It's déja-vu all over again!

It's déja-vu all over again!

The campsite, somewhere along the Rhine, was full of mobile homes and caravans. The receptionist reluctantly showed us a patch of grass where we could pitch our tiny tent. Looking remarkably like the painting of The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci, a row of campers were seated at a long table, they invited us to join them. The couple at the centre of this tableau were celebrating the silver medal they had been awarded to mark their 25^th visit. They seemed genuinely sorry for us when they discovered that this was our first time and we would probably never be able to recieve such an honour!

Similarily in the south of France a Dutch couple proudly told us that they'd visited the same campsite for years. Just once, they said, they'd stayed at campsite down the road but it wasn't as good AND it was full of French people! Adding seriously in response to one of our increasingly less  serious questions “Well, yes, we did try the local food once but we didn't like it”

At the other end of the spectrum backpackers seem equally uninterested in local cuisine and customs. Now, there have been adventurous people travelling around the world  wearing backpacks since they were invented but 'backpacking' as a lifestyle has evolved into mass tourism on the cheap, at times verging on the miserly. You will see them  at backpacker hotspots swarming around wi-fi points clutching bottles of water and packets of cut-price cookies. They spend more time interacting with other backpackers rather than the with the locals. However, unlike the caravanners, they will not be staying long. They will soon move on to the next hostel listed in the packpackers handbook ticking off countries,cities and sights on the way. 
A long weekend in Paris and they've 'done' France, one night in a Yurt just outside Bishkek and they've had their nomad experience in Kyrgyzstan! 
Now, to be honest, we were also restless travellers, never spending more than three days in one place and on long bike trips less. Until at some point we decided to explore more fully some of places we'd previously breezed through. A change of pace maybe but it has not often involved visiting the exact same place twice and never, ever, three times. 
Until this year...............

2x Smizany, Slovakia:  Same time, same place. The big difference was that Ivan greeted us wearing swimming trucks that were way too small instead of a rain cape. This time his extensive covered patio sheltered us from the blistering heat rather than the frequent and heavy showers last year!

3x Breb, Romania: our third visit and the second year in a row helping at the village campsite. Did we get bored? Not at all, actually we had a much busier social life than we do at home. At the end of our three weeks we still had things to do places to go and people to meet. There is every chance we the will go again next year. On the way, maybe, to a bronze medal??

1x Runc, Slovenia: There has to be a first time for everything. Allegedly this tiny, remote village has two shops we only managed to find one. They had bread on Wednesdays.

5x Parad, Hungary: We had visited this campsite twice when guiding bicycle tours, then again quite by chance, then once more! Is it such a great place? Well, no, not really. The grass is well maintained, it has to be said. The sanitation block is clean but in a perpetual state of disrepair.  The rest is bent, broken, loose or faded. It has not improved over the years but, strangely, has got no worse.

“Nothing changes here” said the lady behind the bar “only the staff”.

It was damp, dismal and deserted but the next day there was a change. It was sunny and we were overrun by a project for lively underpriviliged gypsy children. Ah well, we thought, after a moment of panic, 'if you can't beat them join them'. And that's what we did, earning us a huge hug from the generously proportioned project leader when we eventually left.

3x Kapfelberg, Germany: Yvonne had picked out a suitable stopover campsite to punctuate a two day drive. The description seemed familier to me but Yvonne assured me that it wasn't the place I was thinking of and I believed her right up to the moment we left the autobahn.

“It's déja-vu all over again”! I exclaimed!

Yes, we had been there twice before AND the circumstances leading up to the second visit had been exactly the same. 

I guess I'll never learn! 

It had changed though, it now had a proper reception with a desk, a computer and a potted plant, instead of an old man with a note book.

2x Walldorf, Germany: After weeks of intentional and unintentional repeat visits it seemed fitting that we should finish our journey by dropping in on a Kyrgyz friend living in Germany. Yes, you guessed it, we'd done the same before at the end of another trip. Well, it was not quite a repeat,  she had moved house, even if it was only just around the corner and down the road a bit!