adventure Archives - A Wanderful Life

We’ve lived in France for over five years — and that has given us so many benefits and blessings — things that we are quite appreciative of. I did the hard slog of paperwork required to get our plastic ID cards that prove we are EU residents in good standing — and I even obtained an EU driving license. Since we’ve been ‘in the system’ and eligible for health care and energy rebates and so forth — why change things now?

We’ve been living in a pretty part of Brittany and we’ve made some wonderful friends over the last few years. But picturesque settings and pleasant folks aside, we feel like our time in France may be coming to an end. To determine if our feelings are accurate, we’re currently on a long driving holiday in northern Europe.

Our mindset about life shifted rather dramatically this year when Mark’s father died a few months ago. Having such an anchor presence, one that you thought would always be there, disappear within weeks of your last visit to England impacted us both rather sharply. We grieved deeply — and then we realised that we needed to decide how we felt about France as our long-term home.

We first went to England for two weeks and spent some time with my mother-in-law whilst getting ourselves prepared to travel again. It’s been a year since we took our last long trip to Italy for two months.

Mark bought a new off-road bike and he did test runs around Canvey Island and other nearby spots before we set off.

Mark’s Boardman orange bike in front of a ruin on Canvey Island, Essex, England.

A variety of boats along a narrow waterway in Canvey Island, Essex, England.

Then Mark fine-tuned some things on the van, decided how many bikes he was taking along for the trip, and exactly one week ago, we arrived in Harwich just before sunset where we stopped for some photos before enjoying a lovely dinner.

Mark taking photos in Harwich England at sunset.

A few hours later, we sailed away on a beautiful Stena Lines ship to the Hook of Holland. We had a wonderfully comfortable overnight trip and a good breakfast the next morning before we disembarked.

Cabin on the Stena Line sailing from Harwich to Hook of Holland.

Breakfast on our Stena Lines trip from Harwich to Hook of Holland.

After arrival, we went through the long lines at passport control (proudly showing our EU cards as proof that we live in Europe and are not overseas tourists with a limited-time status!) and away we drove towards Germany.

Our first stop for the night was in a tiny spot near Bremen called Ganderkesee. The country house hotel was gloriously old-world and the food at the evening meal and huge breakfast the next morning was excellent.

Exterior of the Hotel Backenkohler in Ganderkesee, Germany.

Most of our destinations will be all-new territory for us. We’ve been to the Netherlands and Germany several times, but we’ve never ventured further north into the Scandinavian countries. We have so many places to see, photos to take, and new experiences to have.

Next up — our two days in Kolding, Denmark!

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There have been quite a few up-close-and-personal moments with these objects below over the last 2 weeks. And frankly, I am exhausted! But the movers arrived today, everything went out the door smoothly, and we are tucked up in a hotel for the night with just the final cleaning to do tomorrow and turning in my wifi box before we can hand in the keys and hit the road.

Tape dispenser and packing tape in France

We’ve been very lucky. The previous movers who evaporated into thin air were replaced by what seems like a rather nice company. The car sold, the excess items sold, and last night the cooking stove sold. So we are taking absolutely NO superfluous things with us to England!

Tomorrow we’ll drive toward Paris and stop for the night up there. Then there is a museum we specifically want to see north of Paris and I’ll be reporting on that as soon as possible. On Saturday we take the ferry from Calais to Dover, on Sunday we rest at Mark’s parents’ house, and on Monday we meet the movers at the storage unit and put everything safely away for awhile.

Then in about a week after that, we’re off on an adventure to see parts of the UK that we have never visited. And hopefully within a few weeks of departure, we’ll know where we’d like to stop, settle, and buy another house. And you can be sure that I’ll be posting along the way whenever I have a stable internet connection.

Wish us luck — we’re off on the road again!

A Wanderful Life

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