Advice on an extended driving holiday in Europe

[julianc]

My partner and I are considering a holiday in Europe next year in the Tamora, taking in the south of France, NW Italy and Switzerland.

However, following our recent holiday in Scotland, I have a couple of concerns:

- the low ground clearance;
- keeping scrotes away from the Tamora.

Would anyone have some useful advice to give, specifically:

- what route across the channel is best with regard to a car that has a ground clearance of only about 3 3/4 inches unladen?

- has anyone had any problems accessing Eurocamp sites (one of our options) in a low ground clearance car?

- would Eurocamp sites provide an acceptable scrote level, or would you recommend gites and/or hotels to minimise the scrote level?

- is it worth using a full car cover during the night, or is this likely to draw even more attention to the fact that you have a desirable car?

- in your experience, if there any difference in scrote ratio between rural areas and towns of Europe?

Additionally, does anyone have any practical advice on spares to take? Has anyone experienced any cooling problems with their Tamora/T350 in hot climes? Any other relevant advice?

I'm still a little paranoid after the recent holiday, so your advice would be helpful.

I'm sure I'll get over it......driving the Tamora definitely helps!

Julian

[TUS 373]

Hi Julian

Re your holiday in Scotland, what happened?

I cannot help you much with any of your questions, except to say; when Andrea and I took a Chimaera to France, we stayed in Chambre Dhotes as advertised in the Alastair Sawday guides. Generally these places were well away from others and we had zero overnight problems. Other guests there were usually French/UK and no scrotes whatsoever.

During the day time, we had no scrote problems either. The French love cars and are more likely to stand, admire and smile - than give you any cause for concern. Saying that, we did hot take in too many city venues - but when we did we tried not to stray too far from view. We needn't have been worried.

As for ground clearance - the Tamora is quite low compared to the Chimaera or Tuscan - but I think you would be OK with most methods of transport. We grounded the underside of the Chim on a single lane country road which had a very pronounced camber - it was the exhausts. Simple remedy was for the passenger to vacate the car temorarily (quick way of removing weight!) and watch the underside for the driver. Driving on the extreme edge of the road also helped.

Your car is rather eye catching though Julian, and I know you wouldn't want to spoil it!

[icamm]

Watch out for the ferries. I had problems with the Griff coming back fully laden with booze etc.

The backend dropped quite alarmingly under the load with it's new Nitrons and I had problems with scraping the exhaust on leaving the ferry (top deck) and there were also some MASSIVE speed humps at Portsmouth customs that I nearly got stranded on.

So if going by ferry get there early and explain about the low ground clearance and request to be put on the deck which is level with the on/off ramp. There is not much you can do about speed humps though except definately avoid P&O Portsmouth customs on your return (or find a smaller hump than I did).

Enjoy the trip though. I found scrote level none existant but beware that in any country if someone runs into your car in a carpark and you are not there then they are likely to "do a runner" as I found to my cost in Nice .

[julianc]

TUS 373 said:

Re your holiday in Scotland, what happened?

Hi Bryan - hope the Tuscan is running well.

A couple of scrote-related incidents:

i) the first was when parked overnight outside the hotel in Port Appin a few miles north of Oban - pretty quiet village - nice shiny tyre valve dust caps nicked. It happens, I know, and could have been a lot worse, but on the first night of the holiday it pi55ed me off.

ii) the second was when parked in the well-lit main street in Dornoch (small town north of Inverness) - the hotel owners called us at about 11.30pm to warn us that a youth was taking an unhealthy interest in the Tamora and had spent a long time looking around it. He had also been sitting on the opposite pavement for 10 minutes eyeing up the car - deserted street - a bit suspicious.... The owners offered to move their own car from the rear off-road parking area so I could move the Tamora there. When I went outside to move the Tamora, the same youth had 'double parked' his old Golf next to the Tamora, still looking at it, and he drove away quickly when he saw me.

So we're now into 'minimise risk' mode! Paranoid or what!

Julian

[wedg1e]

Channel Tunnel train ramps looked OK to me last time I came across. Most ferries seem OK nowadays, although to be fair I haven't taken the Wedge anywhere yet...
Seem to recall that the hairiest ramp was the stern-loading one at Hull for the Rotterdam crossing - felt like about 45 degrees! I was carrying radioactives and they made me spin the van round on the ramp and reverse onto the boat.


Ian