May 21st-22nd – Bonn

So, we moved down the Rhine to West Germany's old capital, Bonn – a 15 km ride from the campsite this time (we'd better be fit by the end of this holiday). For the capital of Western Europe's largest economy, Bonn might have been a little bit of a disappointment, but as just a pleasant provincial town (now that Germany's reunited and Berlin's back to its rightful place), it's a very nice place to visit.

Like most of these German cities, Bonn was badly damaged in the War, so the city centre is an odd mix of heavily restored old buildings and clunky 50s and 60s architecture. We did a walk around the main historic sights and then moved on to probably Bonn's best feature left over from when it was capital – its museums.

We went to the excellent modern art museum and went to the Max Liebermann exhibition. I'm a philistine, so I'd never heard of him before, but he's chiefly famous for being a leader of the "Berlin Secession" Movement after World War One, when his modern art was challenging the accepted forms of art of the times. Even I could see that it was obviously high quality stuff, but it didn't seem massively ground breaking to me – I suppose that it's interesting to think how much the art world has changed from the turn of the 20th century, when his work was seen as scandalous.

May 17th-19th – Pleasantly surprised by Dusseldorf

Most of our friends can't understand why we want to spend three months in Germany – it's not a country that many Brits go on holiday to. But, we've spent a few nice weeks here passing through to other places, so we thought it was time to find out more about Germany.

For example, Dusseldorf has a bit of a reputation for being a dreary modern business centre, but we found that we quite liked it. Here's a list of what we liked:
1. It's on the beautiful Rhine – a lovely 10km ride along cycle paths by the river from the campsite into town.
2. Amazing modern architecture – they've revitalised the old docks with some impressive modern architecture, in particular, a typically striking Frank Gehry ensemble of undulating fantastical buildings.
3. The Aldstadt (Old Town) has been called "the longest bar in the world", and features bar after bar serving up the local beer, which Tracy charitably said tastes "like earwax", but I don't think is too bad.

May 16th – Maastricht in the Grey

Maybe a rainy Monday morning (when everything is shut) is probably not the time to see Maastricht at its most beautiful, but the grey skies and empty streets didn't quite hold our attention. Even so, there were lots of half-timbered buildings and huge churches that would have looked much prettier on a sunny day.

May 14th & 15th – Valkenburg

Our destination was Maastricht in Holland, but the closest campsite was in a pretty little town called Valkenburg, which turned out to be a major tourist attraction for Dutch holidaymakers. Although only a tiny little place, the streets were lined with bars and restaurant, all packed to the rafters.

Whilst it's a very quaint place, to be honest, we couldn't work out why so many people flocked there, but what do we know?

May 13th – An Adoration of Ghent

Back in the Middle Ages, Ghent (in Belgium) was bigger and richer than London or Paris, and so there's an amazing array of impressive old churches and medieval merchant houses around the town.

Our highlight was a trip to see Van Eyk's fantastic Adoration of the Mystic Lamb – a 15th century altarpiece in Ghent's largest church. As part of Tracy's History of Art course, she tells me that this was one of the seminal works that kick-started the artistic renaissance in Europe. Very impressive.

May 12th – Eurotunnel to Ghent

Our first time in the Eurotunnel in the camper van – extremely quick and mega-efficient.

April 9th – May 12th

Many apologies to my thousands of blog followers (ok, all three of you), for my slackness on the blogging front.

The Africa to Europe cruise on the Silver Wind, finished in a blur in Lisbon, as I met up with a couple of old schoolfriends in Lisbon and had a boozy weekend in the Portuguese capital. On any walk down the street, we were offered drugs an average of once every three minutes - however, we had enough self-administered beer to make any drug taking completely pointless.

After that, we were in the UK for an enormous amount of DIY and a fair amount of catching up with family and friends. By May 12th, we were exhausted and in need of a break, so a three month trip in the camper van round Germany was just what we needed.