15th November - Austria

Saturday 15th November

As things stand, there is simply no comparison to be had between Italy and Austria. In my opinion the two countries don’t even come close, certainly not close enough to be judged together. By saying that I don’t mean that one is better than the other though, just simply that the two countries differ too much to compare. Italy was Italy; brash, bustling but beautiful, and I must admit I thought our experience of Austria would at least have similarities but I‘ve been proved wrong so far. As soon as you cross the border into “Osterreich” you’re greeted into a very different world from the chaotic scenes we found in Italy; A world where lederhosen are still considered acceptable, a world where you’re not judged by how fast you drive and a world where, most importantly, you can relax. Austria offers a completely different experience from it’s Southerly neighbour, but it’s one which has been no less enjoyable.

From Venice we travelled north into the mountains and spent a chilly night and day in Cortina before bringing our 2 week long spell in Italy to an end by crossing the border at San Candido - a town we visited 2 months earlier prior to entering Slovenia. It was odd driving on familiar roads, and we even visited the same ‘Billa’ Supermarket (which Austria is certainly not short of (there’s at least one in every town no matter how large or small)) for old times sake.

‘Mallnitz’ situated right up in the mountains and on the edge of the ‘Hohe Tauern’ national park, was to be our home for 3 nights. The town, more of a village actually, was small enough to walk from one side to the other in just 5 minutes, but it was charming enough and surrounded by stunning scenery and ski slopes - minus the snow - for us to explore for 4 days. On the second day we traipsed into the thick woods and found a perfect location for a small bonfire; in a small clearing next to a minor but attractive stream. We collected fire wood during the day and at sundown (around 5.30pm at the moment) we set out to have the fire. It kept us warm and occupied for over 6 hours and it was a very pleasant evening indeed; just lounging around sipping beer and reminiscing about the past 5 months of travelling - how far we’d come, where the time had gone, and what was left to explore? The rest of our time in Mallnitz was spent either walking, drinking tea or avoiding the rain. Unfortunately the night we had the bonfire was the only time in Mallnitz when it wasn’t tipping it down, but we didn’t let that spoil our time in what was the closest we’ve come to the Swiss village Grimentz, in August.

Parking the Motorhome hasn’t been an issue at all so far in Austria, in fact calling it easy wouldn‘t do it enough justice. In every town we’ve found a small, free car park located only a few minutes walk from the centre with no regulations against Motorhomes. This has been the case for every town we’ve spent a night and day in, including: Spittal an der Drau, Radstadt, Eisenerz, Bruck an der Mur and Reichenau.

We’ve had the same routine for every place visited so far in Austria; we’d rise quite late, around 10am, cook breakfast, read a book and generally relax for a few hours, set off to explore the town then move on to the next location in the evening. It’s hardly an exciting schedule, but it’s one we’re enjoying as we aren’t rushed and we’re progressing at our own pace.

From Reichenau we drove the 70km to Austria’s capital Vienna, and managed to find a spot to eclipse all other previous good parking spots. Think Oxford Street in London, think Las Ramblas in Barcelona then think OpernRing in Vienna, and that’s where you’ll find little old Eric the Motorhome and it’s two young inhabitants! We couldn’t be any more central if we’d tried - the bustling, hurried High Street is no more than 100 metres from our front door - if a Hotel boasted that location they’d put an extra 300 Euros on the bill! OpernRing is a main street but has parking spaces along its side, separated from the road only by a thin line of trees.

Finding this spot put us in great spirits, which were already rather high just from being in Vienna itself, which is just as great as we’d expected. I hadn’t known a great deal about the city before I arrived (My only recollection of the place came in Russell Watson‘s “Ooh Vienna“) but Mike was awfully excited about it and assured me it’d be beautiful. And how right he was. Vienna is without a doubt my favourite major European city so far, beating off stiff competition from Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Monaco, Budapest, Athens and Rome, who in turn beat off stiff competition from Lisbon, Valencia, Nice, Turin, Bern, Florence, Venice… I could go on! On the night we arrived we took the underground to ‘Praterstrasse’ to watch a jazz/hip-hop concert in the ‘Planetarium’. This wasn’t planned, nor was jazz/hip-hop mine or Mike’s first choice in music, but we’d heard the gig advertised on the local radio and we quite fancied a dance. Tickets cost 18 Euros which we thought was steep but we had a little spare change from the money we‘ve been saving on petrol. Austria has been the cheapest country for Diesel so far, even cheaper than Greece, as we‘ve regularly come across 1.09Euros per litre. The venue was heaving with people of all ages there to have a good time, and a good time we most certainly had.

The next day, nursing only a very, very slight hangover, we set off to wander the streets of Vienna and we spent the majority of the day doing just that. It really is a breathtaking city. It’s just in the process of preparing for Christmas, which I think is slightly too early myself, but then again in my home town of Eastleigh they put up the Christmas lights as soon as Easter is over, but in Vienna it has created an exciting atmosphere in the town as people relax from their Christmas shopping by sipping mulled wine in the many available Christmassy outlets.

We’re still in Vienna, after spending 2 nights in the parking spot which dreams are made of, and will move on this evening towards, but not all the way into the Czech Republic.

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Another decent parking spot, Radstadt.

Top photo: Bruck an der Drau

3rd November - Italy

Monday 3rd November

Did anyone else notice that we’re currently in November? When did this happen? Where has the year gone? Where has Italy gone for that matter? Since my last blog, Eric the Motorhome has visited Naples, Rome, Orvieto, Siena, Florence, Pisa, Parma, Mantova and now Venice (We tagged along too to keep him company). The three of us have seen all that and more in the space of 2 weeks - sounds pretty daunting really, and it’s hurting my brain just thinking about it. But there’s no denying though that these last two weeks have been nothing short of superb. Once you get your head around the Italians and their horrendous driving, you realise how much the country has to offer; Rich heritage, superb food, stunning coastline and beautiful towns.

We didn’t spend the night in Naples, only a day visit. To be honest the town wasn’t a particularly spectacular place, and I can’t say I enjoyed it much. The lasting memory I have of the day is driving through a ridiculously small street up a very steep hill right in the town centre, certainly not suitable for Motorhomes and barely even suitable for mopeds. We got stuck, got shouted and honked at, got very stressed but we did manage to survive. That’s all I wish to say on the matter really, oh apart from that we got lost for 2 and a half hours trying to get away from Naples itself. Not a good day.

After stressful drives around Brindisi, Bari, Pompeii and now Naples we were feeling a little, well, stressed. The beach was calling, and we found a superb one just up the coast from Naples near Formia. We weren’t sure which town we were in, if there even was a town, but we didn’t care and spent a long day sunbathing and preparing ourselves for the onslaught of more hellish driving on the crazed roads of Italy in the general direction of Austria. The weather in general has been quite fortunate since Greece - it’s worth pointing out - especially for this time of year. In the past two weeks we’ve only had the odd miserable day.

I’m pleased to announce that from Rome upwards people with automobiles in Italy don’t all appear to have a death wish, and our driving has been much easier and relaxed, with many more Aires signposted making things easier for us Motorhomer’s. Rome was as magnificent as I’d expected. We parked outside the town centre in an expensive Aire listed in the Camperstop Guide and caught the tram to the centre for just 2 Euros. 30 minutes later we arrived at Termini station and were able to use our tram ticket on the underground which we duly did. Ottaviano Metro station is a 5 minute walk to Vatican City, which by the time we arrived at midday was already heaving with tourists. There was a queue about a kilometre long just to get into St. Peters’, we didn’t join it. I would have liked to seen St. Peters’, which is apparently (please correct me if I’m wrong) the Worlds largest church in the Worlds smallest country but after examining the extraordinarily long queue we decided we’d rather spend the time wandering the streets and seeing the sights of Rome. We had use of the Metro if we wanted, but only needed it once to get to the Vatican - Rome isn’t a huge city, or if it is then we didn’t notice for the amount of points of interest around Rome to keep us occupied. The Pantheon was ten times larger and more breathtaking than I’d expected it - and ten times as busy - and the Fontana di Trevi (pictured) was probably the second most beautiful sight in Rome, coming in closely behind the Coliseum ruins.

A few very pleasant days were spent exploring Orvieto and Siena respectively, which were both charming old towns and certainly worth mentioning. In fact they deserve more than just a mention, but if I wrote in detail about every place we’ve visited in Italy I’d have to write near-on 10 pages - the country really is packed to the rafters with interesting towns, villages, historical sights and even beaches. We could probably spend 6 months just travelling around Italy alone.

We haven’t been completely rushed off our feet though, because we quite uncharacteristically stayed in Florence for 5 nights. This was partly by choice, and party forced upon us. The night we arrived in Florence we - as seems to be the way in every place we visit now - drove into a car park which was too tight and not built for Motorhomes, so had to reverse out onto quite a busy road. I jumped out and stopped the traffic to allow Mike to easily manoeuvre Eric onto more suitable ground. Mike lowered both electric windows to hear my instructions and we got out no problem, however as we drove away neither of the windows were returning to their closed positions. Very confused and getting slightly wet, we frantically pressed the buttons, re-started the engine and tried everything we could possibly have tried when left with nothing but a non-functioning window knob, but to no avail. The windows were stuck and there was nothing, at 10pm, that we could do about it. Thankfully - someone must have been looking out for us that night - we found a very quiet spot down a residential street close to the centre of Florence. Noise was minimal, although it was a little chilly that night.

Well we couldn’t leave the Motorhome to enjoy Florence so we had to fix the problem before we could do absolutely anything. It turns out the fuse had blown, and the second mechanic we went to easily spotted this and fixed the problem within minutes, but this took practically the whole day driving around looking for garages, and it didn’t help that the first place we visited was home to the only mechanic in Italy who didn’t know a thing about cars. Our second problem came on our third day when we thought we’d somehow managed to spill a glass of water without noticing, as the floor beneath our feet inside the Motorhome was wet. Turns out that, despite how clumsy we both are with water in the Motorhome, the internal water pump has a leak, and to this day we haven’t been able to fix it, despite going to a specific repairs centre for Motorhomes. We’ve sorted the problem temporarily by switching off the pump, and using only the water we have stored in 5 litre and 2 litre bottles. The floor is a little damp, and it’s a pain that we can’t use the taps for a little while, but you can’t have everything your way can you?

So that put a few extra days on our time in Florence, but we did stay there longer than expected even if we hadn’t experienced the technical faults. Florence is a rather small town and everything is easily reached by foot and can be walked around in a matter of hours - but it’s too beautiful to be wasted on just a few measly hours. We walked it day and night, and then went back to the next day to repeat the exercise. On our fourth day we stumbled across a second hand English book store called ‘The Paper Back Exchange’ which was a god send for us as we were running out of reading material. I managed to pick up three paperbacks for 3 Euros (Robert K Tenanbaum ‘Fury’, Ben Elton ‘Chart Throb‘, and Robert McCrum ‘In the Secret State‘). The store can be found in the cathedral square and is highly recommended. For the rest of our time we simply slowly wandered the pretty cobbled streets, took in some superb street performers (musicians, no clowns or jugglers you understand) and had a few reasonably priced beers in the local bars. It’s prettier by night, as the case with many places, and Florence really has an enthralling atmosphere which made it my favourite location so far in Italy.

See what I mean? I’ve already written too much and I’m only at Florence! I could go on, and on. I could tell you about our surprise at the lack of wow-factor of the leaning Tower of Pisa, the gorgeous town of Parma, the fantastic chocolate market found in Mantova, our hours spent losing our way in Venice or many other delightful experiences we’ve had so far in Italy, but I just don’t have the time to write it all - maybe I’ll save it for my book!

As I write this we’re the only people camped at a small but beautiful campsite called ’Al Bateo Agricampeggio’ in Punta Sabbioni, a 45 minute boat ride across the water from Venice. There was an Austrian Motorhome here yesterday but has since departed leaving us to feel a little lonely, but pleased as we can enjoy the brand new facilities all to ourselves. Italy started off quite stressful, very busy and a little rushed at first, but as we’ve moved north things have really slowed down and the country has shown us what a superb place it really is. We’ve seen such a vast amount of interesting places, experienced so much and eaten some brilliant Pizza. Austria is going to have a hard job impressing us more than Italy has.

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Attempting to fix our leak in a Florence garage

Parma





The chocolate market in Mantova