{"id":960,"date":"2023-12-29T19:44:32","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T19:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/?p=960"},"modified":"2023-12-29T19:44:35","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T19:44:35","slug":"heading-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/12\/29\/heading-south\/","title":{"rendered":"Heading South"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The plan then, Luxembourg for cheap fuel, I think I\u2019ve mentioned that, then down the eastern side of France and into Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except\u2026we don\u2019t actually have enough fuel to get to Luxembourg, so we\u2019d end up filling in Belgium anyway.\u00a0 Also, the extra kilometres we\u2019d being doing, it wasn\u2019t adding up.\u00a0 Luxembourg was cut from the plan and we turned right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\n\"IMG_9453\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
Basking in the sun<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\n\"IMG_9449\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
Empty roads<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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France is great and it caters for vans so well, it is upsetting to have to pass through it at speed, but we\u2019ve spent time in France before and we want something new.\u00a0 The year is getting old and we are keen to get some warmth on our old bones – that means south, and quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being tight <\/s>budget conscious, we decided to avoid the tolls and take the back roads through rural France.\u00a0 We feel this will give us some balance between the need to pass through quickly and the desire to see some of France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

My language skills are not great. 250 days into a Spanish course and I can barely order a beer. Rosana on the other hand is good at languages and has been learning some French.\u00a0 I needed her help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Old boy parked next to us, a sort of miniature Gandalf immaculately turned out in denim, appears to be asking about the wing mirrors.\u00a0 Okay, so that can\u2019t possibly be what he\u2019s asking, so I definitely need Rosana’s help.\u00a0 I am surprised to find out that yes, that is exactly what he\u2019s asking.\u00a0 Anyway, in case anyone else is wondering, they are the original wing mirrors and they really aren\u2019t all that great.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n\"IMG_9466\"<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

We have a long chat with Gandalf about camping locations and life in general using nothing more than a map, hand signals and Google translate.\u00a0 Our minds full of information, I then drop the hose pipe and fill the van with water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We continue to hot foot it through France, keeping an eye on the temporary critical air zones which are not at all Godzuki! friendly.\u00a0 The Monteblanc tunnel is closed for maintenance, so we head further south with a plan to take the Frejus tunnel. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we edge closer to the Alps the temperature is dropping\u00a0 Ah, that would be a road sign notifying us that winter tyres and snow chains are required.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n\"IMG_9608\"<\/a>\n<\/div>
We’re supposed to be heading south for the sun<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\n\"IMG_9582\"<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Winter tyres we have, but we thought it would be easier to get chains once we got here.\u00a0 That turns out not to be the case at all and after a day of chasing around we eventually get a set of chains at an exorbitant price, although the cashier refuses to believe that they will fit our van based on what her computer is telling her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our last stop in France and the snow starts falling.\u00a0 But we are prepared, we have chains!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In which we hotfoot it south looking for sun and find snow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[115,114,9],"tags":[10,11,35,118,117,121,13,48,20,21,32],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eu","category-france","category-van-travel","tag-camper","tag-campervan","tag-early-retirement","tag-eu","tag-france","tag-frejus","tag-hiace","tag-lh100","tag-toyota","tag-travel","tag-vanlife"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/IMG_5423-scaled.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":972,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions\/972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3tenths.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}