I must start off with an apology – I’m extremely sorry for how poor I’ve been on the blogging front recently. As always, my excuse is time. I’ve been too busy for the past month: marking exams, car boot sales, general day to day life etc. So, I’m afraid the blog got slightly neglected. Happily however, I should be back into it now. Exam marking is done and I have plenty of free evenings ahead. 

The biggest thing Aidan and I need to do now is to plan our road trip around Germany.  We’re heading off on Friday 17th July, as soon as I finish work as it’s the last day before summer holidays; driving down to London to stay overnight with Aidan’s brother, then onwards towards Dover, Belgium and Germany.

The route is pretty much planned. We’re going to Tongeren in Belgium where there’s (apparently) the largest flea market in Europe:

We’re spending one night camping here, then on to Essen for two nights. We’ve been told by some people that, “It’s a dump!” whereas the guide books call it ‘industrial’. We tend to like strange places, so I’m sure we’ll probably enjoy it. It seems to be part of the Industrial Heritage Trail; many of the old mines have been converted into museums and galleries, which does sound interesting.

After that, we head down through Worms and Speyer to Stuttgart (I think it’s Stuttgart first, anyway!).  I keep getting mixed up between Stuttgart and Nuremberg. We’re staying with a couple of other WGP enthusiasts in both places, who have very kindly offered to put us up a couple of nights. Both places look gorgeous and we’ve been told about there will be a couple of flea markets involved there as well…

Add to this a bit of camping in a National Park, a stay in Fulda and then probably one more night in Belgium on the way back and we have a road trip!

As well as a holiday, this is a chance to see what kind of things we could buy for a retro market stall. The vintage bits and bobs have been quite well on the car boot sales – I sold the Metalbox magazine rack! – and the market stall is the next step. After that, opening up a retro/vintage shop in Glossop would be fantastic, if a little far off yet. However, going on this road trip is a little step along the way to achieving that.

Any suggestions of places to stop at en route, please do let me know via the comments. All are gratefully received!