The radioman family 2011 European Holiday. (pic heavy)

The night before we left I put the works van & our 3 cars on the driveway & packed Milly & Vanilly (camper & trailer), then parked them on the garden outside my house (I didn't want some knob head ramming into them while avoiding the new speed bumps on our road). We loaded everything up & went to bed happy that everything was done. Sean's Bug wasn't running right so we decided as time wasn't a problem to get it into J & P motors in the morning. After eventually leaving Swansea at 11.00 with everything done, I pulled off the curb & smashed in the rear valance of Vanilly when it dropped off the curb edge, bending the newly painted item upwards! Doh!
Oh well we set on our way anyway.
I had 2 small jobs to do for work on the way, one in Porthcawl & one in Chepstow. We called in Porthcawl, which only took 20 mins & as we waiting for Amy & Sean & needed to kill time we called in the Go Outdoors camping shop in Cardiff. While Amy & Sean were waiting at home for news on the Beetle I asked them to fetch me some sand paper, news papers, etch primer, filler primer, filler, paint & a hammer so I could repair the valance so they put all this in the car.
When I came out the van wouldn't start, double Doh! I noticed the light on the immobilizer wasn't flashing so I began investigating, when I checked I noticed hadn't screwed the fuse box back on & it must have moved around & shorted, blowing a fuse. I screwed it back on & replaced the fuse then it was fine. Next stop was Chepstow. On my way down the bypass after getting off the M48 a lorry going the other way threw up a stone which slammed into my grill & dented it triple Doh! They say things come in threes so now we could relax a bit & headed for Dover.
J & P's did they're best to get Sean's Beetle ready. By 1500 they had removed the engine & diagnosed a loose flywheel, (just as I had suspected) & sorted the problem. They only charged £100 but the beetle wouldn't be ready till 1700.
as time was getting on Sean & Amy decided to push on & drive in Sean's Golf GTTDi. The rest of us stopped briefly at Reading services to fuel up & check the oil then moved on, by now Amy & Sean were only a few miles behind us. We stopped again on the M25 at Clacket Lane services for a Coffee & a Mc Donalds & Amy & Sean caught us up, we all left together
We arrived at Dover docks about 2130 in good time for our 0320 sailing, we decided to pay an extra £60 per car to get on an earlier crossing & were heading for Calais by 2230. We arrived in Calais at 0045 too late really to find a campsite, so we headed straight to Chimay. After driving for a while we stopped at a truck stop somewhere in Belgium at about 0300 to get our heads down. Me Yvonne & Leah slept down the bottom, Cayo & Katy up in the roof, Amy & Sean in Sean's car.
We were all up by 0900 & heading once again for Chimay. Just outside Chimay we stopped at a local Lidl store & bought fresh meat & bread for a continental style breakfast. We arrived at European Bug-in at 1100 & I got the first participant screen sticker No. 300 (the first 299 go to VIP reserved guests) how cool is that? We spent the rest of the day organizing our camp, watching all the VW's arrive & chillin. Amy & Katy had to nip into town because they forgot tent poles & had to buy a new tent, while I set about repairing the rear valance.

Anyway time for pics:-

 

I'll name that song in 3 pics

 

Fitted my new Westy tap which arrived the morning we left:-

 

Most people won't remember that TV show anyway so won't have a clue what I was on about anyhoo lol

 

More Bug-in 4 pictures here:-
http://thelatebay.com/index.php?topic=1697.new#new

Or video compilations here:-
European Bug-in 4 2011 Part1

European Bug-in 4 2011 Part 2

 

[size=medium]Sunday morning we packed up our camp & headed down to the show & shine with Milly & Vanilly. In my opinion there were only 3 contenders in late bays even though there were dozens entered but the prize went to an prototype as usual. To be fair the prototype was stunning.
After the show we drove around posing with Milly & Vanilly until the boys had to head home at about 1600 to catch the ferry home. At 1700 we left Chimay & made our way down to Luxembourg city in Luxembourg. We arrived in a lovely camp site at 20.30 & set up camp plugged in our electric hook up & filled the aqua roll, as usual we had loads of attention all the way with people taking pics & smiling at us.
Once set up we all went for a stroll through the village, as it was late by now & the super market was closed so we stopped in a Italian Restaurant, just 5 mins up the road, Amy had Spaghetti & the rest of us had a Pizza , cracking food & reasonably priced. Once we were all stuffed we strolled back to camp played some games & went to bed just after 12:-

 

The next day we all got up & showered & headed into Luxembourg City in Milly, we parked near to the town centre & went shopping its a really nice clean town & we all enjoyed. On the way back to the car park we jumped on a road train & had a guided tour of part of the City. We also called in the tourist information office, where we picked up some maps & guides. I asked the girl on the counter where I could find a Mammoth store, she laughed at me & asked did I mean Mammout, so I drew a hairy elephant, she laughed again & explained that they closed down before she was born & now they are called Cactus, we picked up some maps & guides & then we then went for food at Quick burger & wandered around the town:-

 

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After our day in Luxembourg we traveled back to the camp site, stopping in Cactus on the way. Shopping took ages the store was huge I got laughed at again here when I asked the shop assistant for Lamb, she didn't know what I was on about so I made sheep noises. She pointed at the cabinet behind me which had meat with Welsh Lamb written on the label. It was about twice the price of Lamb back home & ironically the Lamb sold at home says New Zealand lamb on it, still we had a feast for tea:-