Camper vans
Ever wanted to go on an adventure in a camper van or a motor home? Maybe you’re not quite into full on ‘lying on a rough field’ camping, but still fancy the freedom afforded by avoiding hotels. We’ve got to do another tour of England France and Spain to research some more historic stone fireplaces and to find some more stone suppliers, and we’re going to do it in a camper van. It means we can be totally flexible with our route, and we won’t be at the mercy of BA cabin crew; icelandic volcanos or Michael O’Leary charging us to breathe! The other great advantage, is that we sometimes find areas/old houses that have a lot of stone fireplaces or stone stairs that we’re interested in and where we want hang around for several days, and what better than in our own mobile hotel.
There are also a lot of derelict properties in various areas of France and Spain (we’ve come across whole deserted villages in Spain in the more remote areas. These quite often can reveal some lovely stone feature, or remains, that gives us inspiration for new designs. It can be very exciting.
Stone fireplaces can be found in the most amazing places. We once went to a little village in the Massif Central, and went into a small cafe in the square for a early morning coffee. There in the rear of the shop was the most incredibly beautiful stone fireplace, that was all the remained of a big gentlemans’ residence that used to stand on the site of the coffee shop, but had been destroyed in the war.
You never know where your next amazing stone fireplace or stone staircase may appear!