Germany and Austria

Germany and Austria

Titisee what can you say!!

We are leaving France!! Too soon it feels but Germany beckons. We suddenly realise that it could well be the back end of the summer before we return so we end up searching several supermarkets around Colmar to stock up on the goodies we like which of course won’t be available in Germany as all they eat is Pig and funny cabbage.

This takes an age. French Supermarkets have a way of just wasting your day. You go in early morning and come out at night. Or so it seems.

We make it across the Rhine to Bresiach Am Rhine and whilst it looks interesting and the Stellplatz looks ok it isn’t Titisee is it? We have a quick look at the river, get back in the van and off we trot up into the Black Forest Mountains and the tourist magnet that is Titisee!

The Stellplatz at Camping Bankenhoff is almost full and we squeeze into the last spot early afternoon. Lucky for us as there are lots of vans arriving soon after us who are forced onto the campsite or the crappy parking area by the road. We spread out and look smug!! Come on. You have all done it on a full Aire or Stellplatz. That feeling you get where you have a good spot, your neighbours don’t seem like homicidal maniacs and don’t seem to possess one of those annoying accordions and the too late hopefuls arrive. No room at the inn! Go on bugger off onto the campsite where you will be hemmed in on all sides by snotty nose children, one of which will make it his mission in life to stare at you all day long.

The weather is great, the forecast perfect and we settle into what becomes more of a boot camp holiday than a chill out one. I finally get to swim in the lake the day we arrive and Yellow Belly gets his second outing of the trip and as we launch and row off into the lake it’s a tense moment while we wait and see if the very expensive special repair kit I got from the Chandlery at Lac de Der will hold. It does! No bubbles or leaks .

It’s about four miles to walk or cycle around the lake so it’s not exactly Loch Ness and we decide to row all the way round, call at Titisee town for refreshments which we will take on board and then row back. The first mistake I realise is having forgotten to bring the measuring tool to make sure the right amount of air goes into the boat, it’s clear it’s under-inflated. The second mistake is underestimating the strength of the winds especially the odd gust which are always against us. It’s pretty much like rowing through treacle. Still it’s great for my fitness campaign I tell myself as the shore we are aiming for a mile away suddenly looks further away.

Eventually we land on the beach in Titisee at the same time as a coach load of Japanese tourists. Who immediately start to take photographs of us. I think Chay Blyth had less of a reception for completing the first transatlantic row!

I set off in search of sustenance and come back with Bratwurst rolls and set off into the lake again (more photos). Of course the wind has changed and it’s right on our bow again!!! This means I have to row like buggery, eat a bit of Bratwurst then row like buggery again to make up the fifty yards lost to the wind due to stopping for a bite of Bratwurst! I give up and get stuck in and watch the boat lurch across the choppy water back towards the Japanese Tourists, wondering to myself if I can scoff the lot before the whole reception and photo call starts all over again. It takes an hour to do the last mile back to where we started but it’s been brilliant to be back out on the water again. Lake No. 2 under our belts!

Michelle does a few circuits on her Mountain bike before I throw down the gauntlet and go off on her bike to set a better time for the four mile circuit. 35 minutes. Ok I know your thinking you could probably brisk walk it that fast. Well some of its uphill you know and it’s a girl’s bike and it has fat tyres and I had to stop and look at the cuckoo clocks. Michelle however is a little surprised that firstly I made it round and secondly that I did it slightly faster than her first effort.

As it gets a bit serious I decide not to have another go when she comes in with a time of 23 minutes!

Climbing Feldberg

I know this fitness thing is getting a bit bonkers when we take Pig up to the Cable car station that goes to the top of Feldberg which is the highest mountain in the Black Forest at just a tad less than 5000ft and we decided to walk it! (well the last bit).

This is new ground for me. My knackered knees allow me to go up but not down very well so mountain climbing or trekking is really not on. We decided to set off up the steep slope. We will just do a bit we say and get some photos then struggle back down. Determination has become a trait I am proud of though and before we know it we are at the top. Luckily for me there is a zig zag route down which isn’t as steep as the ascent as after a certain angle of decent my legs just don’t work.

Back at the van and after all this fitness and well being I decide enough is enough and crack open a case of Leffe Blonde and bring out the French Cheese!!! Well I think for once I have earned it!

Our adventures and the thoughts and ideas I have for future adventures pale into insignificance when we meet Pat and Neil from www.motorhomefacts.com forum for a few jars. They are in the process of converting a ten ton 4x4 ex military truck into a motorhome or perhaps the better word would be “all terrain recreational assault vehicle”! Whatever they call it in needs to have the word assault in it! The photo’s Neil shows me of the vehicle looks superb but I am even more impressed by their plan which is to go around the world in it. Yes that’s right. The World! The initial stage is probably going to be from the top of Alaska to the southern tip of south America (Which actually is pretty much half way round the world!) And here I was fretting about getting the right sat nav for Slovenia! Maybe we will go to Iraq then! I wish them the very best of luck but I can’t help thinking how I can possibly outdo their adventure without involving a space ship!

Meeting Loretta

If any of you have read these blogs right back from 2009 and our first Euro adventure then firstly can I say congratulations to you both and the cheques are in the post. You may remember on our first visit to Titisee when we found Pension Lorette where I spent a week on my first ever trip to Europe with my parents when I was just fifteen years old back in 1981.

We drive up to the Pension and sure enough there is Loretta, my host from 31 years ago tending her garden. This time I decide to go and talk to her. At first she looks confused but luckily English is one of her many languages and suddenly, amazingly she remembers me and my family. Mum and dad did come back a few years later but by that time the chance of having the house to myself for three weeks was just too much to wish for so I didn’t go.

Loretta invites us round to her garden for beer and nibbles and we spend a lovely hour or so in her company and it turns out she really does remember us and she recalls my father’s ridiculous attempts to speak German to her every day. I just remember my mother being embarrassed to the point of annoyance and me just laughing my head off.

She must be in her eighties now but she’s still fit, does all her own gardening and as her clientele seems to span the globe speaks about a hundred languages!

Sadly her husband and both my parents are long gone and it’s a shame as I think they would have all enjoyed such a reunion. I feel quite emotional as we eventually take our leave and I think she does to. We promise to return and I suspect we will.

Eventually it’s time to move on and we have a night at the lovely town of Meersberg on Lake Konstanz before making plans for pastures new. Austria here we come!

Austria

It’s a pretty grotty day as we make our way through Bavaria via Fussen and up into Austria. We spend a lovely night up in the mountains at Heiterwang with spectacular views. It feels like the middle of nowhere and once again I manage to terrify myself in the middle of the night. I spend an hour or so late on winding Michelle up about wolves and bears that roam the Austrian Alps and prey on unsuspecting motorhomers who are too tight to pay to stay on a nice safe campsite and who choose to park up in their domain! Of course she isn’t bothered or taken in and even if there was wolves and bears she wouldn’t care less as she can almost certainly out run me. Of course there aren’t any really (are there?)

At midnight I venture outside for a last ciggy and its dark, pitch dark. I stare up at the stars and try to make out the outline of the peaks surrounding us. I suddenly get a sense of something watching me though. Straight ahead about 20 yards away. Maybe a deer or a cat perhaps? Then I hear a low gurgling growl and almost shit myself instantly. Somehow my fag is out and I’m back in the van without seemingly actually moving. Michelle has to be sedated, not because of the werewolf (it’s been promoted) that lurks at our door but because her laughter is out of control at the gibbering wreck that seemed to lunge from outside, through the door and back into his lounge seat instantly.

The next morning we have not been eaten and it’s a stunning sunny day and a lovely scenic drive over the Fern Pass and down to the region around Innsbruck. This is going to be special for Michelle as we are heading for Natters and Mutters which is where her dearly departed parents spent their honeymoon fifty three years ago as well as further trips in the early sixties. Michelle has resurrected their old photo album and plans to visit all the places in the photos and recreate some of the shots and poses.

Natters, Mutters and throwing yourself off a mountain

Sadly there is no real place to wild camp here and we are forced onto a five star campsite which is luckily still in cheap season and is also right on the little lake where Joan and Arthur spent much of their honeymoon.

The scenery in the Tirol is fantastic and the weather thankfully is superb and the temperature stays around thirty degrees in bright sunshine every day. We quickly find the various spots in the photos from Michelle’s collection as well as the original hotel they stayed in and recreate some of the photos from all those years ago. Not much has changed apart from the odd building. It must have been an even more magical place to have come to all those years ago before we all started travelling so much.

Europe’s Longest Alpine coaster.

One of the boxes to be ticked off this year is a white knuckle ride down Europe’s longest Alpine coaster. Just Google Mieders alpine coaster no brakes and watch the YouTube video.

It’s a ten mile ride on the bike up what I think is the old Brenner pass towards Italy and a stunning ride it is. Superb weather, twisting winding roads and uphill all the way. Splendid. Days like this is what it’s all about. At Mieders we find the coaster. Basically its tiny little toboggans attached to a single rail that twists and winds its way down a huge mountain for 2.7 Kilometres from about 6000ft up. A cable car takes you to the top where the views are simply breathtaking and the whole trip up and down costs just eleven Euros! I am a little apprehensive about doing this as we both suffered a nasty car accident just over three months ago and are still suffering the effects. This kind of rules out Michelle as she has more complex injuries compounded by a previous accident some years earlier. I decide to do it anyway as it does have brakes right? Michelle waits at the bottom and off I go.

There is no instruction and you are pushed off the mountain and away you go. Basically you push the stick forward to go and back to brake. The idea from the loon in the YouTube video is to try and do the full trip without touching the brakes. Sadly the family in front of me keep stopping for no apparent reason. This I decide is a risky thing to do as you can come sweeping down around a corner only to find the idiot in front of you stationary and taking in the view, totally oblivious to the person coming flying up behind you and Im pretty sure these things don’t have a failsafe stopping device to prevent you decapitating the person in front should they decide to stop for a rest!

In the end I stop for a few minutes and let them get ahead. It’s fantastic and believe me it feels much much faster than in the video.

I enjoy it so much that I go for another trip and this time take Michelle so we can have a walk high up in the Alps before I return on the coaster and she comes back down in the cable car. This time I have the mountain to myself and manage just to do the whole journey down in one go without touching the brakes but not without consequences? My backside is killing me, my neck hurts and I feel like I’ve just been flung down a 6000ft mountain. Fantastic!

We manage a trip to Innsbruck for a day and some of the surrounding villages but its hard work keeping pig off the motorway which I want to avoid mainly because I fear we will end up in Italy but also as I’m too tight to pay for a toll sticker Vignette thingy for him!

Everywhere is steep. The little bike gets some hammer up impossible slopes but serves us well.

Eventually we take our leave of Mutters, Natters and Innsbruck and head yet further east towards the lakes around Salzburg.

Stunning lakes but a broken bike!

We find Lake Achensee high up in the mountains. The road just keeps going up (Everything seems to be up!) but the reward is perhaps the most beautiful mountain and lake vista we can remember. It really is stunning. Sadly the wild camping spot we had earmarked of the Tinternet proves to be none existent and we are forced onto another blooming campsite which seems to be half campsite half building site. It’s a stunning tip around the lake on the bike though but sadly it is marred on the way back by the bike breaking down. At full chat just coming out of one of those long dark mountain tunnels it just looses drive and grinds to a halt. We have no idea how far it is back to the van, Michelle thinks it’s about two miles but I get my phone out and decided to use Google maps to find our location. Ten minutes later I still don’t know where we are (we left the sat nav in the van as even I can navigate around a lake). Michelle says its two miles. IT could be much more I say and anyway this modern technology should tell us where we are and how far it is back to the campsite so just be patient. She reckons it’s about two miles she tells me again. Shortly in anger I throw the phone back into the back of the bike as I’m still none the wiser and off we trot in flip flops back towards the van and the campsite. Three quarters of an hour later we are back and off we go in the van to pick up the broken Pig. Turns out to be exactly two miles!

So now we are bike less but never mind, out comes yellow belly and I spend a couple of hours rowing around Lake Achensee. (Lake number 3)

Now I’m pretty sure all that has happened is the drive belt has snapped. Again avid blog readers will remember that this happened in France in 2009 but nobody in France could produce a drive belt for our French Peugeot bike and I had to have one shipped from the UK! Ah ha!! I bought a spare!! Problem is I’m too cack handed to fit it myself so the next day we move on back into Bavarian Germany to go in search of some German efficiency.

Sadly its Saturday lunchtime when we arrive so it will have to wait until Monday. We do find however a super little farm with about half a dozen spaces for motorhomes. The sun is shining, it’s quiet, peaceful and we have beer in the fridge. We have one of those superb barmy nights with the guitar, Michelle’s iPod disco and some superb German beer! Just as well we can’t drive anywhere the next day!

We adopt a pet Hen called Vanunder. Vanunder is quite tame and occasionally will sneak up to you while your lounging, give you a little peck and then go and sit under the van! We also are visited by two fierce looking dogs who we christen Adolf and Rommel (sorry not PC I know but they are quite vicious looking). They turn out to be quite tame and well behaved though as long as you share your bacon sandwiches with them.

Monday morning sees us spending a few hours trying to get the bike fixed. Pete (Peedee) on www.motorhomefacts.com who are basically like our internet backup crew has kindly provided us with a list of Peugeot scooter service dealers and while number one on our list turns out to be closed until Tuesday number two which for some reason is in the middle of nowhere takes the bike and says it will be fixed by the morning! True to his word the next day Pig is back on the back of the van fixed and just £20 for fitting the belt! Result. Germany 1 France 0!

Next stop is lake Chiemsee which is massive but sadly the weather is crap. Amazingly though we spend a night on our own in the car park at Seebruck at the top of the lake but don’t really see the lake until the morning when the weather clears.

If you go to Salzberg do the official Sound of Music tour! (not mine)

Months ago I thought it would be nice for Michelle if I planned a trip around all the film locations of the Sound of Music. Most of it was shot in and around Salzberg. I painstakingly found out where the original Von Trapp family house was, the lake, Marias Abbey, the fountain where she sang around and even the flipping mountain top from the opening scenes. All of these I found on the internet using Google Earth from which I inputted the GPS co-ordinates into the sat nav for our visit.

Well firstly she doesn’t seem that interested and frankly finds it a bit strange that a 46 year old man would spend hours upstairs at home researching the Sound of Music and secondly Salzberg turns out to be much bigger and busier than I imagined and using the sat nav on the bike is almost impossible. As luck has it we find the lake house by parking a hundred yards from it accidently. The actual house proves almost impossible to find, mainly because you can no longer get to it by road. Shouts from behind of “you can give up if you like” just make me more determined to find these bloody places and we do eventually find the house and the fountain on foot but the damage is done. By this time I am as ratty as hell, Michelle is sick of being driven about Salzburg by her maniac tour guide and by the time we actually look around what is a beautiful city neither of us are that fussed! Still the official tour is €35 each. Probably cheaper stress wise!

We eventually set off in Hank to find a wild spot up in the mountains at a ski resort. For some reason most of Austria around Salzberg seems to be getting dug up and there are road works everywhere. An age later we get out of the city but the road up to the ski resort (at least the one we take) is impossible in the van so we give up and head towards lake Mondsee where the next stop turns out to be a college car park full of cars and just when its turning out to be on of those motorhoming days from hell I head for a Stellplatz (motorhome parking place) a few miles out in the countryside from Lake Mondsee which turns out to be absolutely perfect. It’s basically a farm with space for about five vans surrounded by stunning green pastures with superb views of the mountains. Peace and tranquillity quickly resume!

The private lake!

A mile up the road is lake Irrsee. It reminds us of Bassenthwaite lake in the lake district back at home. It’s one of the smaller quieter lakes of the Austrian lake district and we manage to find a superb spot by the lake to ourselves with a picnic table, umbrella, steps into the water and believe it or not somebody has gone to the trouble of actually carpeting the bottom of the lake for the first twenty feet or so into swimming depth! All for us? Well no actually. It turns out that this side of the lake is privately owned, presumably by locals. We while away a few hours, the lilos and rubber rings come out and the water is amazingly warm. It’s a beautiful day and we enjoy our tranquil private spot. Eventually a grumpy woman appears in a 4x4 and this is when we find out that the lake is private or at least this bit of it. She looks and sounds like Cruella DeVill and immediately starts spouting at us in German (Austrian? I dunno) that it is private and can we clear off! I try to tell her that there are no signs saying its private but to be fair at the back of my mind I did wonder! She is not having it though and is actually quite rude. She then plonks her very expensive chairs down and just to show us who’s boss strips naked and gets changed into her frankly too small and much too young for her bikini. Time to make a sharp exit I think. I consider winding her up a bit but she also has with her a rather large German Shepherd which probably has been trained to kill instantly any unsuspecting English tourists who dare to swim in her lake. Probably with the command Schnell Schnell, Feastern on zee English Pigdogs!!! Rover.

She also has a go at some Polish nannies that have appeared but they must have a special lake Vignette or something as she decides to let them stay but not before she wanders off muttering and ranting something about Polish and English.

Alpine Tornado and its almost game over!

On every trip (well at least ours) there is always some kind of disaster or near death experience. The first of this trip happens on the little peaceful farm near Lake Irrsee. Having been kicked off the lake by Cruella we head back to the van and are a bit smug by the fact that the weather is very quickly closing in. It’s been bright hot sunshine all day but suddenly over the mountain to our right appears thick grey clouds and its starts to rain. We laugh at the fact that Cruella will have just got comfy having rid her lake of undesirables of various nationalities and its now going to chuck it down. Michelle however has put out some washing and I ponder winding out the sun shade awning on the side of the van to keep it dry. The clouds are black now and despite my experience and knowledge of how quickly things can change in the Alps I hammer in four pegs to the awning thinking it will be secure and just stare at the oncoming storm. I really am an idiot. Within seconds the hillside disappears and a huge blackness and visible wall of water rolls down towards us. The wind goes from nothing to at least storm force ten in seconds but not before I have managed to grab the awning which is now a sail and rips out the four pegs like they are drawing pins in butter.

This isn’t funny. It’s deadly serious. The awning is actually lifting me off the ground, I can’t hold it but if I don’t for sure it’s going to be torn off and over the van probably ripping the side of the van off and taking a very expensive satellite dome off the roof with it! Michelle comes out in bare feet and has no choice but to try and wind the awning in with the pole that is hanging down while I try to hang on to it to stop it blowing over the van. Within (and for I am not joking) ten seconds we are completely soaked through. What seems like a wall of water is being blown sideways straight into us and into the open van doors and windows and there is nothing we can do as we concentrate on getting the awning it. Michelle is really struggling to wind it in but I can’t let go. The next problem is that the van is high at the rear on large wooden blocks to keep it level and eventually I’m not going to be able to keep hold of the awning as its going to be out of reach. With just a couple of feet to go I quickly leave loose and swap with Michelle to finish the winding like my life depended on it wind in furiously the last couple of feet. It’s in!! It’s not gone in straight though. The awning as twisted and one of the legs has fallen off but it’s in!! The van however is like a swamp. The rain has now turned to hailstones the size of marbles and we have big red blotches and even cuts where we have been hit by the icy projectiles.

Everything is soaked but by a monumental joint effort we have I think avoided what could have easily spelt the end of the trip or some very costly repairs.

I manage a laugh as we sit and stare at each other completely soaked across the van but a lesson learnt. You can’t dick around in the Alps. The weather can turn in an instant. This strikes home even more when we consider the fact that we toyed with the idea of taking the boat out but then decided just to have a swim with the lilos and ring near the shore. For sure the boat would have flipped and I make a mental note to bear this in mind in the next few days when we tackle some of the other lakes which are much bigger than Irrsee and Mondsee.

Within an hour or so we are back to wonderful sunshine!

On the plus side Michelle finds with no effort whatsoever the Church from the Sound of Music where Christopher Plumber and Julia Andrews got married at the end of the film. Nobody likes a smart arse!

The Free Air Show

Finally we leave the lovely little farm at Lake Irrsee and end up at Wolfgangsee just down the road and it’s stunning but there is clearly something going on. It’s busy and the lake and sky are littered with a whole plethora of aquatic air craft. Eventually we figure out that we have arrived on the weekend of the Scalaria Air Challenge. It appears to be a day and evening of air show type events mainly featuring sea planes mixed in with spectacular displays from various stunt planes and even a stunt helicopter! The best thing is its all free and we have grandstand seats over the lake although the car park we decide to spend the night in is definitely not going to be quiet!

We arrive at lunchtime when it all kicks off and the whole event goes on until `10pm with a grand finale of a stunt plane lit up by neon lights, parachutists and a fantastic fire work display.

We find a bench high up over the lake which is pretty much where all the displays happen and fill a cool bag with wonderful Austrian beer and have a superb evening!

The next day sees us at another lake Traunsee where we find a lovely spot right by the lake. It’s busy though and the weather is beautiful. I consider taking the boat out but decide to wait. Lucky for me I did as all of a sudden the clouds turn as black as coal and one of those storms like the other day descends in minutes turning the lake into a frothing sea! Thirty minutes later it’s lovely again and eventually the boat gets an airing and thankfully the storms don’t return!

Amazingly by dusk everyone leaves and we end up having the whole place to ourselves. No motorhomes or anything apart from one weird van that arrives around 11:30pm and then spends thirty minutes setting up a tent!

Halstatt and Austrian Paradise

One of the final destinations on the Austrian lakes tour is Halstatt and Halstattsee lake. Talk about saving the best until last. It’s stunning and the little town of Halstatt which seems to rise from the lake and glue itself at impossible angles to the mountain side is definitely the definitive picture postcard Alpine lakeside village. Strangely there it’s not busy though. It is early July and I would have expected hordes of coaches and tourists by now.

We stay just outside the little village of Obertraun up at the cable car station. Wahay!! A free wild camping spot in Austria. This is always a bonus and we also spy free drinking water taps and public loos nearby to empty the loo and fill our tanks. Now it’s not that we are tight (well we are when it comes to motorhome parking) but the whole idea of paying £30-£40 a night for a campsite makes me feel ill. Most of the time all we need is a bit of tarmac to park our four wheels and that’s it. We love it here and there is much to see and do.

Voyage to Halstatt and running from the weather (again!)

It’s a stunning day and we (well I) decide to row from Obertraun where we are parked across the widest stretch of the lake to Halstatt, a distance of about three miles. Michelle decides that given the experiences of the sudden change in Alpine weather we have had recently that this perhaps is not a sensible idea. Since when did we do sensible? Off we go and I reassure her that we would just potter about in the bottom corner of the lake and not go all the way to Halstatt but of course it’s in my head now and it’s like climbing a mountain and turning back half way to the top, you feel the need to press on. An hour or so later we make it and as we are leaving the weather of course starts to close in over the mountains behind Halstatt.

I reassured Michelle all the way across that she needn’t worry as most of the lake isn’t that wide and the only place I wouldn’t want to be stuck out in if a storm hit is the big wide expanse of water towards the end of the lake. That I tell her is the only vulnerable spot to be at in a ten foot kid’s plastic dinghy if bad weather hit which unfortunately is exactly where we find ourselves as the blackness and rain descends from the mountain!

She isn’t angry yet but the “I told you so” look speaks volumes. I’m not overly worried as the blackness isn’t descending as quickly as the other two times and I estimate a squall of lesser proportions but at the same time up the pace a bit on the oars. In fact as it gets nearer my rowing reaches Olympic standard. Luckily Michelle is oblivious to what is going on behind her but I only feel it fair as I watch the white tops appearing from behind us spread across the lake as the squall hits that it “might get a tad breezy any second now!”. “oh and a bit wet!”.

The wind reaches a stiff 20-25 knots, I’ve rowed in twice that in my youth albeit in a proper Norwegian built clinker Dinghy not a rubber one from Amazon! It’s great though! We are the only ones daft enough to be out there and for once the squall is right on our stern and still rowing like buggery we surf our way over the last mile back to Obertraun at record speed. Even Michelle manages a half smile when she realises that this time we probably won’t die. Its lashing it down though and we get another soaking. The water at the bottom end of the lake has built up to such a confused chop that we get bounced about all over the place as we make for the shoreline. Much more worryingly we have a huge audience as all the people who were enjoying the water front and sunshine have congregated under the waterside cafe canopy right next to where are about to attempt to land. You can almost feel them willing the mad British couple in the silly yellow boat to cock it up and end up in the water or crash under the jetty but none of it, as cool as you like we skip out into 6 inches of water lift the boat out in one quick manoeuvre and I send Michelle off to the van while I immediately let all the air out before the boat decides to go walk about on its own in the wind!

As usual immediately after we are sorted the storm passes and summer is resumed.

Lake Grundlsee just over what turns out to be a very steep but short pass is even more stunning. The whole area just turns up more and more wonderful suprises. Sadly Lake Grunlsee is in the county or region of Styria and they are clearly not as relaxed about parking of any description as around Halstatt and the thought of having to stay on a campsite sees us back over the pass to Halstatt!

Johnny Foreigner Observations. The Austrians

About this time in every blog I like to share my thoughts and observations on our host nations. Last year we found out that the Swiss are robots and live on WD40. The Austrians we find have no inhibitions whatsoever and indeed no pubes!

You will remember Cruella DeVill who kicked us off her private lake but not before exposing herself to us first. Tops and bottoms!

We have since noticed that your average Austrian (mainly blokes I might add) just seem to strip naked and get changed where ever they like, be it by the lake, up in the mountains or in the bakers. They just don’t care and every one of them is completely hairless! I have heard of a Brazilian but clearly the Austrian is just as bare as you were born! None of the stumbling around inside a wet sandy towel on the beach making a complete arse of yourself in the way thousands of British Holiday makers will be doing on the beach at Blackpool and all the other UK resorts in the rain this summer for them! Oh no. Off with the cosy, wave the naked Willy around a bit and then on with the dry spandex cycling shorts or whatever. Good for them!

Although having said that we did see a bloke today by a mountain lake getting changed inside what looked like an oversize army surplus kagool, bent over trying to preserve his modesty and failing hopelessly as he fell head first into the mud. Must have been from Blackpool.

Update 22 July 2012

Chasing the weather.

We stay for a week around Halstatt. It’s like it’s just been made for us. Most nights are spent on our own either up at the cable car station or down by the lake. Nobody wants to come here in a motorhome which seems crazy as it’s such a wonderful place. However, the weather gradually deteriorates until it’s like a cold and wet August weekend in the Lake District so we hatch a plan to chase the sunshine.

Southern Austria

The drive up and out of Halstatt takes us over a mountain pass and up onto the Motorway. Sadly just before one of the big tunnels we end up stuck for two hours in a massive traffic jam which turns out to be a smash the other side of the tunnel between a lorry and a motorhome! They are digging the lorry out of the forest when we pass. There is no sign of the motorhome and we only learn of its involvement at the next petrol station. We are reminded of just how quickly your trip of a lifetime can turn into a nightmare and hope and pray whoever was involved was ok.

Lake Worther and Ossiacher Lake (Carinthia)

We end up on a lovely little Stellplatz at Rosegg near Lake Worther. Lake Worther turns out to be a bit like Windermere (before they banned the speedboats) and is busy with lots of little towns around the lake to explore. We have found the good weather but at the cost of losing the remoteness and natural beauty of the Halstatt region.

Pig gets a good hammering as we explore all over the region over the few days we are there often doing in excess of 60 miles a day which doesn’t sound a lot but by the time you have done 40 you ache everywhere!

Rules is Rules.

We love the little Stellplatz at Rosegg and decided to stay a third night so off I pop to the hotel to pay. Unfortunately the proprietor tells me we are only allowed to stay two nights! The local authority does not permit motorhomes to stay longer! Apparently we can go out for a few hours, drive around and come back. Then we notice what has been happening. Other long stayers are leaving the field and parking in or around the village for a while then coming back! Seems bonkers to me. All the local authority is doing is ensuring the village is cluttered up with motorhomes every day!

Anyway we move on to a Stellplatz 10 miles south of Klangenfurt at the foot of the pass to Slovenia. Klangenfurt is quite a nice cosmopolitan town and well worth a visit if you like cities / towns. Well that’s what Mrs D says, it’s just another town to me. I can’t row on it, I can’t stand at the top of it and look at the view and I can’t drink or eat it so it doesn’t interest me too much!

Sadly we have run out of options for Austria now and Slovenia beckons. It’s been a country well worth visiting and if you look hard enough there are some good spots to stop in a motorhome. Unfortunately just like the Germans they can’t make decent cheese so I’m still hankering for France. On the plus side their beer is excellent and cheap!

Titisee