Bratislavia and Vienna - day 22

The campground really was quite noisy with sirens going on overnight. We both woke up about 2am, and could hear the thumping of music way in the background, maybe a nightclub? But we got up relatively early, visited the very small farmers market next door (amazing strawberries tho), and hit the road before 10am. The drive out of Budapest was so much better than the way in – might have taken us ten minutes what took over an hour when we arrived. We stopped at a gas station near the border so we could use up our remaining forints before leaving Hungary. We had about $45 NZ worth, so it took a while for us to find enough to spend it on – lots of new things to try out now!

Then we decided that as we were close and it was early we could drive through Slovakia and maybe have lunch in Bratislavia. We had to buy another vignette to be able to drive there, but when else will we ever be there? So the drive went quite well, we went into the city over a bridge saw a nice church. Then we saw a KFC sign, and I had been interested in seeing what it was like in other countries. So Jody put KFC into googlemaps – golly what a mistake that was! It directed us up this road, and then wanted us to turn right. None of the right turning roads had room for us to go down with cars on either side of rather narrow roads with buildings on each side. The road we were on started going a hill and was getting narrower. So I pulled over at the entrance of a street, and when there were no cars coming towards us I told Jody to get out and stop the traffic. She was very very good, and did a wonderful job holding all the cars at bay while I did a several point turn for a u turn in the middle of a narrow road. She then jumped in and we hightailed it outta there!

Near the border we stopped at another gas station where we found some Adblue which is an additive that Nico has been telling us that he was running low on. Jody found a good bottle with a pourer on it, so we bought 2. We were a bit confused at the start as there was a bowser with adblue on it, and Nico has an adblue hole. But google helped, and this is a bowser where the adblue and diesel are mixed together, so lucky we didn’t use it. We both had a really nice bread roll thingey for lunch – our only purchases in Slovakia!

So then we were off to Vienna again, and my golly our navigation could use some work. So Jody couldn’t remember the name of the camp ground we were going to, so I said it is written in 1B4 – the warwick exercise book that has a page for every day for recording useful information. After going through a few traffic jams and stops, we arrived at the camp site – hmmm, it wasn’t the one that we had been at before that Jody’s bike was in the shop nearby and that we had booked for tonight. Later on we realised that Jody had written down some random campground name in 1B4 – golly knows where it had come from. Anyway, then she put Donau Park, and we headed off for there. When we were close googlemaps said we needed to park and walk to our destination – what? Hmmm, googlemaps wanted more specific information ie Donau Park camping, so we were 6 miles away from our destination. So 3rd time lucky we hoped (ie I put our destination in my phone! Just kidding, it is very good having a navigator on board, and we always get there eventually). On the way we spied a Lidl supermarket so stopped there for some supplies. No limoncello, but I bought some schnapps to try for 5 euro.

Finally got to the campsite, and Jody went to see if her bike was ready. Yeehaa, we are back in the biking business. So after a cup of tea and seeing as the rain was trying to hold back we went for a lovely bike ride for about an hour. Went down some trail to the river, and back via someones planted back yard. Then off on the track to Vienna which was lovely and went by the river. Then back via the main road to see the monastery. It didn’t rain the whole way which was great, but started shortly after we got back.

Jody cooked us a lovely tea again with moroccan chicken, and we tried out the Mozart liquer little bottles and the Schnapps. Jody is keen to find larger bottles of the Mozart, and the schnapps is currently outside under the hedge, and will be left here in the kitchen in case someone is braver than me!

So tomorrow we are off to see the Lippizaners. We have tried to get our tickets 3x so far, but tomorrow should finally get them as long as we get up at 7am, and get on our train as planned. After the performance we will be heading off to Stuttgart, but don’t expect to get all the way. Have no plans of where we will be staying for the night so that could be interesting.Read more