An epic motorhome trip to France. In this section we travel to Lake Annecy & Chamonix in the French Alps. We travel from the Dordogne to Annecy with a stop over at Clermont Ferrand before heading to Chamonix where we take the telepherique to Aguille du Midi to view the Massif de Mont Blanc and Lac Bleu. We also travel on the Montenvers train to Mer de Glace where get to go inside a glacier. This really was a spectacular part of our tour around France,
Thanks to @herdytravels for checking out the Mer de Glace campsite for us to see that we would be able to get Nessie into the site with it having tight access roads etc.
Marinated steak - Marinade for steak
Half a cup of Italian Dressing
Half a cup of Tomato Ketchup
Half a cup of coke
Splash of Soy Sauce
Our story
We are Irvine and Karen and we love to travel. We have had the travel bug since we met 43 years ago and have travelled extensively ever since.
We travelled around the world in 2017 taking in Dubai, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, California and Florida. We have many great memories of that trip.
The section in New Zealand was a tour of the South Island by camper van and it was an incredible trip. We started in the North of the South Island by touring the vineyards of the Marlborough region and tasting our favourite wine which is the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. We then travelled down the East Coast to Kaikoura where we did a Whale Watching tour before stopping off in Christchurch. Our journey then took us to the beautiful Queenstown and further West to the Fjord Land of Milford Sound which has got to be one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. Once we reached Franz Joseph it was a helicopter ride to the the Franz Joseph Glacier which had us in awe and the spectacular drive through Arthur’s Pass completed what was an unforgettable trip around this beautiful country. The video series of our trip can be found on this YouTube channel.
We love to travel TOGETHER, as in our opinion it’s better to have SHARED memories than saying to each other “I wish you had seen this or that? or “If only you had been there” etc so our advice is always travel and do things TOGETHER and you will have so many SHARED memories.
After many holidays to the sunshine State we bought a villa in Florida in 2007 and had many more shared holidays with family and friends. We were very lucky to retire at 55 (me) and 52 (Karen) in 2015 and then started to spend 6 months per year living in our Florida home. We did this for 8 years before deciding that, after owning for 15 years, it was time to sell in 2023.
Our love of motorhoming started at a very young age (I was 20 and Karen 17) when we borrowed a small camper van from a friend and toured around the Highlands of Scotland, however it wasn’t until we retired in 2015 that we decided to buy our first motorhome a second hand Chausson Flash 10 which really gave us the bug. 3 years later we bought a brand new Mobilvetta K Yacht 85 and our love for motorhoming just grew deeper. After selling our house in Florida we decided it was time to buy our dream motorhome so went to the NEC and ordered a Carthago Chic C Line XL LE which is now known as Nessie due to being a monster and residing in Scotland. This van gives us everything we need in a motorhome, it’s very spacious, luxurious and has a massive amount of storage space which will be great for the European trips we have planned for the future.
Our first trip in Nessie was a tour around France which was incredible and the videos of that trip can be viewed on this YouTube channel also. The trip took us by ferry from Poole to Cherbourg where we visited the World War 2 museum and memorial at Utah Beach which was fabulous. We then travelled South through the Vendeé to Challans, La Rochelle and the île de Ré. Our next port of call was the beautiful Dordogne where we visited Monpazier, Chateau Naud, Chateau Beynac and the Lascaux Caves before we headed East to the Alps and the pretty towns of Annecy on Lake Annecy and Chamonix where we took the gondola to Aquille du Midi. After leaving Chamonix we headed North through Dijon to the Champagne region where we visited the Joseph Perrier Champagne house and Caves and sampled some of the beautiful champagne. This was a fantastic first trip in Nessie and we look forward to sharing future trips with you through this channel and hope you enjoy coming along with us.
Our motto: Live today like there could be no tomorrow - You only get one crack at this life so make sure to enjoy it.
Cheers
Irvine & Karen
