Vanilla in April: The Grand Alpine Loop

April will come with the sound of an engine turning over — one month, one van, and the open road unfolding like a story yet to be written. It will begin in the quiet lanes of Stafford and end there too, but everything in between will be the long, slow music of Europe awakening to spring.

England to the Sea

The plan is simple. On the first morning of April, the air still carries that sharp edge of late winter. The sky over Stafford is pale as bone. I load the last of the coffee pods into the cupboard, turn the key, and Vanilla — my grey VW camper — answers with a low, familiar rumble.

She and I have travelled before, but this is different. This is a full month: England, France, Spain, Italy, the Alps, and home again. No schedule, only direction. A rolling, deliberate act of movement. April feels right for it — a month caught between seasons, the world new but not yet busy.

The road south from Stafford is smooth and empty. The van hums at sixty-five, the radio murmuring quietly under the sound of tyres. At Dover, the air is salted with spray; gulls wheel above the ferry queues. When the ship carries us across the Channel, I stand on deck with the wind in my face, watching England fade into a pale line of cliffs.

The Channel crossing is always a small act of faith — a leaving that promises a return. By the time the French coast sharpens into view, I can already feel my heartbeat slow to a continental rhythm.

Normandy Light

Calais is a blur of roundabouts and polite traffic signs. I head south to Amiens, the cathedral spire catching the evening light like a blade. Vanilla settles beside the river; her metal clicks gently as she cools. Across the water, the bells mark the hour. I’m no longer thinking about miles — only about moments.

Rouen follows: narrow lanes and history stacked like old books. Then Honfleur, where the harbour mirrors the sky and the smell of salt drifts through cafés. France feels softer than England, less hurried, as though time itself prefers to stroll here.

At Mont-Saint-Michel, the tide folds over the flats, turning sand to silver. I walk the causeway at dawn, boots leaving patterns that the sea quickly erases. Saint-Malo rises next — granite walls, gulls, and the endless percussion of waves. Each evening I open the van door, step into a new slice of air, and feel the world tilt a little further from routine.

Drifting South

By the second week the days lengthen, and the road begins to smell of dust and warm stone. Nantes, Bordeaux, the long sweep of vineyards — all of it green and gold. The ritual takes hold: early coffee, fold the bed, check the mirrors, and roll on.

At Biarritz, surfers trace lazy loops on the Atlantic swell. I park on a cliff above the sea and watch the water breathe. The next morning, Spain greets me with bright sunlight and the promise of lunch that will take all afternoon.

San Sebastián is the first proper pause — a two-night promise to do nothing useful. I wander the old town, eat pintxos with toothpicks and laughter, and stand on the beach at dusk watching the bay blush with light. Vanilla waits on the hill, patient and content.

From there, the road climbs into the Picos de Europa. The landscape folds like cloth: limestone peaks, hidden streams, meadows still shivering with frost. I stop often, not because I have to, but because not stopping would feel like missing a sentence in a poem.

Beyond the mountains, Burgos and Zaragoza rise from the plains, proud and sun-bleached. Spain teaches you the art of patience — nothing opens quickly, but everything lasts longer.

The Blue Road

Mid-month, the Mediterranean appears — a sudden flash of silver between hills. Mataró, Collioure, Cassis: names that taste of salt and citrus. The sea follows faithfully on my left, sometimes visible, sometimes only a scent on the air. The van hums through tunnels and over viaducts, her reflection sliding along marble cliffs.

Italy begins almost without ceremony. The border sign flashes by, and instantly the world grows louder, warmer, more theatrical. Sanremo blazes with flowers; Levanto smells of basil and surf. I take a train to the Cinque Terre, the five pastel villages clinging to cliffs as though afraid to slip into the sea.

Then comes Florence, the golden heart of Tuscany. I give the van two nights of rest beneath cypress trees. Mornings spent walking the cobbles, afternoons beside the Arno, evenings filled with music and food that makes conversation unnecessary. Florence is less a city and more a slow exhalation.

Northward to the Peaks

From Florence the road leans upward. The heat softens, the light sharpens, and by Lake Garda the air smells of pine and cool water. I park close to the shore; the lake holds the sunset like glass. This is the midpoint — the hinge of the journey — and I stay two nights to watch the mountains deepen their colours.

Then, with the morning still low and pale, I turn north toward Aosta. Snow clings stubbornly to the shoulders of the peaks. The Great St Bernard Pass is open — conditionally, cautiously — and that’s invitation enough. Vanilla climbs without complaint, her engine echoing off stone walls. The road spirals upward through drifts of snow higher than the roof. At the summit stands the old hospice, steadfast against centuries of wind.

I step out, boots crunching, and breathe air so clean it stings. The silence is cathedral-deep. Standing there, I feel both impossibly small and quietly infinite. The road has brought me higher than thought itself.

Through the Alpine Heart

The descent into Switzerland is a slide through light: Martigny’s terraced vineyards, the glacier glow of Chamonix, then the deep valley of Lauterbrunnen — waterfalls tumbling from cliffs like silk ribbons. I stay two nights here, partly because it’s perfect, partly because leaving feels impolite. Days spent walking narrow paths; nights wrapped in mountain quiet. When darkness falls, the stars appear close enough to touch.

From Lauterbrunnen I follow the lakes to Lucerne, where water and sky trade reflections. Then eastward into Liechtenstein, a kingdom you could drive across before finishing a song. By the time I reach Innsbruck, the Alps have softened into hills; the journey feels as though it’s descending through time.

The Long Glide Home

Germany arrives with pine forests and order. Roads lined like sentences, precise and satisfying. I pass through Freiburg, the trees thick with early leaves, and by the time I cross into France again, the world smells faintly of champagne and spring rain.

Reims flickers past — vineyards, cathedral spires, golden fields — then Bruges, all cobbles and canals, a final gentle pause before the sea. The ferry waits at Calais, and I roll Vanilla aboard for the last crossing. The Channel is calm, the sky a soft bruise of twilight.

On deck, I lean against the rail and watch England appear — the white cliffs dissolving slowly from mist to substance. The air smells familiar, damp and green. By the time Stafford’s lights glow ahead, the calendar has run out of April.

The Return

Home feels both unchanged and completely new. The same streetlight pools gold across the drive; the same key fits the same door. Yet everything hums with a quiet difference — the way landscapes do after rain.

Vanilla’s paint is dulled with road dust, her tyres freckled with Alpine grit, her cupboards echoing faintly. I leave her cooling in the dark, and the silence that follows is as rich as applause.

Thirty days, thousands of miles, countless small moments. A month spent watching the world wake up from winter. It isn’t nostalgia I feel as I switch off the light — it’s gratitude: for the open road, for the promise of return, and for the strange, bright truth that sometimes the best journeys begin long before they start.

Next April, Vanilla and I will go. And somewhere between the Channel and the clouds, between the salt of Saint-Malo and the snow of the Great St Bernard, we’ll remember what it means to be quietly, joyfully, moving.

About the Author

John Nickolls is a Stafford-based driver, photographer, and chronic wanderer of roads less taken. When he isn’t steering an HGV through the night, he’s behind the wheel of Vanilla, his indium grey VW Transporter campervan and trusted travelling companion. Together they chase light, weather, and the gentle music of open spaces — collecting miles, stories, and the occasional pastry crumb along the way. “Vanilla in April: The Grand Alpine Loop” is his upcoming journey across Europe in spring 2026 — a month-long celebration of motion, solitude, and the quiet joy of seeing the world unfold at 60 miles an hour.