Left Langres at the crack of dawn (well, 08:30 actually) and we are getting much better at packing up and leaving. We now have this down to about an hour and 15 minutes from the alarm sounding! Trust us, that’s a big improvement!

Heading for Vaison la Romaine we had a pleasant 6 hour drive (some 350 miles) before arriving at Camping Soleil du Provence.

Brilliant campsite on the side of a hill with great views of Mount Ventoux. Some German campers advised that we pitch such that the awning faces south (i.e. towards the Campsite reception) due to very strong winds – probably the Mistral.

Nice blend of nationalities including half-a-dozen British outfits.

The site was fantastic at this time of year but is probably heaving at the peak season especially as they have added a new camping field to the front of the site.

Departed the Caravan Club site at 07:30, catching the shuttle at 08:35, 15 minutes earlier than our scheduled departure. The Eurotunnel crossing was quick and un-eventful and whilst our outfit is some 3.1m tall (bikes racked on top of the Sorento) this was not a problem as we were travelling with all of the high vehicles and coaches.

A long drive to Langres of around 300 miles had us at the campsite around 17:00. Since the last time we travelled this route we think the main bottleneck at Reims has been solved with a new ring-road. Either that or our latest satnav has just discovered a new and faster route!

Camping du Lac de la Liez is an old favourite of ours and this time we had a lovely pitch with stunning views across the lake.

The view from our pitch at Lac de la Liez.

The site itself is expanding and doesn’t quite have the kind of personal touch and attention to detail it once had.

The toilet facilities are all relatively new but we have stayed on many family campsites which have much older shower blocks yet manage to keep their facilities much cleaner.

Departure time from North Hampshire was mid-afternoon on a Friday afternoon at the start of the May bank holiday weekend.

Traffic en-route to Folkestone was without major hold-up and preceded an overnight stay at the Caravan Club site – Black Horse farm.

Stopping over this side of the channel felt the right thing to do given we would have a fixed departure time through the tunnel.

The trip would be mainly in Italy and Germany with a few days en-route through France.

This would be our longest caravan adventure to date and the first trip with the new van – our Lunar Quasar (well, Campbells Cosmos actually). This van was towed by our Kia Sorento with ease, just as we had hoped.

Leaving England on Friday 3rd May 2013, mid-afternoon we had a good journey down to Folkestone, all the more pleasing given that this was the start of the May bank holiday weekend.

Every campsite had been pre-planned and booked prior to departure. A bit of a habit since historically we have travelled during the peak summer weeks where all of these sites require advance booking.

I’m not so sure this was entirely necessary this time and only one section of Italy would have resulted in some possibility of encountering a fully booked site. We also lost out on being able to stay longer at some of our in-transit stays. More of that in the detail though.