumble over two girls with a camper van, contorting our bodies in spectacular yoga poses or dancing and laughing deep in the middle of nowhere – that will be us!

  The consequence is not only an additional highlight to the upcoming holidays, but also the language: Even though I plan to deeply extend my Dutch knowledge (from 2 words to 4 or 5, making a plus of at least 120%!) most of the postings regarding France 2016 will come up in English. How enchanting, now writing for an international website, Hector already looks impressed down to the core.

Only one aspect of the holidays still is dodgy: the more I look into the book “Südwestfrankreich” by Michael Müller Verlag, the more obvious it gets that 4 weeks is absolutely nothing. It starts on the way down south and continues along the entire coastline. It even gets worse when glancing at the back country. From architectural highlights to romantic villages, from canoe trips to surf camps, from the world’s most popular wine region to an overwhelming variety of local food, from beaches to canyons, from sand dunes to caverns – how can a small part of one European country offer such a diversity of highlights? Even if I ignore Bordeaux itself, there is so much to see, so much to do und such an incredible choice to taste… The hard part will be the desperate try to focus on the most beautiful spots and leave aside hundreds of further possibilities.