Popul

The inaguration of Popul, an 1985 VW T3 Westafalia, on the shore of Ammersee, between Munich and the German alpes. I had originally been hoping to find a mint, rust free, turbo-Diesel Westy, but this proved difficult. Most T3 campers, being around 20 years old are by now quite run down, and the purchase of the one nice I found fell through when a friend of the owner wanted it.

Turns out there was a Westy for sale in a village only 6km from where I lived in Herrsching. The dealer even picked me up (since there was no public transportation going that way). A gold metallic 1985, with the brownish upholstery (not my favorite color, but at least it was clean, and by now I wasn't so picky). At 150kmiles on the 1.9l wasserboxer, and a few pop-riveted rust repairs it didn't look like a candidate for a keeper, but could hopefully get around Europe for some touristing. I paid Euro 2200 and arranged to have the garage help me with some of the more pressing repairs (fuel pump, a couple brake lines and hoses, tires), and left the rest for me. Ironically it turns out the Westy was a re-import from the US, so here I came all the way to the promised land just to end up with a camper I could just have bought at home...

Arrived in Grenoble, France, on the quai of the river Isere, after a trip through Bayern, Baden-Wurtenberg and Switzerland. Note that the relatively empty street is not indicative of a typical Grenoble experience. This is Monday 9am after people left for work. The normal situation is that every street is full with both legally and illegally parked cars. Luckily the VW T3 easily manuevers into even tight spots, and it is no longer than a mid size car, so it fits ok in the regular parking spaces.













Computing with a riverside view.