Free at last! The UK’s 14-day quarantine rule has been lifted and just in time for our week off.
Last night – after days of speculation and more Government dithering – it was announced that people arriving in England from countries including France, Spain, Germany and Italy will, from July 10, no longer need to quarantine.
A few days earlier the French government announced that they were lifting travel restrictions with the rest of Europe so it’s tous les systemes vont.
Just before this announcement I’d booked what I felt was the safest trip abroad possible – a week in France via Eurotunnel in our Love Bus campervan.
to my considerable annoyance, the quarantine restrictions came into force in early June in a belated attempt to prevent coronavirus being brought into the UK.
We won’t even have to get out of our van to travel to our nearest neighbour and will be able to keep ourselves to ourselves on what I’m confident will be a socially distant camping pitch.
Now with everything confirmed I can start planning the trip. The researching and the expectation, these are one of the great pleasures of travelling before you’ve even stepped outside your front door.
We’re aiming for a low-key roughing it sort of week in France’s Loire Valley. We’ve passed through this region on a few occasions on the way to and from the Med Coast and like what we’ve seen.
I’m going to start looking up suitable towns and their campsites in the region right now. It’ll be the first time we’ve been away in our Love Bus campervan this year and I can’t wait.
Our main concern with camping Covid-style will be the toilet blocks, some of which may be closed and those that are open can be pretty unhygienic at the best of times.
To mitigate this I’ve paid yet another trip to my favourite website – Amazon – and bought one of the famous Kampa Khazi portable toilets. It will fit neatly in a covered ‘corridor’ area between our van and the tent we attach to the side of it.
We’ll spend tomorrow packing up the van which we completely emptied during our recent spring clean before setting off first thing Sunday morning. It’ll be good to get back on the road again after all this time.
Might even go out and celebrate tomorrow with a beer or two at one of the local pubs that are set to reopen tomorrow. Things truly are getting back to normal.