A quick trip to the library armed me with the knowledge I needed to get going.  Here are some of the culinary delights we have been enjoying ever since…

Ground elder – good mixed into salads or steamed like spinach. Eat the young leaves which are brighter green and slightly curled

Dandelions – eat the unopened flower buds but be sure to cook them as they are very bitter if eaten raw

Hawthorn leaves – best while young, can be eaten raw or cooked

Daisy flowers make a pretty and surprisingly tasty addition to salads

Other plants which are easily identifiable, readily available and certainly make for good eating are wild garlic and garlic mustard (which you unsurprisingly use in place of garlic), nettles (use young leaves in place of spinach or dry to make tea) and bramble leaves (for drying to make into tea).

As the year progresses and the seasons turn, I hope to find fungi, flowers, fruits and other plants with which to supplement our diet.

I have yet to find anything which is cited as edible but is actually utterly disgusting (although The Boy may not quite agree with me on that one!), and with few urgent demands upon my time it is strangely relaxing to take time out while on dog walks for a bit of foraging.  The English countryside looks very different once you view it as a giant larder!

The training room, where us volunteers spent evenings by candlelight in front of the log burner stove

Sitting in the dark of the Casalinho training room around the log burner stove with Jim and Hans on a cold January evening, I wondered whether tomorrow would bring yet more snow.  Trying to move closer to the fire to absorb what warmth I could from it, I stared at the small doors which covered the equally small fire inside, wondering why such a large stove only had such a small space for a fire.

The next day, fighting the cold of a winter’s morning, I said to crazy Hans, who cycled to Portugal from Holland in the same amount of time it took me to drive there, who took a daily bath in the icy river and worked in Crocs regardless of whether there was snow on the ground or not, ”It would be good if the fire was a little bigger wouldn’t it!”

Hans paused, and replied, “For me, this is enough.”

At the time I silently replied in my head, “How can this be enough?!?”

Three weeks later and I had got it.  The subtle difference between enough and excess.

For me, this is enough.

Paris from Sacre Coeur, Montmartre

Paris was the last of my capital city visits on this trip, and one of the last places I visited in France before returning to England.  I spent four days there, two of which were bitterly cold and two of which were scorching hot.  On a practical note, Paris was probably the easiest capital I visited (so in comparison to Madrid and Lisbon): the ring road does an excellent job of ensuring you have minimal driving in the city to contend with, although getting onto the ring road can be a slow process.

Sally’s opinion on the Eiffel Tower is pretty obvious I think!

Free parking in the city is non-existent, I (and all the other motorhomes it seemed) ended up in the Bois de Vincennes park, in which unrestricted parking is available and sleeping in vehicles is allowed (or at least tolerated).  Most tourists seemed to end up right in front of Chateau de Vincennes (just off Av. Daumensil), which is very close to the metro, but also next to a fairly busy road.  I selected Av. du Polygone, which is only a hundred metres or so further into the park but a lot quieter.  It has the added advantage of being the local boules venue, I appreciated knowing that my van was surrounded by (somewhat elderly I admit) security guards throughout the day.  If you choose this road though, I do recommend parking on the right, as the left is a lot sandier!  The downside to Bois de Vincennes is that it is a long walk (1.5 – 2 hours) into the city centre, although I could have knocked half an hour off this by parking a bit closer to the city on Route de Ceinture du Lac Daumensil outside the Buddhist temples.  For those less inclined towards walking, Bois de Boulogne is the large park on the other side of the city which is considerably closer to the centre and I believe would not be too dissimilar to Bois de Vincennes.  The permanent van residents on the road I parked up on told me that Bois de Boulogne is used as the red light district which is why they stayed away, but having stayed on prostitute avenue in Madrid without a problem, I think this would certainly be a reasonable place for a short term stay.

The Louvre on a grey day – unfortunately the mile long queue deterred me from entering

Paris was definitely my favourite capital visit of the trip despite the massive hike into the city, not least because there are about a week’s worth of galleries, museums, monuments and churches that are free for under 26 year olds from the EU.  I visited the Pompidou Centre (where there are some fabulous Picassos), the Conciergerie (palace turned jail where the aristocracy were held and tried during the Revolution), Notre Dame, the Musee Guimet (an excellent Asiatic art museum) and the Musee des Arts et Metiers (full of fascinating and very beautiful old machines, instruments and models) amongst other attractions, none of which cost me a cent.  And after four days exploration, there were still many things I did not have time to visit.  For the young budget traveller, Paris is definitely an awesome destination (despite the fact that, as expected, everything else in the city such as food seems significantly more expensive than elsewhere in France).

I was surprised by how relaxed and welcoming the atmosphere in Paris was.  This was definitely a city I could have spent a lot more time in.  As always with travelling, although the monuments and museums are impressive, it is the unexpected which really makes an experience memorable.  Stumbling into a Buddhist festival in full swing in the park, with hundreds of people having picnics on the grass surrounded by the smell of incense mixed with freshly cooked food and the sounds of Buddhist chanting, finding tiny intricate works of street art while exploring the city, sharing travel tales with my van neighbours on “my” street.  

The festival spilling out from the Buddhist temple complex into the surrounding park

If the Master Plan all comes to nothing, I think I could do a lot worse than taking a tent and joining the community who have decided to call Bois de Vincennes their home.

Looking over the city from the park in which we parked up

Before starting on the long journey back to the UK I was able to squeeze in a 24 hour visit to Barcelona, which by no means sufficient to see everything that this city has to offer was definitely a good opportunity to get a feel for the place.  Barcelona, unsurprisingly, felt more like a capital city in many ways than Madrid did, but at the same time also possibly felt less typically Spanish than many of the other cities I had visited, possibly due to the influence of the Catalan culture which is specific to this region of Spain.

Free motorhome parking is easily available in Montjuic Park which is about a 30 minute walk from the city centre, I parked just off Carrer dels Tarongers, which is remarkably quiet and has a great view over the city at night.

Barcelona has a great beach and waterfront area

As we only had a day to explore the city, we didn’t visit any of the attractions, instead choosing to wander the city streets and enjoy the warm spring sunshine.  Barcelona is a refreshing mish-mash of architectural styles, a world away from theancient golden sandstone cities that occupy so much of Spain.

Barcelona is nothing if not architecturally surprising

We toured around various Gaudi buildings, went for a walk on the beach, explored a few parks, and generally soaked up the Barcelona atmosphere.  Even by Spanish standards, this seems to be a very relaxed and fun-loving city, I think that perhaps not being the capital of Spain has done Barcelona a favour in this respect at least.

Enjoying some people watching in a shady plaza at the end of a long day

Barcelona is definitely a place I would recommend to people and even somewhere I might consider returning to in future.