March 2012 | Europe By Camper - Travelling Europe By Motorhome

Europe GPS POI Files for Autoroute Aires, Wild Camping & Services

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our POI data in Autoroute</td></tr>
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We have literally been inundated with requests for our Autoroute Data File and we apologise in advance if we haven't been able to get back to you with a link.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: yellow;">This information is now out of date. For the most recent version, please see this post here:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: yellow;"><a href="http://www.europebycamper.com/2013/12/2014-autoroute-motorhome-aire-campsite.html">http://www.europebycamper.com/2013/12/2014-autoroute-motorhome-aire-campsite.html</a></b></span></div>
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We have been working to both collate and check our information and are pleased to be able to provide you with our first release which we believe to be as accurate as possible for now.<br />
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We have created two files, one which contains just our information and one which contains our information plus all of the information we used to help us along the way, the latter of which is available further down this page.<br />
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<b>Our 2011-2012 Trip Information - 212 POI's</b></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our POI data in Google Maps</td></tr>
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Our trip information contains a detailed description of the location, the co-ordinates, the cost, if we were able to obtain free <a href="http://www.europebycamper.com/2011/04/wi-fi-access-in-europe.html" target="_blank">Wifi</a> and if it was an aire, wild camping or even a campsite.<br />
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The best way to quickly view all of our information is to <a href="http://g.co/maps/creg4" target="_blank">check out our Google Map (click)</a> from which you can download a Google Earth KML file from the left hand side should you so wish.<br />
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This information is hosted on Google Docs and you will need to press 'download the original document' in order to download the information. <b>Don't right click, click the links and choose 'download'.</b><br />
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<b><a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4t_jdH1m_b-eVdsajIzMXpUdUdnOGc4dEY2Und5UQ/edit" target="_blank">Download in Autoroute 2011 Format</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4t_jdH1m_b-VmQycko5RUpRcWlQZ1FCLXZKSUluQQ/edit" target="_blank">Download in Autoroute 2010 Format</a></b><br />
<a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4t_jdH1m_b-VGNrWXExM3JSS08wVG5jOVhEek1BUQ" target="_blank"><b>Download in CSV Format</b></a><br />
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<b>Our Full Autoroute Datafile Database</b></h3>
The original incantation of this file is credited by Ryan from <a href="http://www.doyourdream.co.uk/" target="_blank">Do Your Dream</a> and we have added our own information to this and redrawn the icons so that they are smaller and can fit more on.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdyqWG7gxuVAQi2S0DMC4c07ydFndNaaCaX1BYu2Mdi-C1ObxpPWBizna79cJW2poZk_Tzhn4P0VZtQD_5cYkxCPNLb2oqB-nRMoLnMFOUgg8te_sgtmBobGiGXO05S4XPX08BLPgvCtk/s1600/poi.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdyqWG7gxuVAQi2S0DMC4c07ydFndNaaCaX1BYu2Mdi-C1ObxpPWBizna79cJW2poZk_Tzhn4P0VZtQD_5cYkxCPNLb2oqB-nRMoLnMFOUgg8te_sgtmBobGiGXO05S4XPX08BLPgvCtk/s1600/poi.png" /></a>We have provided the following information in this file:<br />
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EuropeByCamper POI's - 212<br />
Full European McDonalds Location (for Wifi!) - 5,761<br />
Full European Lidl Locations - 9,615<br />
Womo Wild Camping Locations - 12,482<br />
Camping Car Info Aire Locations - 12,200<br />
Bord Atlas Aire Locations - 5,624<br />
LPG Filling Stations - 20,540<br />
ACSI Campsite Locations - 2,301<br />
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Because these files are a bit larger there is a slightly different procedure for downloading them. After you click the link below, within Google Docs, you just select FILE and then DOWNLOAD. Once downloaded you can extract the ZIP file and access the co-ordinates. <b>Don't right click and Save As!</b><br />
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<b><a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4t_jdH1m_b-NjZpM2s3U0dTMEtkN1F3bmdKRVl5Zw/edit" target="_blank">Click for Microsoft Autoroute 2011</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4t_jdH1m_b-R1gwdzZTQ3hSaGViSXh3RFd4ZlBIQQ/edit" target="_blank">Click for Microsoft Autoroute 2010 </a></b><br />
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<b>Don't have Microsoft Autoroute?</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUglzWkn1bL_9YLNN2BsJGCNPJ1XEyXZSOsMB3BMP_49JDErfeO5K0V55xQkwWrmI7OEor52R1C_PSrX8BfFWpq7ZCQocUzurAJwlEPVLeIB-_ge8oVdkv5ypOM9-wNgIpfs9mo9r1zQc/s1600/51mQ7iDuRnL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUglzWkn1bL_9YLNN2BsJGCNPJ1XEyXZSOsMB3BMP_49JDErfeO5K0V55xQkwWrmI7OEor52R1C_PSrX8BfFWpq7ZCQocUzurAJwlEPVLeIB-_ge8oVdkv5ypOM9-wNgIpfs9mo9r1zQc/s200/51mQ7iDuRnL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" width="100" /></a></div>
You can purchase a copy from <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005A98PMQ/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=eurbycam-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B005A98PMQ" target="_blank">Amazon for £35.95</a>* without a GPS receiver and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005A98R24/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=eurbycam-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B005A98R24" target="_blank">£73.40 with a GPS receiver</a>*.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*EuropeByCamper receives a small commission from Amazon for these items. To visit Amazon without earning us a commission <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/" target="_blank">click here.</a></span></div>

Europe GPS POI Files for Autoroute Aires, Wild Camping & Services

Our POI data in Autoroute We have literally been inundated with requests for our Autoroute Data File and we apologise in advance if we ...

Touring Europe for a Year - What does it cost?

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just some of the receipts we<br />
accumulated!</td></tr>
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One of the most popular questions about travelling Europe we get asked is how much does it cost. We've decided that in the interest in helping others we'll publish our detailed trip statistics to show you how we did. We did this trip on what we perceived to be a tight budget - perhaps if you are retired then you'll want to do more or if you have more time you will want to do less miles, but with hindsight there is very little we would have changed about our trip. <a href="http://www.quicken.com/" target="_blank">Money management</a> was crucial. Because of our budget constraints we carefully monitored and recorded all of our expenditure to ensure that we weren't over budget.<br />
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<b>First, some statistics from our trip!</b><br />
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We travelled <b>23,044 miles</b> over a period of <b>334 days</b> from 7<sup>th</sup> April 2011 until 6<sup>th</sup> March 2012. We passed through <b>21 countries </b>(stopping in <b>18</b>) consuming <b>3,805</b> <b>litres of Diesel</b> from <b>62 fuel stations </b>and <b>280 litres of LPG Gas. </b>We paid <b>19 road tolls</b>, <b>14 ferries, 5 vignettes </b>and <b>4 tunnels.</b><br />
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We 'Wild Camped' for <b>219 nights (66%)</b>, stayed on Aires or other recognised motorhome parking areas for <b>45 nights (14%)</b> and stayed on camp sites for <b>70</b> <b>nights (21% </b>with 29 of those nights being in Morocco).<br />
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Food wise we visited <b>115</b> supermarkets or other food shops and ate out for usually for lunch but sometimes for tea <b>101 times</b>.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Our average miles per day were <b>78 miles </b>and our mode fuel consumption (taking into account number of miles travelled between the calculations and averaging that out) was <b>33.4MPG</b>.</div>
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<b>Adam</b> drove for <b>170</b> days (80% of the driving)<b> </b>while<b> Sophie</b> drove for <b>19 days</b> (10%) and we shared the driving on a further <b>20 days</b> (10%). There were <b>123 days</b> (36%) where we didn’t drive anywhere at all.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The maximum number of miles we drove in a day was <b>372</b> on the first day of our trip getting from Calais to Dummerlolhausen. The only other day where we exceeded 300 miles was Asiliah to Marrakesh in Morocco (365 miles). The minimum number of miles we did in a day was 2 miles (leaving one place and arriving to stay at another) from Aghios Konstantinon to Gytheio in Greece.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With views like this available for free why pay to stay on a camp site?</td></tr>
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<b>Totals</b></div>
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Ok, so enough beating about the bush! What was our grand total?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">£9,570.19 or £28.83 per day<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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Or in other words, two people, a little over 11 months full board for £14.41 per person, per day. This is how we broke down and recorded our spending:</div>
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<b>Fuel (42%)</b>We always tried to fill up in the cheaper country.</div>
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<b>Food (26%):</b> Food bought from a supermarket / shop. Includes Wine / Beer but not eating out.<br />
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<o:p></o:p><b>LPG (2%):</b> Our gas for cooking, heating and running the fridge when not on sites.<br />
<o:p></o:p><b>Transport (11%):</b> Tolls, Vignettes, Ferry’s, Bridges, Public Transport & Parking when not overnighting.<br />
<o:p></o:p><b>EO&E (14%):</b> Eating (and drinking) Out and Entertainment / Entry fees.  Also includes personal items such as clothes, shoes, laundry etc.<br />
<o:p></o:p><b>Overnight (5%): </b>Cost of sites, aires or parking overnight where a cost applied.<span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where the money went, 42% of our expenditure was on Diesel.</td></tr>
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<b>What is not included?</b> <o:p></o:p></div>
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Items which we viewed as being outside of our living costs which are: Vehicle Insurance (£500), Vehicle Road Tax (£195), Travel Insurance (£200), <a href="http://www.europebycamper.com/2011/06/guide-to-vodafone-data-traveller-data_01.html" target="_blank">Mobile Phone / 3G Internet (£180)</a>. We also didn’t include our ‘side trip’ to <a href="http://www.europebycamper.com/2011/06/st-petersburg-russia.html" target="_blank">St Petersburg</a> (£500) as we left the van in Helsinki and felt it would unfairly skew the results. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<b>Comparing Countries</b><br />
In the below table we have broken down our expenditure for all of the 18 countries that we stayed in. The biggest factor influencing costs was if we stayed on a camp site or not, which made expensive countries like Norway (where we only spent £2.78 a day on food over 4 weeks, but spent £0 on campsites) appear comparative to Latvia, where we opted to stay on camp sites because of a lack of wild camping opportunities. All of the figures below are laid bare for you to view and dissect and are of course only representative of what we chose to do on this trip and not necessarily of that country as a whole!<br />
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<b><i>So what's our strategy on keeping costs down? </i></b></div>
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<b><i>Our next blog post, Europe on a Budget will be published shortly and a link will appear here!</i></b></div>
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Touring Europe for a Year - What does it cost?

Just some of the receipts we accumulated! One of the most popular questions about travelling Europe we get asked is how much does it ...

Check out the April Edition of Motorhome Monthly!

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Check out this months edition of Motorhome Monthly, we're taking over 11 pages (54-65) with our travels through Sweden and Norway! More to come next month which will be covering The Lofotens and Finland!<br />
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Whistle Stop Tour of France & We're Home!

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: left;">Montreuil-Bellay</span> </span></td></tr>
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From Spain we entered France and our first French overnight stop of Capbreton. It's actually quite shocking how much prices increase as you cross over the French/Spanish border. Not just fuel and wine (and the total absence of any beer worth drinking) but just general produce as well. Lidl is 20-30% more expensive on most items and we find ourselves wishing we had stocked up. The perils of crossing a border on a Sunday.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Capbreton Fortifications</td></tr>
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Still, Capbreton makes for a nice overnight stop right on the beach with its eroding and toppling WW2 fortifications. Most of our stop over points here on in are chosen for convenience and because they are free; Contis Plage, Roullet-Saint-Estephe and Montreuil-Bellay. This method doesn't always yield a spectacular aire but the small town of Montreuil-Bellay proved a worthy stopover and a fantastic location next to a river and a few minutes walk from the town.<br />
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Back on the motorway we keep seeing decorated Renault 4's hurtling past at breakneck speed. It turns out they are all returning from a 6,000km charity rally to Morocco, the <a href="http://www.tousen4pourletrophy.fr/" target="_blank">Tous En Pour Le Trophy</a>, where each car must carry at least 50kg of goods to donate to local causes. Much of their route in Morocco is off piste which could account for the poor state of many of the cars. Yes, that's right we couldn't not mention Morocco even though we're in France!<br />
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We're aiming to get 200 miles a day under our belts as we head up towards Calais and our next stop is Le Mans. A big city it might be, but it has a free aire right in the center with free water and waste. A grey day contributes to a relatively uninspiring walk around and back in the van for tea. We're really not fans of big cities, it has to be said.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gace Aire infront of the Chateaux</td></tr>
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Our overnight aire of choice this time is Gace, with it's impressive Chateaux where motorhomes are allowed to park only between 5pm and 10am it can't really be anything else. The bells fortunatly stop chiming at 11pm and resume at 7am to ensure we are on our way the next day.<br />
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We arrive at Saint-Valery-en-Caux and then realise it is in fact a weekend and the aire is no longer free. Still, we've managed to avoid paying for the last 6 nights so we cough up €4.50 a van for the privilege. The aire is a prime location right on the harbour walls and we watch fisherman bringing in their catch followed by a swarms of seagulls. Wrapped up in our winter coats which have been unpacked from the depth of our van, we walk up to the top of the cliffs. Why can't the French clean up after their dogs?<br />
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The rain is belting down the following day as we edge ever close to Calais and Le Touquet Paris Plage want €14 for the privilege of staying overnight. I don't think so. We settle for an aire in Bologne Sur Mer where we chance that the appalling weather and gale force winds means the man won't come to collect his €5. We're right and we escape without paying the fee.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Saint-Valery-en-Caux</span></span> </td></tr>
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The next day the wind subsides but the ferry is still running late as a result. This gives the dog patrol longer to inspect the waiting cars and it's not long before 4 illegal immigrants who get bundled out the back of a French curtain-sider alongside us in the queue for the ferry, sniffed out by a playful black Labrador. The crossing is like a mill pond and somewhat surreal given the previous two days weather.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The beautiful Montreuil-Bellay</td></tr>
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We roll off the ferry and towards customs. We don't actually know how many bottles of wine we have or if the limit is 90 liters per person or per van. As we snake through the checkpoint 8 customs officials stand with arms folded and weigh us up. Adam almost makes the decision for them, since we always get stopped here anyway. But not this time! We get waved on through, maybe we're looking too respectable in our old age?<br />
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Despite 23,000 miles on the 'wrong' side of the road and it feels like we've never left home. Roundabouts feel a little strange though, but apart from that all seems fairly normal and we cruise back up to York in a little bit of a daze. Nearly home we stop for for Fish and Chips. Well you have to, right?<br />
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So that's it. We're home. Or is it? Over the next few weeks we will be writing about all sorts of topics which have been asked by our readers that we would like to share for the benefit of others.<br />
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The BIG question - did we manage to spend 334 days and 23,336 miles away in Europe for under our budget of £10k? Find out next week as we start to blog our breakdown, tips and a little bit about how many people have been in touch with us during our trip.<br />
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Is there anything you would like to know? If so please don't hesitate to e-mail (you can reply to our blog subscription e-mail), comment, tweet @EuropeByCamper or post on our Facebook timeline.<br />
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Thank you all for following, it's over for now but not for long!<br />
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Adam & Sophie<br />
EuropeByCamper.com</div>

Whistle Stop Tour of France & We're Home!

Montreuil-Bellay From Spain we entered France and our first French overnight stop of Capbreton. It's actually quite shocking how...

Burgos & San Sebastian

Burgos & San Sebastian

Burgos Cathedral To us, Salamaca is just a stop over point on the journey north and we don't enter into the city. We do however q...

Caceres

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Beginning the route north, we head to Caceres. Our tanks are full of Moroccan Diesel and somehow our van is running better than ever. These vehicles really do need some miles on them and despite travelling at 110kph for 300 miles we still average nearly 30mpg. If only we'd known, we could have done this trip in half the time!<br />
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In Caceres we pull into the campsite to meet up once again with Adam's parents who themselves have been travelling Spain for the past 3 months. It's a fantastic achievement for them, my mum especially who only very recently overcame her fears of ferry's and dislike of being away from home for more than a couple of weeks at a time. They both look well and we spend hours talking about our Moroccan stories including our hard-won Moroccan carpet which looks great down the centre of their van.<br />
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We venture into Caceres and it's here where we realise the true effect that Morocco has had on us. We want to buy some tomato's and red onions to make a 'berber salad' but can't find a vegetable shop, nevermind a supermarket. There are too many shops and even the impressive old town seems somehow uninspiring, perhaps it's just too normal and civilized compared to what we are used to and instead we sit in the square and talk for another hour about our time in Morocco!  </div>

Caceres

Beginning the route north, we head to Caceres. Our tanks are full of Moroccan Diesel and somehow our van is running better than ever. The...