Blog 5 - from Austria, towards Istria

Blog 5 - everything is backwards! From Austria, towards Istria.

 

Hi all. Well, Richmond's out, Collingwood's out, Labor's out...things clearly going well that end. Hope everything is well otherwise!

It's been two weeks since I last posted and to say we've done a lot would be understating it. We've had a car for two weeks (a Citroen...I'm kinda in love with it, despite how long it took to work out the German language GPS.) and I'm prepared to say I have mastered the "wrong side of the car, wrong side of the road" thing...worst parts were getting out of the Vienna airport, and learning that Europeans just don't like it if you are on the left side of the autobahn doing (a legal) 130 when they want to do 180. Renae's subtle sentence we agreed on "hmm, the other side of the road looks nice" was only used once...maybe twice.

Aaaahhh, Vienna. We had a few days there, and probably didn't do it justice. There is a central part which is just beautiful architecture everywhere. The girls went off on a tour of the Spanish Riding School, making Jessie's day, and I went to my Third Man museum (what, you still haven't seen it, after I told you to last time? Shame on you!). It was a brilliant museum which looked not only at the film/memorabilia etc, but captured brilliantly Vienna and Austria during wartime, and into peacetime. So much I didn't know about the history. And yep, we had schnitzel for dinner!

(We went to a butterfly house...I just really liked this photo I took!)

(Spanish riding school horses)

Biggest frustration was data use costing us about $25 a Mb, as opposed to about 80¢ in Germany. Global roaming, which we have been really careful with generally, killed us here.

From Vienna we headed back into the Czech countryside, where the beer is cheap and plentiful, (and the data is cheap and...er...plentiful), to a place called Cesky Krumlov. Our house overlooked the Vltava river and we had a great view of the old city, beautiful old church and castle...not so much the 87 restaurants and souvenir shops, which are tucked in a bit deeper. Here are some pictures!

(View from our house!)

(View from the castle tower)

We got our first real dose of crap weather here, so it was a great opportunity to catch up on job application stuff, and washing (our two prerequisites, must have washer, must have wifi)...not that it the washing dried. We've all gone a little bit Harry Potter mad. Jessie has discovered them in a major way and is already on to reading number 4, Billie is on number one for her reading generally, and renae and I are re-reading them mainly because English books...good English books are hard to come by. There is "50 Shades of Grey" wherever you want it though.

On to a place called Oy-Mittelberg in Germany's south. On the way we stopped at a weird roadside market on the border where there were about 50 tents of Chinese-Czech traders speaking German selling the same bad track suits and other clothes...we bought backpacks for the girls and I bought sunnies which I've already thrown away!

We chose Oy as a place, not because of the raging desire to say "Aussie Aussie Aussie!" next to every road sign (we only did that once!) but because it was tantalisingly close to Neuschwanstein Castle (you know, the one the Disney castle at the start of their movies modelled itself on). It...was...glorious. It really is beautiful, set atop a cliff face in the Bavarian mountains. The 30 min tour shows the finished rooms (it's actually unfinished inside as Ludwig II died during completion and it was bleeding money to build) and reinforced the fact that Ludwig was a nutter in a Michael Jacksony kind of way. We had a picnic lunch, the day was beautiful, here's some photos!

 

 

 

I've enjoyed watching the kids open-mouthed at some of the alps we've seen, nothing like home. Oy was also beautiful, more like a farming town (hence a cow as our neighbour). Very green. One highlight was having a meal in an adjacent town and two young kids teaching Jess and Billie German words. We taught them how to say "g'day" and I felt very stereotypically Australian!

 

Phew, then there was breakfast in Germany, lunch in Austria (Innsbruck) and dinner, eventually, in Italy in the south Tirol in a town called Reischach (German name) or Risconi (Italian name). Spent three days there. It's basically at the foot of some serious mountains, and whilst it was well populated during the summer/school holidays when we were there, I sense it would be insane in winter. There's Gasthofs and chalets everywhere. We took a funicular up to the top of the mountain, went for a hike and watched some CRAZY PEOPLE THROW THEMSELVES OFF IT. okay, with parasails and hang gliders, but seriously...!!!

(Top o' the mountain...and yes that's sun bakers in the top left!)

We went to a spa/swimming pool place and I got to try out the delights of a nude sauna (sorry for those throwing up a little in their mouths right now). It had about 14 different saunas, from aromatherapy ones, to 60degree and even 80degree ones, all unisex. It was...an experience.

 

 

(This space intentionally left blank due to no pictures of the sauna...thank God)

 

 

I'm still about a week and two places behind, so ill catch up on them soon. We're in Lake Bled in Slovenia and you may have to endure about 800 photos of this place. It's amazing and one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We're a night in Slovenia's capital Ljubljana tomorrow, then in Croatia for about a month!

Kids are doing some homework, but probably not enough. We've added a few kilos - gee they like their meat and potatoes here. Frustrated that hostels we have stayed in haven't had kitchens to cook our own meals. We're missing friends and family (emails/pictures are nice, especially for the girls), but still loving the ride.

Lots of love from the EuropeanCaravans

 

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