Join us this week in our early retirement adventures as we start to realise that the alpine villages are shutting down at the end of the summer, we wrangle with the digital challenges of life on the road and we are out of the country at a pivotal moment in British history.
The end of the season- Europe is shutting down.
As we come to the end of our second week in the alps, we are quickly realising- as predicted, that the mountain villages are shutting down. On Thursday we visited 2 villages on the bounce- Pralogan-la-Vanoise for its famed local market and Champagy-en-Vanoise for old time skiing memories and both were simply ghost villages with only the odd local wandering around. Restaurants had shut a while ago, but when the supermarkets have shut as well- with notes saying see you in December- you know you are onto a losing battle! We have really struggled to get fresh food for the last few days, so we know our time at altitude is limited. It’s time to head off to Annecy for the last of the summer sun, lakeside lazing and a bit of time on the bikes.
If you are interested, check out our latest travel blog for our adventures in Les Get here.
Wi-Fi data complacency and need for gratitude.
We have come to the conclusion after 2 weeks on the road that we have become too complacent about our data connections at home. After Brexit, all the mobile phone companies removed their free roaming facilities on their contracts. We are with 3mobile, who were really good for world travel, but we now get charged £2 per day to use our phones in France. Even worse, we are limited to 12GB of data for the month before exorbitant charges apply. As a result, us Brits have become the poor relations of Europe. We have been reduced to desperately scrating round for free WiFi like the good old days…however as everyone in the world now seems to have all inclusive phone packages, free WiFi is now officially s**** as no one, apart from us poor Brits need to use it.
We have to find a better solution to our data on the go needs when outside the UK, as that is where we are planning on spending most our time in the coming years. I am acutely aware that this is a very middle class, real life problem, but it is becoming a daily pain in the arse for us.
Going with the flow…and good guides
We are loving travelling without firm plans. We have a rough idea about the areas we want to visit and the time we want to spend there, but we are always open to change and flexibility depending on what we find.
You cannot put a price on good intel when travelling and exploring new areas. Everyone thinks that the internet is the fount of all knowledge when it comes to travel recommendations, but we would probably disagree. There is almost too much information out their on the inter web, with everyone having their own opinion of where to go and what to see. We have found using good old fashioned books to be a great starting point. Regular readers will know that we are firm followers of the wild guide series of books for our inspiration. They work for us and we like their recommendations. In addition we also put a lot of trust in fellow travellers recommendations. We always keep note of places that people recommend as you can normally tell by the passion in which they speak that it is a genuine recommendation.
House update
Having heard very little about our house purchase in Yorkshire for weeks, the day we got off the ferry in France, things started moving at pace…and we were completely incapable of doing anything to help whilst on the road. Much to our frustration, we just have to watch things develop from a distance. We are actually so excited about the move, but feel really removed from the whole process…at least for the next week until we are back in the uk. Until that time, we will continue to get inspiration from all the french mountainy interior decoration shops we pass by.
A sad week to be away.
The incredibly sad passing of the Queen this week hit us hard whist being away in Europe. Jackie likened it to losing a loving Grandma, someone who had been an ever present in our lives and someone we could not conceive not being there for us all. We are not particular royalists, but it is easy to recognise service and commitment over a lifetime and Elisabeth showed that in bucketloads. We are just glad that she will be now with her sweetheart, Philip, wherever you believe that to be.
So that is it for another week. In out plans, we are now moving into the fourth quarter of 2022- and as yet we have nothing in place- that is tonight’s job! We were meticulous in our planning for early retirement in the first three quarters, knowing that things had to happen in a certain way- we purposely knew that in the final quarter we would have made it…so what is next?
Have a fantastic week ahead,
Richard & Jackie
Comments