a less adventurous adventure?

Despite having already visited five countries in 3 weeks (6 if you count the five minutes we were in France) this leg of our Grand European tour feels distinctly less adventurous than our last. This may be for purely superficial reasons - we're used to being on the road now and the novelty of living in a campervan has worn off, while for my part I have been to all five of these countries - Belgium, Luxembourg, The Nertherlands, Germany and Denmark - before. However I think the reasons are more cultural.

Northern Europe simply is not different enough to feel as much as adventure as, say, traveling through Thailand would (though we're guessing here as neither of us have been to Asia). The towns and cities, while beautiful, new and exciting are not alien to us despite the little differences: indeed Ribe in Denmark reminded me strongly of my home town of Cirencester, except with a Viking Museum instead of a Roman one. For all the intricate canal systems, decorous Rathauses and ancient city fortifications we have seen little that we cannot relate back to our English experience, unlike the tiled houses of Portugal, the relics of Moorish Spain or the Roman ruins in Italy and France. The landscapes we have driven through haven't evoked for us a way of life all that different from our own, pretty as there are. In the south there were countless times, in France, Spain and Portugal, when the surrounding countryside and vegetation reminded me strongly of African vistas, while the lack of traffic on the roads (unlike the busy North) increased the sensation of other-worldliness and exploration.

Plus, we have to admit, we're being totally spoiled up here in North Western Europe. We don't just mean Fran and Henning's wonderful hospitality at their flat in Kiel, but in general. Campsites have been cheaper and yet better equipped: showers hot and strong, camp kitchens available for use, and toilet seats and loo paper a given. None of these was guaranteed at campsites further south, even those in Italy and France. Linguistically we've been having no problems either, for even though we speak even less Danish, Dutch and Flemish than we do Spanish and Italian (that's to say none at all) EVERYONE speaks English. We've hardly had to try at all to get by.

So, basically, while we're having a wonderful time and have been to some brilliant places we're not feeling like we're being particularly adventurous at the moment. We're hardly heading up the Inca Trail or even crossing the Carpathians. Still, we'll be in Poland soon. And after that Slovakia and Hungary; if being vegetarian in Hungary isn't an adventure I don't know what is.

Oh to be in Audeland, now that spring is here...

Neither of us has been in France during April before, and the landscape is thus a surprise to us, and a very pleasant one at that. Whereas in summer or autumn, when we are both used to visiting, we would expect to see fields of flourishing vines laid out in stringent rows, we find gnarled, bare stumps strapped to their wires, starting to wear the merest of green garlands as the first buds open.

In the past we've been greeted with golds, browns and dusky greens as sun burned fields give way to parched forests; instead the lush greens of young wheat fields are broken by the bright yellow of rape and the nut-brown of ploughed soil, freshly drenched by spring downpours. The French don't go in for fences, so while in England our roadside views are impeded by high stone walls or hedges, here the long, straight avenues allow us vistas of many kilometres across fields and orchards, often catching sight of beautiful buildings as we drive, sometimes covered with frothy mauve wisteria or surrounded by sprinklings of needle pines.

On the drive south to Carcassonne on the river Aude we had an added pleasure; the snowy ridges of the Pyrenees rising up like a glowing white wall in the distance. It's so easy to imagine how, to superstitious folk in times past, they must have seemed like the edge of the world.

In the hills, where sightlines are more restricted, the winding roads take us through woods that are just at their turning point, with acer, alder and poplar racing ahead, sprouting pale green and yellow leaves, while oak, ash and birch lag behind, still brown and winter-spindly.

It really is a wonderful time to visit and while the occasional downpour or drizzle make it nice to have an interesting city to visit, or a warm fire to sit by, generally the spring sunshine and emerging plantlife make the journey just as exciting and fulfilling as the arrival.