We’ve had a great start to our 2026 European back roads tour. It began on March 16th with Bob providing a much appreciated, early morning shuttle service to the Victoria airport. Our KLM flights were on time and all our bags arrived with us on the same airplane. Yes! After spending a recovery night (or day?) at an Amsterdam airport hotel, we felt refreshed and hopped on a train to Dülmen Germany where the crew from “DÜMO Rent” was waiting for us at the train station to deliver us to our brand new “Burstner – Campeo” motorhome. A beautiful 2026 FIAT diesel unit with stick shift transmission which is the standard option over here in Europe. Thankfully, I believe a standard shift vehicle gets better fuel performance than one that’s automatic and we’ll need every bonus kilometre we can get this trip because diesel so far is ranging between $3.40 and $4.00/litre depending on the country. Significantly higher then normal prices in Europe thanks to certain careless uncaring yet powerful and dangerously unpredictable individuals. We unfortunately (or fortunately?) find ourselves traveling during these unsettling, and expensive times but we do what we must do.

However, it’s a good thing that we’ve already encountered so many wonderful, caring, and down to earth people to help encourage a more up-beat mood. Non more wonderful then our extended family and good friends in Leiden and the Hague. What a marvellous, warm and inviting welcome we received from them once again. We had a fantastic weekend together exploring, visiting, feasting and sharing stories. Thank you for adding even more good memories on top of the old ones.

Moving on, we considered a number of ways to drive south and finally made a decision to drive through Belgium and along the eastern side of France. This is a beautiful region, jammed with history and fun twisting back roads too. Tonight we are in a small village just south of Strasbourg called Sélestat. Interestingly, the oldest written evidence of our Christmas tree tradition comes from Sélestat. The town was all decked out for Easter now but, wow! what an amazing Christmas market the village puts on every December.

We’re parked in a vineyard stellplatz tonight looking up the mountain in front of us at the impressive château (castle) Haut-Koenigsbourg that we visited earlier today. This huge castle has an interesting history that began in the 12th century and now, we can only imagine what fascinating stories those fortified walls could tell us. From here we plan to quicken our pace somewhat as we drive southwest towards Spain where we hope lots of warm sunshine awaits us.

I’ll keep you posted along the way but for now, Margot and I are wishing all of our friends and family a fun and very Happy Easter!