The Akermen Family European Tour Scrapbook

Charlie AkermanCharlie is the youngest of the team, but can pull her own weight with camp-kitchen chores. She can grate cheese competently but always likes to have a bit to check it's ok. Around the camp fire she will entertain with her very own version of Santa Baby, and is a keen air-guitarist Lena StranksLena aka Mum is the tours chef, route planner, photographer and geologist. It all sounds quite grand but it really just means she did rocks at university once, can make an omelette and knows that if the sun is on your left you are most likely heading west(ish). She is wonderful in many ways, hem hem and edits the website Bear AkermanBear is just a freeloader along for the ride and the icecream Nick AkermanDont be confused by the sombre look, Nick is actually genuinely grumpy. He is with the trip for 4 weeks out of 7 as he had to pop back and do some work for a bit in the middle. He is chief campfire entertainer with his guitar and singing. He is also the main driver and in charge of interpretting navigational instructions from Lena. As if that is not enough he will be lifeguard at the seaside, and helping bear with his icecreams Abigail AkermanAbi is the team artist and ballerina. She will be looking to document the trip on her own felt-tip version of the bayeaux tapestry. Her speciality in camp-kitchen is "Gods Own Mash" but she will hopefully get to experiment with local ingredients on her nights cooking tea. Libby AkermanLibby is the eldest of the youngsters on the trip and so will no doubt be keen to stay up after all the others and watch the telly....ah there is no telly. Fortunately Libby has other means of entertaining us and herself as she is able to sing all of the three HSM soundtracks and the Sound of Music from memory. She will no-doubt be persuaded to join in with Nick singing even though he has a penchant for 70s tracks and Elton John. Shes nice like that!

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Views from our tent

On this page you can see how the view from our tent changes as we move around Europe. We plan to stay in each place for only a couple of days at a time so you can expect the images here to be really different as we continue on our travels

Our final 2 nights were spent on the coast in the Somme. Here is the view from our tent of the camp kitchen.


On our first night at Karinas farm we stayed in a caravan. This is our view.


On our second night we stayed in the farmhouse. From the farmhouse we could see lots of barns, here are views from one of them.



We had quite a long stay in Filzmoos, Austria, nearly two weeks, and so we thought it warrented a couple pictures so that you can get a feel for the view. The first one shows the view one evening when we realised it was snowing!


If we craned our necks from the balcony we could see the village church which looks quite different from our church in Willersey. Like Willersey it had bells which we often heard.


This is the view from just outside the campsite we stayed in at Lake Garda. We swam in the Lake twice on most days, which was really nice and refreshing because of the heat.


Our first stop in Italy was in Genova for 1 night. It was right up a hill on the edge of the city. The sea was 10 minutes walk away, but it took twice as long to come back. We had been in the car all day that day so that evening we played court whilst eating pistachios, where we give people funny punishments for the naughty things that they have done in the day.


After Lodeve we went to the coast and camped in Cavalier sur Mare.


As a break from camping we are staying with mum's aunty and uncle near Lodeve. It is so lovely we think it deserves three view photos, one from the front, one from the back and one of the swimming pool. Its been a little bit cloudy but if you are here on a sunny day, the view is even better.




This was a municipal campsite, run by the local council, in Capstang. The bonus was that it was next to the playpark, the downside was the toilets! They were just holes in the ground and you had to remember to take your own toilet paper!


This is cheating a bit because it is not quite the view from the tent, but we lived on the beach for a day so we are showing you the view from the restaurant where we had our tea!


Here is the view from the tent in Calella


We went to Andorra to see what it was like. It is a different country right in the middle of the Pyranees and is only the size of Cheltenham and Gloucester! We drove along a valley to get to the capital where we found a campsite right in the middle of town. Look at our view of a sports stadium, lots of houses and a mountain!


This is our first campsite view. We didnt really like this site but that could be because it rained all the time.


This is our cabin on the boat. We didnt have a window but the mirror was shaped like one and this is what we could see in it.